Losing url variable after redirect

[TheIdiot]

I have a project that I am working on where subscribers will receive an update via email containing links to notices. These notices can only be viewed by registered members, so in order to do that I have a login page and script. I am using

$ticket = clean($_GET['ticket']);

to pull the value from the url. This shows up fine and when the script checks for authorization and they are not logged in, it sends them to the log in page where the "ticket" shows up no problem in the url. After they input their info, I run the script:

<?php
	//Start session
	session_start();
	
	//Include database connection details
	require_once('config.php');
	
	//Array to store validation errors
	$errmsg_arr = array();
	
	//Validation error flag
	$errflag = false;
	
	//Connect to mysql server
	$link = mysql_connect(DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD);
	if(!$link) {
		die('Failed to connect to server: ' . mysql_error());
	}
	
	//Select database
	$db = mysql_select_db(DB_DATABASE);
	if(!$db) {
		die("Unable to select database");
	}
	
	//Function to sanitize values received from the form. Prevents SQL injection
	function clean($str) {
		$str = @trim($str);
		if(get_magic_quotes_gpc()) {
			$str = stripslashes($str);
		}
		return mysql_real_escape_string($str);
	}
	
	//Sanitize the POST values
	$login = clean($_POST['login']);
	$password = clean($_POST['password']);
	
	//Input Validations
	if($login == '') {
		$errmsg_arr[] = 'Login ID missing';
		$errflag = true;
	}
	if($password == '') {
		$errmsg_arr[] = 'Password missing';
		$errflag = true;
	}
	
	//If there are input validations, redirect back to the login form
	if($errflag) {
		$_SESSION['ERRMSG_ARR'] = $errmsg_arr;
		session_write_close();
		header("location: login-form.php?ticket=$ticket");
		exit();
	}
	
	//Create query
	$qry="SELECT * FROM members WHERE login='$login' AND passwd='".md5($_POST['password'])."'";
	$result=mysql_query($qry);
	
	//Check whether the query was successful or not
	if($result) {
		if(mysql_num_rows($result) == 1) {
			//Login Successful
			session_regenerate_id();
			$member = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);
			$_SESSION['SESS_MEMBER_ID'] = $member['member_id'];
			$_SESSION['SESS_FIRST_NAME'] = $member['firstname'];
			$_SESSION['SESS_LAST_NAME'] = $member['lastname'];
			$_SESSION['SESS_ADMIN_LEVEL'] = $member['adminLevel'];
			session_write_close();
			header("location: read_notices.php?ticket=$ticket");
			exit();
		}else {
			//Login failed
			header("location: login-failed.php?ticket=$ticket");
			exit();
		}
	}else {
		die("Query failed");
	}
?>

Problem is that when it redirects to either read_notices.php?ticket=$ticket or login-failed.php?ticket=$ticket the "ticket" is no longer there.

I am using $ticket = clean($_GET['ticket']); on the login page which uses a form and executes the above file.

Maybe there is an easier way to store the "ticket" until the user is at the viewing page. Other than that, the ticket seems to get "lost" along the way. This is not my complete code because it is quite long, but if you need more then let me know. Thanks in advance!

[dcdruck]

Maybe it's in the code that you omitted, but I don't see where you're declaring $ticket as a variable to be used in the header() calls. From the looks of it the header() function doesn't have access to a variable called $ticket. The URL that it's redirecting to, does it just look like this: "read_notices.php?ticket=" or does it omit everything after the ".php"?

[TheIdiot]

No it does not omit everything after the .php? It actually says "read_notices.php?ticket=" but the ticket number does not exist.

As far as declaring the variable so that it is available to the header call, how do I do that? I thought that the variable were all available globally.

Here is the code for the form that executes the above script:

<h1> You need to log in to view this document. </h1>
<?php
function clean($str) {
	$str = @trim($str);
	if(get_magic_quotes_gpc()) {
		$str = stripslashes($str);
	}
	return mysql_real_escape_string($str);
}
$ticket = clean($_GET['ticket']);
echo $ticket;
?>
<form id="loginForm" name="loginForm" method="post" action="login-exec.php">
  <table width="300" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
    <tr>
      <td width="112"><b>Login</b></td>
      <td width="188"><input name="login" type="text" class="textfield" id="login" /></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><b>Password</b></td>
      <td><input name="password" type="password" class="textfield" id="password" /></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>&nbsp;</td>
      <td><input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Login" /></td>
    </tr>
  </table>
</form>
</body>
</html>

Maybe it has something to do with the way it executes as opposed to being a require_once type of call that is in the rest of the other pages.

[pritaeas]

In the first code you posted, $ticket is never set to a value.

[TheIdiot]

Right, so then that is the problem - how do I get $ticket set to a value in the first script that is running off of the form (that last code I posted) where it can pull the variable from the URL?

[pritaeas]

Add the ticket as a hidden input into the form, so you can read it again with $_POST

[TheIdiot]

Gotcha, That should work. Thanks for helping my ignorant self!

[Fbody]

Another option may be to start the session on the page with the form, instead of the second page. You could then store the ticket in the session.