How to login a user when clicks on the email activation link?(JSF 2.0)

Question

I send an account activation mail to my users using javamail. In that email, there is a link that when clicked, the user should activate their account, redirected to the main page of the application and get them logged in. How can i do that? Can i add a call a method call to a managed bean in that link i send as a HTML template?

This is the EJB i use for sending the email template:

@Stateless(name = "ejbs/EmailServiceEJB")
public class EmailServiceEJB implements IEmailServiceEJB {

    @Resource(name = "mail/myMailSession")
    private Session mailSession;

    public void sendAccountActivationLinkToBuyer(String destinationEmail,
            String name) {

        // Destination of the email
        String to = destinationEmail;
        String from = "dontreply2thismessage@gmail.com";

        try {
            Message message = new MimeMessage(mailSession);
            // From: is our service
            message.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));
            // To: destination given
            message.setRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO,
                    InternetAddress.parse(to));
            message.setSubject("Uspijesna registracija");
            // How to found at http://www.rgagnon.com/javadetails/java-0321.html
            message.setContent(generateActivationLinkTemplate(), "text/html");

            Date timeStamp = new Date();
            message.setSentDate(timeStamp);

            // Prepare a multipart HTML
            Multipart multipart = new MimeMultipart();
            // Prepare the HTML
            BodyPart htmlPart = new MimeBodyPart();
            htmlPart.setContent(generateActivationLinkTemplate(), "text/html");
            htmlPart.setDisposition(BodyPart.INLINE);

            // PREPARE THE IMAGE
            BodyPart imgPart = new MimeBodyPart();

            String fileName = "logoemailtemplate.png";

            ClassLoader classLoader = Thread.currentThread()
                    .getContextClassLoader();
            if (classLoader == null) {
                classLoader = this.getClass().getClassLoader();
                if (classLoader == null) {
                    System.out.println("IT IS NULL AGAIN!!!!");
                }
            }

            DataSource ds = new URLDataSource(classLoader.getResource(fileName));

            imgPart.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(ds));
            imgPart.setHeader("Content-ID", "<logoimg_cid>");
            imgPart.setDisposition(MimeBodyPart.INLINE);
            imgPart.setFileName("logomailtemplate.png");

            multipart.addBodyPart(htmlPart);
            multipart.addBodyPart(imgPart);
            // Set the message content!
            message.setContent(multipart);

            System.out.println("MIME!!!!");
            System.out.println(multipart.getContentType());

            Transport.send(message);

        } catch (MessagingException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }

    }    


    private String generateActivationLinkTemplate() {
        String htmlText = "";
        htmlText = "<table width=\"600\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">  <tr>    <td><img src=\"cid:logoimg_cid\"/></td>  </tr>  <tr>    <td height=\"220\"> <p>Thanks for Joining Site.com</p>      <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. </p>    <p>Username:<br />      Password: </p>    <p>To confirm your email click <a href=\"#\">here</a>.</p></td>  </tr>  <tr>    <td height=\"50\" align=\"center\" valign=\"middle\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\">www.site.com | contact@site.com | +38200 123 456</td>  </tr></table>";
        return htmlText;
    }


}

This is the EJB that will save in the session the user state(Log in):

public class AuthentificationEJB implements IAuthentificationEJB {

    @PersistenceContext
    private EntityManager em;

    // Login
    public boolean saveUserState(String email, String password) {
        // 1-Send query to database to see if that user exist
        Query query = em
                .createQuery("SELECT r FROM Role r WHERE r.email=:emailparam AND r.password=:passwordparam");
        query.setParameter("emailparam", email);
        query.setParameter("passwordparam", password);
        // 2-If the query returns the user(Role) object, store it somewhere in
        // the session
        List<Object> tmpList = query.getResultList();
        if (tmpList.isEmpty() == false) {
            Role role = (Role) tmpList.get(0);
            if (role != null && role.getEmail().equals(email)
                    && role.getPassword().equals(password)) {
                FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getExternalContext()
                        .getSessionMap().put("userRole", role);
                // 3-return true if the user state was saved
                System.out.println(role.getEmail() + role.getPassword());
                return true;
            }
        }
        // 4-return false otherwise
        return false;
    }

Can I call the method saveUserState(email,password) from the template that i manually created in the method generateActivationLinkTemplate()? So the user gets redirected to the main page of the application and the user gets saved into the session

Answer 1

If you pass the activation key as request parameter in a link like as http://example.com/activate.xhtml?key=somelonganduniquekey, then just use @ManagedProperty to let JSF set the request parameter in the bean and do the validation and login job in the @PostConstruct.

@ManagedBean
@RequestScoped
public class Activation {

    @ManagedProperty(value="#{param.key}")
    private String key;

    private boolean valid;

    @PostConstruct
    public void init() {
        // Get User based on activation key.
        // Delete activation key from database.
        // Login user.
    }

    // ...
}

with an activate.xhtml which look like this

<h:head>
    <ui:fragment rendered="#{activation.valid}">
        <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="3;url=home.xhtml" />
    </ui:fragment>
</h:head>
<h:body>
    <h:panelGroup layout="block" rendered="#{activation.valid}">
        <p>Your account is successfully activated!</p>
        <p>You will in 3 seconds be redirected to <h:link outcome="home">home page</h:link></p>
    </h:panelGroup>
    <h:panelGroup layout="block" rendered="#{!activation.valid}">
        <p>Activation failed! Please enter your email address to try once again.</p> 
        <h:form>
            ...
        </h:form>
    </h:panelGroup>
</h:body>