Creating a Joomla user from outside Joomla

Question

For various reasons, I need to create a Joomla user from outside Joomla. Following advice, I'm using passwordhash.php for the hashing so I use something like

$t_hasher = new PasswordHash(10, TRUE);
$jpassword = $t_hasher->HashPassword($rsnew["password"]); 

Then directly add a record containing name, email, username and this hashed password into the Joomla ..._users table. (I also add the relevant record into the ..._user_usergroup_map table)

The record looks fine in the database but I can't login - "Username and password do not match or you do not have an account yet."

However, I can authenticate successfully from an external program against the Joomla ..._users table using something like...

$mysql = "SELECT password FROM jos_users WHERE username = '".$usr."'";
   $t_hasher = new PasswordHash(10, TRUE);
   if ($t_hasher->CheckPassword($pwd, $mydb->get_var($mysql))) {
      return TRUE;
          .........

Obviously the stored password hash is correct in some way otherwise I wouldn't be able to authenticate it from outside but why won't Joomla accept it?

(If I go into Joomla admin and change the password, then I can correctly authenticate from both inside and outside Joomla.)

Any ideas Thanks

Answer 1

You should use the internal Joomla functions to create and handle user accounts.

See the answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1904809/how-can-i-create-a-new-joomla-user-account-from-within-a-script

Implementing Joomla framework and adding new user (#4-#8): https://diadem.in/blog/two-ways-to-add-joomla-users-using-your-custom-code/

I do something like this in my components to generate the password hash:

$salt = JUserHelper::genRandomPassword(32);
$crypt = JUserHelper::getCryptedPassword('your_password', $salt);
$password_hash = $crypt.':'.$salt;

Script for creating user (tested J3.7.x):

define( '_JEXEC', 1 );
define('JPATH_BASE', dirname(__FILE__) );//this is when we are in the root
define( 'DS', DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR );

require_once ( JPATH_BASE .DS.'includes'.DS.'defines.php' );
require_once ( JPATH_BASE .DS.'includes'.DS.'framework.php' );

$app = JFactory::getApplication('site');
$app->initialise();

$params = array(
    'name'=>'test',
    'username'=>'test_user',
    'email'=>'[email protected]',
    'password'=>'test',

);

$udata = array(
    'name'=>$params['name'],
    'username'=>$params['username'],
    'password'=>$params['password'],
    'email'=>$params['email'],
    'groups'=>array(2), // set the usergroup(s) here (id)

);

$user = new JUser;

try{
    echo '<pre>';
    echo 'Bind user data: ';
    var_dump($user->bind($udata));         

    echo 'Save user data: ';
    var_dump($user->save());

    echo 'Testing login: ';
    var_dump( $app->login( array('username'=>$params['username'],'password'=>$params['password']) ) );

} catch (Exception $ex) {

    echo 'Exception: ',  $e->getMessage(), '\n';

}

As you can see, there is no need to hash the password beforehand.