SSO and portal timeout -- other bug?

Question

...this is very probably related to the other post talking about SSO and portal timeout...
I am having another weird issue with dotnet portlets that uses inline refresh (done automatically by dotnet accelerator) and SSO.
When you let the portal session expire, and then click on a button/link within a portlet (hence generate an inline refresh gatewayed request), the full portal window (header/footer etc...) appears within the portlet, instead of the portlet content alone.
I did some http traces (see below) and it seems the problem is due to the windows SSOLogin.aspx (we are using windows auth SSO) not taking the requested portlet gatewayed request url as a post login redirect info... but taking instead the current page url (which is wrong)
Thus, after the gatewayed portlet request is successfully authenticated by the SSOLogin.aspx component, it is automatically redirected to the wrong urll...making the full portal page refresh into the portlet.
So my question is: have anyone already seen such behavior? And has anything been done to fix this?
It really seems like a bug with the SSO servlet...but maybe i am doing something wrong...Just want to have your thoughts on this.
Thanks,
Fabien
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HTTP Trace:
POST     302     Redirect to /portal/sso/SSOLogin.aspx?in_hi_userid=15046&space=CommunityPage&parentid=1&cached=false&control=SetCommunity&PageID=0&CommunityID=205&parentname=Login     http://your.portal.com/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_15046_362_205_0_43/http%3B/your.portletserver.com/yourapp/youraspx.aspx
GET     401     text/html     http://your.portal.com/portal/sso/SSOLogin.aspx?in_hi_userid=15046&space=CommunityPage&parentid=1&cached=false&control=SetCommunity&PageID=0&CommunityID=205&parentname=Login
GET     401     text/html     http://your.portal.com/portal/sso/SSOLogin.aspx?in_hi_userid=15046&space=CommunityPage&parentid=1&cached=false&control=SetCommunity&PageID=0&CommunityID=205&parentname=Login
GET     302     Redirect to http://your.portal.com/portal/server.pt?in_hi_userid=15046&space=CommunityPage&parentid=1&cached=false&control=SetCommunity&PageID=0&CommunityID=205&parentname=Login     http://your.portal.com/portal/sso/SSOLogin.aspx?in_hi_userid=15046&space=CommunityPage&parentid=1&cached=false&control=SetCommunity&PageID=0&CommunityID=205&parentname=Login
GET     200     text/html; charset=utf-8     http://your.portal.com/portal/server.pt?in_hi_userid=15046&space=CommunityPage&parentid=1&cached=false&control=SetCommunity&PageID=0&CommunityID=205&parentname=Login

Answer 1

I have this happen in v6.0 sp1. We have worked around the problem with a bit of work and synchronization of settings. Below, I've outlined how we've worked around the problem (which is indeed a problem that should be fixed). Also, if you have a load balancer, you'll need to set your session timeout on the load balancer to a bit more than the refresh rate that you set for your communities and My Pages.
Resolving the Portlet Timeout / Refresh Problem in ALUI Portal_
Problem: Users occasionally receive the portal page within a portlet error
Cause: The root cause has not been determined; however it appears that the primary event that exhibits the behavior is when a teammember’s session has expired on the portal server and they then utilize a .NET form-based portlet which refreshes in place. Because we are using WIA SSO to enable automatic logins to the portal, it makes the error seem to occur randomly.
Resolution:
The workaround solution is to – 1) increase the portal session timeout on the portal web servers from the default 20min to 4 hours, and 2) set the MyPage refresh interval setting for all portal users to 3 hours. The setting name is a bit of a misnomer, as it will actually refresh the entire portal page automatically if the user is idle on either a My Page or a Community Page, as these are the only two places that portlets reside.
Increasing the portal session timeout:
The portal session timeout is controlled in two places, and both settings should match. On the portal virtual directory in IIS, edit the configuration and increase the timeout setting to 240 (minutes). Then, edit the portal application’s web.config file (d:\portal\ptportal\6.0\webapp\portal\web\) and increase the sessionState Timeout variable to 240. Editting the config file will require you to restart the services before you see the change.
Initial setting of the MyPage refresh interval:
The initial setting will need to be done by a SQL script in order to apply it to all existing users. The Default Profile should also be updated so that all new user synched from AD will have this setting applied automatically.
/* Delete refresh interval settings for all users first so that there are no conflicts on the inserts */
DELETE FROM portaldbuser.ptprefs WHERE prefname = 'intMyPageRefreshRate'
/* Insert desired page refresh setting for all users */
INSERT INTO portaldbuser.ptprefs (userid,gadgetid,prefclassid,prefobjectid,prefname,prefvaluetype,prefvalue,pagenumber) SELECT objectid,0,0,0,'intMyPageRefreshRate',3,180,0 FROM portaldbuser.ptusers
From Administration, access the Default Profiles utility. Check the Default Profile entry and click on the Edit Profile Layout link. Click on the My Account link in the Portal Settings portlet and then on the Display Options link on the next page. In the Page and Portlet Settings, update the Your My Page will be updated: setting to 4 hours. Click Finish twice to return to Administration.
Updating the MyPage refresh interval:
To update the setting just modify the insert portion of the SQL script. Change the prefvalue number (180) to the desired timeout in minutes and rerun both statements of the script.
The Default Profile should be also be modified per the instructions above.
I hope this helps...
-tom