For our new friends:

Logto is an Auth0 alternative designed for modern apps and SaaS products. It offers both Cloud and Open-source services to help you quickly launch your identity and management (IAM) system. Enjoy authentication, authorization, and multi-tenant management all in one.

We recommend starting with a free development tenant on Logto Cloud. This allows you to explore all the features easily.

In this article, we will go through the steps to quickly build the Aliyun Direct Mail sign-in experience (user authentication) with WordPress plugin and Logto.

Prerequisites

• A running Logto instance. Check out the introduction page to get started.
• Basic knowledge of WordPress plugin.
• A usable Aliyun Direct Mail account.

Create an application in Logto

Logto is based on OpenID Connect (OIDC) authentication and OAuth 2.0 authorization. It supports federated identity management across multiple applications, commonly called Single Sign-On (SSO).

To create your Traditional web application, simply follow these steps:

1. Open the Logto Console. In the "Get started" section, click the "View all" link to open the application frameworks list. Alternatively, you can navigate to Logto Console > Applications, and click the "Create application" button.
2. In the opening modal, click the "Traditional web" section or filter all the available "Traditional web" frameworks using the quick filter checkboxes on the left. Click the "WordPress" framework card to start creating your application.
3. Enter the application name, e.g., "Bookstore," and click "Create application".

🎉 Ta-da! You just created your first application in Logto. You'll see a congrats page which includes a detailed integration guide. Follow the guide to see what the experience will be in your application.

Integrate WordPress with Logto

Install the plugin

From WordPress admin panel

1. Go to Plugins > Add New.
2. Search for "Logto", or enter https://wordpress.org/plugins/logto/ in the search box.
3. Click Install Now.
4. Click Activate.

From upload

1. Download the Logto WordPress plugin from one of the following links:
   • Latest release: Download the file which name in the format of logto-plugin-<version>.zip.
   • WordPress plugin directory: Download the file by clicking the Download button.
2. Download the plugin ZIP file.
3. Go to Plugins > Add New in your WordPress admin panel.
4. Click Upload Plugin.
5. Select the downloaded ZIP file and click Install Now.
6. Click Activate.

Configure the plugin

Now you should be able to see the Logto menu in your WordPress admin panel sidebar. Click Logto > Settings to configure the plugin.

note:

You should have a traditional web application created in Logto Console before configuring the plugin. If you haven't created one, please refer to Integrate Logto into your application for more information.

The minimum configuration to get started for the plugin is:

• Logto endpoint: The endpoint of your Logto tenant.
• App ID: The app ID of your Logto application.
• App secret: One of the valid app secrets of your Logto application.

All values can be found on the application details page in Logto Console.

After filling in the values, click Save Changes (scroll down to the bottom of the page if you can't find the button).

Configure redirect URI

The redirect URI is the URL to which Logto will redirect users after they have authenticated; and the post sign-out redirect URI is the URL to which Logto will redirect users after they have logged out.

Here's a non-normative sequence diagram to illustrate the sign-in flow:

Here's how the sign-out flow looks like in a non-normative sequence diagram:

To learn more about why redirect is needed, see Sign-in experience explained.

In our case, we need to configure both redirect URIs in your Logto Console. To find the redirect URI, go to the Logto > Settings page in your WordPress admin panel. You'll see the Redirect URI and Post sign-out redirect URI fields.

1. Copy the Redirect URI and Post sign-out redirect URI values and paste them into the Redirect URIs and Post sign-out redirect URIs fields in your Logto Console.
2. Click Save changes in Logto Console.

Checkpoint: Test your WordPress website

Now you can test your Logto integration in your WordPress website:

1. Open an incognito browser window if needed.
2. Visit your WordPress website and click the Log in link if applicable; or directly visit the login page (e.g., https://example.com/wp-login.php).
3. The page should redirect you to the Logto sign-in page.
4. Complete the sign-in or sign-up process.
5. After successful authentication, you should be redirected back to your WordPress website and logged in automatically.
6. Click the Log out link to log out of your WordPress website.
7. You should be redirected to the Logto sign-out page, then back to your WordPress website.
8. You should be logged out of your WordPress website.

To learn more about the WordPress plugin settings, see WordPress quick start.

Add Aliyun Direct Mail connector

Email connector is a method used to send one-time passwords (OTPs) for authentication. It enables Email address verification to support passwordless authentication, including Email-based registration, sign-in, two-factor authentication (2FA), and account recovery. You can easily connect Aliyun Direct Mail as your Email provider. With the Logto Email connector, you can set this up in just a few minutes.

To add a Email connector, simply follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Console > Connector > Email and SMS connectors.
2. To add a new Email connector, click the "Set up" button and select "Aliyun Direct Mail".
3. Review the README documentation for your selected provider.
4. Complete the configuration fields in the "Parameter Configuration" section.
5. Customize the Email template using the JSON editor.
6. Test your configuration by sending a verification code to your Email address.

note:

If you are following the in-place Connector guide, you can skip the next section.

