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6 comments

  1. The following code does the job for automatic login, without any password!

    // Automatic login //
    $username = "Admin";
    $user = get_user_by('login', $username );
    
    // Redirect URL //
    if ( !is_wp_error( $user ) )
    {
        wp_clear_auth_cookie();
        wp_set_current_user ( $user->ID );
        wp_set_auth_cookie  ( $user->ID );
    
        $redirect_to = user_admin_url();
        wp_safe_redirect( $redirect_to );
        exit();
    }
    
  2. I have found another solution here that uses a better approach (at least in my opinion…).
    No need to set any cookie, it uses the WordPress API:

    /**
     * Programmatically logs a user in
     * 
     * @param string $username
     * @return bool True if the login was successful; false if it wasn't
     */
        function programmatic_login( $username ) {
            if ( is_user_logged_in() ) {
                wp_logout();
            }
    
        add_filter( 'authenticate', 'allow_programmatic_login', 10, 3 );    // hook in earlier than other callbacks to short-circuit them
        $user = wp_signon( array( 'user_login' => $username ) );
        remove_filter( 'authenticate', 'allow_programmatic_login', 10, 3 );
    
        if ( is_a( $user, 'WP_User' ) ) {
            wp_set_current_user( $user->ID, $user->user_login );
    
            if ( is_user_logged_in() ) {
                return true;
            }
        }
    
        return false;
     }
    
     /**
      * An 'authenticate' filter callback that authenticates the user using only     the username.
      *
      * To avoid potential security vulnerabilities, this should only be used in     the context of a programmatic login,
      * and unhooked immediately after it fires.
      * 
      * @param WP_User $user
      * @param string $username
      * @param string $password
      * @return bool|WP_User a WP_User object if the username matched an existing user, or false if it didn't
      */
     function allow_programmatic_login( $user, $username, $password ) {
        return get_user_by( 'login', $username );
     }
    

    I think the code is self explanatory:

    The filter searches for the WP_User object for the given username and returns it.
    A call to the function wp_set_current_user with the WP_User object returned by wp_signon, a check with the function is_user_logged_in to make sure your are logged in, and that’s it!

    A nice and clean piece of code in my opinion!

  3. This works well for me:

      clean_user_cache($user->ID);
      wp_clear_auth_cookie();
      wp_set_current_user($user->ID);
      wp_set_auth_cookie($user->ID, true, false);
      update_user_caches($user);
    
  4. In addition to Mike, Paul and Sjoerd:

    To better handle login.php redirections:

    //---------------------Automatic login--------------------
    
    if(!is_user_logged_in()){
    
        $username = "user1";
    
        if($user=get_user_by('login',$username)){
    
            clean_user_cache($user->ID);
    
            wp_clear_auth_cookie();
            wp_set_current_user( $user->ID );
            wp_set_auth_cookie( $user->ID , true, false);
    
            update_user_caches($user);
    
            if(is_user_logged_in()){
    
                $redirect_to = user_admin_url();
                wp_safe_redirect( $redirect_to );
                exit;
            }
        }
    }
    elseif('http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'] == wp_login_url()){
    
        $redirect_to = user_admin_url();
        wp_safe_redirect( $redirect_to );
        exit;
    }
    

    To be placed in wp-config.php just after

    require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-settings.php');
    

    FYI

    Based on the above solution, I have released a plugin to keep the user logged in from one wordpress to another by synchronizing user data and cookie session:

    https://wordpress.org/plugins/user-session-synchronizer/

  5. Strange enough but the only way it works for me is if I redirect and die() after:

    clean_user_cache($user->ID);
    wp_clear_auth_cookie();
    wp_set_current_user( $user_id, $user->user_login );
    wp_set_auth_cookie( $user_id, true, true );
    update_user_caches( $user );
    
    if ( is_user_logged_in() ) {
    
        $redirect_to = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
        header("location:".$redirect_to );
        die(); 
    
    }