How do you secure updates to Robohelp packages?

[dyndragon]

Hello all,

I'm building a knowledgebase type application for our technical group to take out to the field where there is sometimes little to no mobile data signal. Robohelp seemed to fit the bill with it's AIR packaging ability, and I have commenting and auto online update notifications and installation working.

The issue I'm running into is this:

If a person who has left the company still has the program, or made a copy of the original .AIR installation file, they will forevermore get online updates.

I have thought about putting the online update .xml and .air file in a password protected area, but that would mean the automatic update check would obviously fail since it's being asked for login credentials. I don't see any options for password protecting the AIR application either.

What are my options? Any ideas on how I might accomplish this?

We do have a secured company website area that employees with proper credentials can access. I do have webspace that can support basic unencrypted or encrypted authentication. I do not want to go a VPN route because the VPN access is terribly slow, and the knowledgebase application is 200+MB.

Is there a way I can make the user log in to a website through the AIR help application, and then trigger the AIR app to check for an update?

Thanks in advance,

--Hans

[Peter Grainge]

Wouldn't the update be on a network drive from which their permissions would have been removed?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[dyndragon]

I'm not hosting the update .xml and .air file on a network drive. It is on a webserver that is publicly accessible at this point because I don't know how to have the AIR app handle security credentials. The user would have to be logged into the VPN to access a network drive, which is precisely what we're trying to avoid because the VPN is so slow.

[Peter Grainge]

I have flagged this with someone who may have an answer, no promises.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[dyndragon]

Thanks Peter!

By the way, securing the entire AIR package is acceptable too, as opposed to just the updates. Even a simple password upon opening of the AIR app would be ok!

[Praful_Jain]

Hi Hans,

RoboHelp AIR help output update feature does not support username and password authentication as of now.

One way by which this can be achieved is, to put the updated .air and .xml file in the corporate internal network (intranet). So it means if the user is inside the network of company, only then the update will happen, and any one who does not have access to the intranet will not get any update.

But again, AIR help does not ask for user name and password. So update will work only if the user is connected and is part of intranet (either through VPN or working inside the company network).

Hope this helps.

-Praful

[Peter Grainge]

that would mean the automatic update check would obviously fail since it's being asked for login credentials

Surely it would only fail if they don't have the login details or out of date details?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[dyndragon]

What I mean is that the automatic update check doesn't have a way for the user to enter a username and password, so of course it would fail.

[Peter Grainge]

What I was thinking was that if the folder with the update files was password protected, that would force a login as described in http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/passwords/passwords.htm

The problem I see with that is that it would probably force a login just to see if there is an update.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Peter Grainge]

Maybe you could turn off automatic updates and email users when an update has been put in the password protected folder. I don't know how practical that would be for you.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[dyndragon]

Yeah, unfortunately the in-application updating was part of the spec for this project. We don't want to force someone to go somewhere outside of the application to get updates...we already know that if the user have to do any extra work, chances are they won't ever update.

I'm going to see what happens if you put the update .xml and air file behind a password protected folder right now...

[dyndragon]

That is perfectly fine, if it asks for a login just to check updates. In fact that would be desirable in my case. I'll give that a try.

[dyndragon]

Praful, thanks for the advise. I already consider your solution though, unfortunately, and like I said we are trying to avoid requiring users to update over the VPN because the VPN connection speed is incredibly slow.

Is there a way to insert a "login" page to the Robohelp package so that when a user opens the AIR application, they can manually log into a secured website? Once logged in, Adobe AIR should then be able to access a secured location to check and get the update files?

[dyndragon]

Any other suggestions or updates?

[Peter Grainge]

Fix the VPN connection.

Sorry but what you need is a feature change and pending that, there's nothing else I can think of.

Please follow this link to submit a feature request.

http://www.Adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform&product=38

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[dyndragon]

If I was in IT (they're useless) and had the power to do so, I would definitely fix the VPN.

But I'm not. Alas...

Thanks all for your help in confirming that this doesn't exist 😉