# Using custom authentication

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-custom-authentication/182536>\
**Category:** Development\
**Created:** [March 8, 2021, 7:03pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-custom-authentication/182536 "2021-03-08T19:03:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

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**Author:** ![cb-candor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/cb-candor/32/212467_2.png) [@cb-candor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cb-candor)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2021, 7:21pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-custom-authentication/182536/3 "2021-03-08T19:21:20Z")

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Hey Alexander - the way it currently works is as follows:

1. The user enters an email, receives a magic link with various URL parameters (user id, timestamp, hash w. secret for authenticating session) that leads to a callback URL on our end.
2. After the callback function authenticates the user, a cookie is created and a session is created in the database.

It’s a relatively straightforward setup, but not super compatible with OAuth2 plugins.

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