Log in system

Hub

On the ROOL site, most read-only features are available to any visitor. To try and prevent spam, though, operations where users contribute to the site – forum posts, news and bug comments and so-on – require the user to log in. The account management part of the site is known as Hub.

The quickest way to access Hub and log in to the web site is to use the button at the top right of any page, just underneath the Castle logo. This works both when you want to sign up or log in, as well as when you’re logged in and want to manage account settings. You must use HTTPS when logged in, otherwise the ROOL site will act as if you are logged out.

Often it is not necessary to explicitly log in to a new account, as trying to comment on news articles, add tickets to the Bug tracker or so-on will automatically redirect you to the log-in page. That said, some parts of the site may only reveal extra features for logged in users, so sometimes you may wish to log in explicitly if you are looking for a feature while logged out and can’t seem to find it.

Why am I sometimes logged out?

You can get automatically logged out for two main reasons:

• Your session times out, in which case there will normally be a message on screen to tell you what happened.
• I had to restart the web services, which flushes all active users from the system.

Apologies if you get caught out by the second case; sometimes these things just can’t be avoided.

If you accidentally start viewing the site via HTTP rather than HTTPS (e.g. you follow a link from some other web site to the ROOL pages and it only uses HTTP) then the site will act as if you’re not logged in. As a security measure, the ROOL site doesn’t even contemplate trying to exchange information related to an account over insecure connections. Simply changing the URL to say https:// rather than http:// will catch this, or simply go to the Hub by using the Account button towards the top right of any page. This redirects you to HTTPS automatically.