We've created a highly customized Joomla 1.5 based site and want our super administrator to be able to log into registered user accounts so we can provide better phone support and help them configure their accounts remotely.
This will obviously take some coding. Ideally we want a link from the admin side that will take us to the front end and automatically log us in as the registered user. We'll lock it down by IP address and also have some sort of password as well.
Where does the login get processed? It looks like /components/com_user/controller.php calls a function called $mainframe -> login(); Where does that function reside?
Our thought is to send a mock login form along with an additional super-user password field. Then we'll modify the login code to authorize the login if the password is present and the IP address is correct.
Any words of wisdom or caution with this approach?
There is actually a plugin that will do just this:
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/access-a-security/authentication/4806