LinkedIn

Overview

The Akeeba Social Login - LinkedIn integration plugin allows user on your site to use their LinkedIn account to login or register a user account on your site.

This feature is available since version 2.0.2.

Setup on LinkedIn

DISCLAIMER: This part of our documentation describing the interaction with a third party service is for information purposes only. It should be treated as indicative and used at your own risk. Akeeba Ltd can only attest that this part of the documentation has been the faithful transcription of the steps we took at the time of its writing. We strongly recommend that you consult the documentation of the third party service for accurate instructions. Should the behavior of the third party service differ from what is published in our documentation you should consult the support of the third party service provider. Do not seek support from us for such matters; Akeeba Ltd cannot provide support for third party services, is not responsible for or notified about any changes in said services, nor is it obligated to update the documentation pursuant such changes.

Before you can use LinkedIn login on your site you must create a LinkedIn "app". Even though it sounds scary, a LinkedIn App is simply a way for you to get a set of access codes which let you identify your site on LinkedIn.

Start by logging in to LinkedIn.

Go to My Applications and click the Create app button found in the page's header.

Fill in the information requested by LinkedIn. All of the fields are required. This information is shown to your site's visitors. Choose something which explains to them that they are logging into your site. Click on Save.

On the next page click the Auth tab.

Under OAuth 2.0 Settings find the the Authorized Redirect URLs field and click on “Add redirect URL”. In this field enter a URL like http://www.example.com/index.php?option=com_ajax&group=sociallogin&plugin=linkedin&format=raw where http://www.example.com MUST be replaced with your site's URL. For example, if your site is accessible at http://www.abrandnewsite.com/mysite then the Callback URL field must be http://www.abrandnewsite.com/mysite/index.php?option=com_ajax&group=sociallogin&plugin=linkedin&format=raw. Remember to click on the Update button for LinkedIn to see the URL you have entered.

‼️IMPORTANT! LinkedIn matches the return URL exactly to what you have typed. This has two important implications. First, http:// versus https:// matters. If your site is accessible under both schemes (plain old HTTP and HTTPS) you MUST create two Authorized Redirect URLs, one with http:// and one with https://. Second, www versus non-www matters. If your site is accessible under both, let's say, www.example.com and example.com you MUST create two Authorized Redirect URLs, one with www, and one without. If your site can be accessed under both HTTP and HTTPS, with or without www (as most sites do) you will have to create FOUR (4) Authorized Redirect URLs. In our example: http://www.example.com/index.php?option=com_ajax&group=sociallogin&plugin=linkedin&format=raw, https://www.example.com/index.php?option=com_ajax&group=sociallogin&plugin=linkedin&format=raw, http://example.com/index.php?option=com_ajax&group=sociallogin&plugin=linkedin&format=raw, and https://example.com/index.php?option=com_ajax&group=sociallogin&plugin=linkedin&format=raw.

Click on the Products tab. Next to the "Sign In with LinkedIn using OpenID Connect" product, click on Request Access. Confirm that you have agreed to the ToS and request access.

Go back to the Settings tab and reload the page. You will be shown instructions to verify the application. Go ahead and do that. You will not be able to use Login With LinkedIn until your application is verified. When the application is verified you will see that under OAuth 2.0 Scopes there are now three scopes listed: openid, profile, and email. If you still see a message that no scopes are granted you will need to complete the verification, and possibly reload the page.

Go back to the Auth tab and copy the Client ID and Client Secret (you need to click the eye icon next to the latter to see it).

Now go back to your site and edit the plugin.

In the LinkedIn Client ID field enter the Client ID you copied above. Likewise, in the LinkedIn Client Secret field enter the Client Secret you copied above.

Plugin options

LinkedIn Client ID Enter the Client ID for your custom LinkedIn OAuth Application here. See the previous section for creating a LinkedIn Application.

LinkedIn Client Secret Enter the Consumer Secret (API Secret) for your custom LinkedIn OAuth Application here. See the previous section for creating a LinkedIn Application.

Allow social login to non-linked accounts When enabled allows users to log in despite not having linked their LinkedIn account to their site user account. Their LinkedIn account's email address must be the same as the email account they use on your site.

Create new user accounts Creates a new Joomla! user when a user tries to log in via LinkedIn but there is no Joomla! user account associated with that email or LinkedIn User ID. If user registration is disabled no account will be created and an error will be raised. The new Joomla! user will have a username derived from the LinkedIn account's name, the same email address as the LinkedIn account and a long, random password (which the user can change once they have logged in). Set this to No to prevent creation of user accounts through LinkedIn login.

Ignore Joomla! setting for creating user accounts When both this option and the Create new user accounts option above are enabled a new user will always be created, even if you have disabled user registration in the options of Joomla's Users page. This is useful to prevent anyone from registering to your site unless they have a LinkedIn account.

Bypass user validation Only applies when creating new user accounts. When enabled the new user will be created active, without going through the Joomla! user account validation. This means that no account activation email will be sent to the user or the administrators of the Joomla! site. This makes perfect sense since LinkedIn has already verified that the user is in control of the email address they are using with their LinkedIn account.

Button styling When enabled custom CSS for login, link and unlink button styling will be output to the page header. Disable this option if you intend to use your own CSS to style the buttons.

Icon class The icon CSS class to use in the login, link and unlink buttons. Useful to use an icon font such as FontAwesome or Glyphicons to render the logo. If it's left empty, a PNG image with the LinkedIn logo will be used instead.

Login buttons can be shown in In which part(s) of your site do you want to allow showing the Social Login buttons? For more information on how this feature works please consult the “Hiding in the frontend or backend” documentation page.