Quick Start

This website contains links to software which is either no longer maintained or will be supported only until the end of 2019 (CKFinder 2). For the latest documentation about current CKSource projects, including software like CKEditor 4/CKEditor 5, CKFinder 3, Cloud Services, Letters, Accessibility Checker, please visit the new documentation website.

If you look for an information about very old versions of CKEditor, FCKeditor and CKFinder check also the CKEditor forum, which was closed in 2015. If not, please head to StackOverflow for support.

The CheckAuthentication() function

By default, CKFinder will not work due to authentication restrictions. You must first be sure that you have configured it properly, and then enable it.

Once you have completely configured CKFinder, you are ready to enable it for use. The CheckAuthentication() function is used for that. In this function, you must implement the code that ensures that the requests are coming from an authenticated user. This is usually done by assigning a session variable when the user logs on your system.

Return "true" if the user is properly authenticated. We strongly recommend you to NOT simply return "true" from this function without implementing authentication checks. Anonymous users would be able to use CKFinder, including uploading and deleting files from your server.

The following is a sample implementation for it:

public override bool CheckAuthentication()
{
    if ( Session[ "IsAuthenticated" ] && (bool)Session[ "IsAuthenticated" ] == true )
    {
        return true;
    }

    return false;
}

License

The license information for CKFinder must be pasted in the config.ascx file, inside the LicenseName and LicenseKey variables:

LicenseName = "put your license name here";
LicenseKey = "put your license key here";

If these fields are blank or an invalid license key information is set, CKFinder will still be fully functional but it will be ruining in demo mode.

Base URL and Directory

The BaseUrl setting is the base path used to build the final URL for the resources handled in CKFinder. For example:

BaseUrl = "/ckfinder/userfiles/";

Notice that the trailing slash is required.

The BaseDir is the path to the local directory (in the server) which points to the above URL. This is the path used by CKFinder to handle the files in the server. Full write permissions must be granted to this directory.

You may point it to a directory directly. For example:

BaseDir = "C:/SiteDir/CKFinder/userfiles/";

By leaving BaseDir empty, CKFinder will automatically attempt to resolve the path, based on BaseUrl (like Server.MapPath). For example:

BaseDir = "";

Full URLs

CKFinder is able to resolve the BaseUrl path only when setting it to an absolute URL path, starting from the document root. For example:

BaseUrl = "/userfiles/";
BaseDir = "";

If you need CKFinder to return full URL address for the resources, then you are explicitly required to set the BaseDir setting. For example:

// THIS IS WRONG:
BaseUrl = "http://example.com/ckfinder/files/";
BaseDir = "";

// THIS IS GOOD:
BaseUrl = "http://example.com/ckfinder/files/";
BaseDir = "C:/InetPub/MySite/ckfinder/files/";
This page was last edited on 24 March 2014, at 09:59.