Identity Providers

Identity providers are external platforms that are trusted by your website to create and authenticate users. They provide a seamless login experience by allowing users to use their external accounts to directly access the website.

An identity provider will add a button on the login page that the user can use to authenticate.

To create or manage identity providers, head over to the Admin Panel. Under Settings -> Identity providers.

At this moment, forumify comes with 2 configurable identity providers out of the box. Google and Discord. However, the system is flexible, and plugins or the application code can provide additional IDP types.

Each IDP will have extensive in-app documentation to guide you on how to configure the IDP.

Each IDP will add a log-in button to forumify's login page. When clicked, the user gets redirected to the external identity provider, where they log-in or still have an active session. The user will the be redirected back to the forumify website with an authorization code. This code is then exchanged on the backend with the provider for an access or identity token. This token can directly be decoded or can be used to get user information from the provider.

forumify will then try to match the identifier from the user (typically their e-mail) with a user in forumify. If this user is known, they will be logged in. If not, an account is created for them, and logged in.

In case that an account is created, they will still have to verify their e-mail on forumify.