Test Mode

Test Mode

Initial installations of the Microsoft® .NET Passport Software Development Kit (SDK) and the Passport Manager object are configured for test mode. A test mode site has a default Site ID of 1 (one), and has a default encryption key installed instead of a private, site-specific key. You can check to see if your site is in test mode by checking the Site ID field in the Passport Manager Administration utility. If the value there is 1, your site is in test mode.

To disable test mode and enable normal operation, enter a different Site ID into the Site ID field of Passport Manager Administration utility and commit changes. If you change the Site ID to something other than 1, a matching encryption key must also be installed. The key, as well as the unique Site ID that is assigned to any particular participating site, can be obtained only by registering as a .NET Passport participating site. Registration potentially involves signing agreements or contracts.

Why Use Test Mode?

Test mode allows a site to perform some initial evaluation of and development against the .NET Passport single sign-in (SSI) service. Test mode development can occur before you register your site and request a Site ID, while you are waiting for the Site ID and key after registration. After you have a Site ID, there should be no reason to use test mode again, because the restrictions imposed by test mode are intended only to prevent developers from accessing certain .NET Passport features before having signed the necessary agreements or contracts.

Test Mode Limitations

Certain operations are not permitted in test mode:

• Cannot Read Full Core Profile Data or Profile Cookie

  Because a test mode site has not yet signed the necessary agreements that specify a site's requirements for privacy and use of users' .NET Passport information, a test mode site is not given full access to a user's core profile. After a user has signed in with a .NET Passport to a test mode site, several fields of a core profile will give default placeholder values, as generated by the Login server.

• Cannot Use Cobranding

  Cobranding support is dependent on several URLs that you must provide when registering as a .NET Passport participating site. Until you register and provide these URLs, the cobranding logo and text will remain as placeholder defaults. Cobranding is handled as declared by Site ID=1, which happens to be the cobranding used for demonstration purposes. For more information about how to implement cobranding after your site has registered as a .NET Passport participating site, see .NET Passport Cobranding Overview.

• Cannot Sign Users Out From Sign-out Page

  Another URL that you must provide when registering is the URL of a 0 × 0-pixel image or Active Server Pages (ASP) file that will delete any .NET Passport cookies from the participating site domain. After the user clicks the sign-out link from any .NET Passport site, the Login server's sign-out routine would ordinarily use the Sites Visited cookie to go through the list of all sites that had been visited and would then call the sign-out page for each site that the user had previously signed in to. Because a test mode site is not yet known to the table on the Login server that matches Site IDs to sign-out URLs, Microsoft .NET Passport cookies will continue to exist on the user's browser until the user closes the browser entirely. If the user has chosen to save the password (thus making all session cookies into persistent cookies), the .NET Passport cookies written in the test site's domain will not be deleted even then. Therefore, when testing browser behavior with a test mode installation, you may occasionally need to quit the browser to reproduce a 'clean' .NET Passport sign-in to the test site.

• PUID Is Always 1

  When using test mode, the value of all .NET Passport Unique IDs (PUIDs) will be 1, regardless of the user's actual PUID value.

See Also

Test Site | Passport Manager Administration Utility | Installing .NET Passport Encryption Keys | Registering Your .NET Passport Site