Set up Aliyun email connector

Set up an email service in Aliyun DirectMail Console

Create an Aliyun account

Head to Aliyun and create your Aliyun account if you don't have one.

Enable and configure Aliyun Direct Mail

Go to the DM service console page and sign in. Enable the Direct Mail service by clicking the "Apply to enable" (申请开通) button on the top left of the page and begin the configuration process.

Starting from the DM admin console page, you should:

1. Go to "Email Domains" (发信域名) from the sidebar and add "New Domain" (新建域名) following the instructions.
2. Customize "Sender Addresses" (发信地址) and "Email Tags" (邮件标签) respectively.

After finishing setup, there are two different ways to test:

• Go to the DirectMail Overview page, find "Operation Guide" (操作引导) at the bottom of the page, and click on "Send Emails" (发送邮件). You will find all the different kinds of testing methods.
• Follow the path "Send Emails" (发送邮件) -> "Email Tasks" (发送邮件) in the sidebar to create a testing task.

Compose the connector JSON

1. From the DM admin console page, hover on your avatar in the top right corner and go to "AccessKey Management" (AccessKey 管理), and click "Create AccessKey" (创建 AccessKey). You will get an "AccessKey ID" and "AccessKey Secret" pair after finishing security verification. Please keep them properly.
2. Go to the "Sender Addresses" (发信地址) or "Email Tags" (邮件标签) tab you just visited from the DM admin console page, you can find Sender Address or Email Tag easily.
3. Fill out the Aliyun DM Connector settings:
   • Fill out the accessKeyId and accessKeySecret fields with access key pairs you've got from step 1.
   • Fill out the accountName and fromAlias field with "Sender Address" and "Email Tag" which were found in step 2. All templates will share this signature name. (You can leave fromAlias blank as it is OPTIONAL.)
   • You can add multiple DM connector templates for different cases. Here is an example of adding a single template:
     • Fill out the subject field, which will work as title of the sending email.
     • Fill out the content field with arbitrary string-type contents. Do not forget to leave {{code}} placeholder for random verification code.
     • Fill out usageType field with either Register, SignIn, ForgotPassword or Generic for different use cases. (usageType is a Logto property to identify the proper use case.) In order to enable full user flows, templates with usageType Register, SignIn, ForgotPassword and Generic are required.

Test Aliyun DM connector

You can type in an email address and click on "Send" to see whether the settings can work before "Save and Done".

That's it. Don't forget to Enable connector in sign-in experience.

Config types

Name	Type
accessKeyId	string
accessKeySecret	string
accountName	string
fromAlias	string (OPTIONAL)
templates	Template[]

Template Properties	Type	Enum values
subject	string	N/A
content	string	N/A
usageType	enum string	'Register' | 'SignIn' | 'ForgotPassword' | 'Generic'

Save your configuration

Double check you have filled out necessary values in the Logto connector configuration area. Click "Save and Done" (or "Save changes") and the Aliyun Direct Mail connector should be available now.

Enable Aliyun Direct Mail connector in Sign-in Experience

Once you create a connector successfully, you can enable phone number-based passwordless login and registration.

1. Navigate to Console > Sign-in experience > Sign-up and sign-in.
2. Set up sign-up methods (Optional):
   1. Select "Email address" or "Email or phone number" as the sign-up identifier.
   2. "Verify at sign-up" is forced to be enabled. You can also enable "Create a password" on registration.
3. Set up sign-in methods:
   1. Select Email address as one of sign-in identifiers. You can provide multiple available identifiers (email, phone number, and username).
   2. Select "Verification code" and / or "Password" as the authentication factor.
4. Click "Save changes" and test it in "Live preview".

In addition to registration and login via OTPs, you can also have password recovery and -based security verification enabled, as well as linking Email address to profile. See End-user flows for more details.

Testing and Validation

Return to your WordPress plugin app. You should now be able to sign in with Aliyun Direct Mail. Enjoy!

Further readings

End-user flows: Logto provides a out-of-the-box authentication flows including MFA and enterprise SSO, along with powerful APIs for flexible implementation of account settings, security verification, and multi-tenant experience.

Authorization: Authorization defines the actions a user can do or resources they can access after being authenticated. Explore how to protect your API for native and single-page applications and implement Role-based Access Control (RBAC).

Organizations: Particularly effective in multi-tenant SaaS and B2B apps, the organization feature enable tenant creation, member management, organization-level RBAC, and just-in-time-provisioning.

Customer IAM series Our serial blog posts about Customer (or Consumer) Identity and Access Management, from 101 to advanced topics and beyond.