OpenID login workflow?

Question

When someone logs into a site using Open ID, what goes on behind the scene?

can someone explain to me the work flow/steps of what happens during a typical login from

Answer 1

Also check out the Logging In section of the OpenID wikipedia entry. (You've probably already read it if you were following links in Jeff's article). :)

Answer 2

What is OpenId?

OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity. OpenID takes advantage of already existing internet technology (URI, HTTP, SSL, Diffie-Hellman) and realizes that people are already creating identities for themselves whether it be at their blog, photostream, profile page, etc. With OpenID you can easily transform one of these existing URIs into an account which can be used at sites which support OpenID logins.

OpenId

Difference between OpenId and conventional authentification form?

The difference it's that the identification will be decentralized to an external site (example Wordpress, yahoo...). The website will know that the identification is ok or not and let you loggin.Conventional authentification form do a comparison to their private database and let you loggin or not. You can only use the loggin-password to this website. With openId you can use the same loggin-password on multiple website.

How it works?

• You can see the Flow of operation here (image)
• Step-by-step activities here
• Step-by-step activities here (other blog)
• List item

Steps

1. User connect to OpenID enabled website.
2. User enter credential information.
3. A Post is made with a BASE64 (website to provider)
4. An answer is built (that contain expiration)
5. The website redirect the user to the provider to login.
6. User enter password and submit.
7. Verification is done.
8. Login!

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I wrote this answer for this question but this one is more old, so I pasted my answer over here.

Answer 3

I stumbled across this great OpenID introduction which is neither too high-level nor too low-level.

http://wiki.openid.net/w/page/12995171/Introduction

It's a bit verbose, and more or less written as prose, but it's a fun read and very informative about what happens behind the scenes.

Answer 4

Jeff Atwood posted a good overview of it here