Cookies

Rock is designed to use cookies (the electronic kind, not chocolate chip) to store and transmit information. Cookies are packets of data carrying identification information, such as logins and passwords, which are sent from ISPs to browsers and back to track server access. This is why sometimes when you browse to a website, it already knows who you are. That site has stored a cookie containing your identification information. Typically, cookies are created when you click a "remember me on this computer" option when logging into a site. Some cookies are site-specific, meaning they only apply to a certain website address. Other cookies are global, meaning they apply to all sites at a specified domain.

By default, Rock doesn't share login info across domains, but you can override this setting to allow your sites to use global cookies. This can come in handy when you have both an internal and external site, and you want your members to be able to move easily between them without having to log in twice. It also may be useful to admins when they need to impersonate another person. (For more information about impersonation, see the Impersonating Another Person section of the Rock Admin Hero Guide.) Global cookies are configured in the Domain Login Sharing screen, located at Admin Tools > General Settings > Defined Types.

Enter the common domain in the Value field to allow login access for all sites with that domain name. For example, entering a value of "rocksolidchurchdemo.com" would allow a person to log in at http://www.rocksolidchurchdemo.com and be logged into http://admin.rocksolidchurchdemo.com simultaneously.

One thing to be aware of when using global cookies is it can lead to instances where both a global and a site-specific cookie are in use. When this happens, a person may be required to log out twice in order to clear out both cookies.