[base] External authentication and local users

2008-10-01 Thread Paulo Almeida
Hi,

I am testing external authentication using the POP3Authenticator and users can 
only log in if they have an account and home directory on the server. Is this 
normal? It is not a big nuisance, because it has the advantage of giving me 
more control on who can use Base, but it seemed a bit odd.

Thanks,
Paulo

-
This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge
Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK  win great prizes
Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world
http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100url=/
___
The BASE general discussion mailing list
basedb-users@lists.sourceforge.net
unsubscribe: send a mail with subject unsubscribe to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


Re: [base] External authentication and local users

2008-10-01 Thread Nicklas Nordborg
 I am testing external authentication using the POP3Authenticator and
 users can only log in if they have an account and home directory on the
 server. Is this normal? It is not a big nuisance, because it has the
 advantage of giving me more control on who can use Base, but it seemed a
 bit odd.

This is a bit odd. If the authentication server (in this case, the POP
server) says that the user/password is ok, BASE should automatically
create a new account. If this doesn't work, please submit an error report
on the BASE web site. Could it be that the POP server isn't responding to
BASE? Because if it doesn't and if you have configured BASE to cache
passwords, BASE will revert to using internal authentication. The
different scenarios are documented at
http://base.thep.lu.se/chrome/site/latest/html/developerdoc/plugin_developer/plugin_developer.other.html#plugin_developer.other.authentication

If a user has a home directory or not shouldn't affect the possibility to
login. If you find any problems which seems related to this please send
another bug report.

A final note. If you want the manual control, then I don't see the need
for using external authentication. Or, you should use an external system
that allows you to configure (in that system) who is allowed to use BASE
or not. But that is beyond the scope of the POP3Authenticator, which
should be considered as a proof-of-concept implementation.

/Nicklas


 Thanks, Paulo

 -
  This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's
 challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK 
 win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event
 anywhere in the world
 http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100url=/
 ___ The BASE general
 discussion mailing list basedb-users@lists.sourceforge.net unsubscribe:
 send a mail with subject unsubscribe to
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]




-
This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge
Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK  win great prizes
Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world
http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100url=/
___
The BASE general discussion mailing list
basedb-users@lists.sourceforge.net
unsubscribe: send a mail with subject unsubscribe to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


Re: [base] External authentication and local users

2008-10-01 Thread Paulo Almeida
On Wednesday 01 October 2008 17:30, Nicklas Nordborg wrote:
  I am testing external authentication using the POP3Authenticator and
  users can only log in if they have an account and home directory on the
  server. Is this normal? It is not a big nuisance, because it has the
  advantage of giving me more control on who can use Base, but it seemed a
  bit odd.

 This is a bit odd. If the authentication server (in this case, the POP
 server) says that the user/password is ok, BASE should automatically
 create a new account. If this doesn't work, please submit an error report
 on the BASE web site.

I'll describe what I did, to clarify: 

First I dropped the database and then created and initialized it again, to 
make sure the users really did not exist (and password caching was always 
off, I just checked that).

Me and another user tested the POP3 Authenticator with our POP3 passwords and 
it worked and created our accounts on Base.

Then I asked another user to test it and it didn't work. When he used his 
correct password, he got a message with a Java Exception, but when I asked 
him to try a wrong password he just got the normal authentication failure 
message. 

We noticed that the first two users, who had logged in successfully, had Unix 
accounts on the server, and the third didn't, so I created a user for him. I 
first used the useradd command, which does not create the home directory, 
and he still couldn't log in, but then I used adduser, created a home dir 
for him and he could log in to Base, and his account was created on the Base 
database.

I'll submit the report on the Base web site.

 A final note. If you want the manual control, then I don't see the need
 for using external authentication. 

The reason I want external authentication is just so users can have a central 
password and use it for different services (admittedly, that can be bad for 
security if one account gets compromised). The manual control would be just 
like a checkbox saying which users that exist in the Institute's database can 
use Base. I could do it with an external system, but I would have to program 
that, and it is not essential for me. 

- Paulo

 /Nicklas

  Thanks, Paulo
 
  -
   This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's
  challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK 
  win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event
  anywhere in the world
  http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100url=/
  ___ The BASE general
  discussion mailing list basedb-users@lists.sourceforge.net unsubscribe:
  send a mail with subject unsubscribe to
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 -
 This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's
 challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK  win
 great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere
 in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100url=/
 ___
 The BASE general discussion mailing list
 basedb-users@lists.sourceforge.net
 unsubscribe: send a mail with subject unsubscribe to
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]

-
This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge
Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK  win great prizes
Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world
http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100url=/
___
The BASE general discussion mailing list
basedb-users@lists.sourceforge.net
unsubscribe: send a mail with subject unsubscribe to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


Re: [base] External authentication and local users

2008-10-01 Thread Nicklas Nordborg


 On Wednesday 01 October 2008 17:30, Nicklas Nordborg wrote:
 I am testing external authentication using the POP3Authenticator and
 users can only log in if they have an account and home directory on
 the
 server. Is this normal? It is not a big nuisance, because it has the
 advantage of giving me more control on who can use Base, but it
 seemed
 a
 bit odd.

 This is a bit odd. If the authentication server (in this case, the POP
 server) says that the user/password is ok, BASE should automatically
 create a new account. If this doesn't work, please submit an error
 report on the BASE web site.

 I'll describe what I did, to clarify:

 First I dropped the database and then created and initialized it again,
 to make sure the users really did not exist (and password caching was
 always off, I just checked that).

 Me and another user tested the POP3 Authenticator with our POP3 passwords
  and it worked and created our accounts on Base.

 Then I asked another user to test it and it didn't work. When he used his
  correct password, he got a message with a Java Exception, but when I
 asked him to try a wrong password he just got the normal authentication
 failure message.

 We noticed that the first two users, who had logged in successfully, had
 Unix accounts on the server, and the third didn't, so I created a user
 for him. I first used the useradd command, which does not create the
 home directory, and he still couldn't log in, but then I used adduser,
 created a home dir for him and he could log in to Base, and his account
 was created on the Base database.

 I'll submit the report on the Base web site.

Never mind. This has nothing to do with BASE. It's your POP server that
requires a Unix user account and stuff that goes with it.

 A final note. If you want the manual control, then I don't see the need
  for using external authentication.

 The reason I want external authentication is just so users can have a
 central password and use it for different services (admittedly, that can
 be bad for security if one account gets compromised).
 The manual control
 would be just like a checkbox saying which users that exist in the
 Institute's database can use Base. I could do it with an external system,
 but I would have to program that, and it is not essential for me.

If you use an external system, the control of who may and may not login to
BASE is to 99% controlled by the external system. The last 1% is the BASE
root user account which always uses the internal system.

/Nicklas


-
This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge
Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK  win great prizes
Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world
http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100url=/
___
The BASE general discussion mailing list
basedb-users@lists.sourceforge.net
unsubscribe: send a mail with subject unsubscribe to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]