From Authentication Tools for Joomla! (JAuthTools)

Revision as of 06:46, 9 April 2008

This document contains a quickstart guide to getting things started with Joomla! 1.5

This document is not complete and items it references to may not exist yet!

Out of the Box

By default Joomla! 1.5 provides the ability to use LDAP as an option for authentication within Joomla!. For most purposes this should suffice. However this extension does not provide all of the features that the JAuthTools LDAP SSI bot does for Joomla! 1.0 such as group mapping.

Getting Started

Joomla! 1.5 has some new features that make installing the JAuthTools services in 1.5 different to the 1.0 method. This page is currently a draft.

The easiest way to get started is to install the Advanced Tools for 1.5 extension. This provides your Joomla! 1.5 site with the ability to install both packages and libraries, which makes your life easier along the line. Before you install Advanced Tools however, you need to ensure that the /libraries/joomla/installer/adapters folder is writeable by Joomla! so that the installer can put files there, in addition to the normal locations for files. Once you've done that, you can use the URL based installer to install the package straight off JoomlaCode or download and install the package by upload. At the time of writing the latest version of Advanced Tools was 1.5.1, you can check for updates at Pasamio's Projects FRS Site or directly download from the following: http://joomlacode.org/gf/download/frsrelease/6797/22390/com_advancedtools.tgz

Once the Advanced Tools has installed successfully (Screenshot) you can continue to install the JAuthTools package. If some folders aren't writeable, the Advanced Tools installer might request that you copy files into /libraries/joomla/installer/adpaters manually. For JAuthTools you will need to ensure the 'libraries' folder is writeable as it will create a new 'jauthtools' folder there. The latest release of the package is available from the JAuthTools FRS Site with 1.5.1 being the latest release at the time of writing (http://joomlacode.org/gf/download/frsrelease/6812/22480/pkg_jauthtools.tgz). You can also install this directly using the URL (see screenshot above). Once JAuthTools is installed (Screenshot) you can then start to use SSO within your Joomla! instance.

Once this has been done, you should see all of the required plugins and libraries installed within your 1.5 site, from here you can get started configuring SSO for your users.

Getting Started (Long)

Libraries

In Joomla! 1.5, libraries are available via a new interface designed to make the system more manageable. In 1.0 this system did not exist which meant that typically libraries were installed with an extension or using a mambot. JAuthTools in 1.0 used the mambot method of installing new classes which meant that the LDAP library was available for all extensions when the mambot was published. The new interface exposes libraries in a way similar to Java.

Install the Library Manager

By default Joomla! doesn't have a method for maintaining libraries. There is an extension called the Joomla! Library Manager (Extensions Site, Download Site, Installation Notes) that allows the user to install or uninstall Joomla! libraries. Installation is usually easy though if the library installation adapter cannot be installed automatically you will have to see the installation notes.

Install the JAuthTools Libraries

JAuthTools has two major libraries. The first is SSO, or Single Sign On, library which is used to handle the SSO system, namely for Kerberos integration. The second is the User Source library. The user source library is aimed at providing details on a given username, such as email address. There libraries are available from the JAuthTools FRS site. The SSO system is dependent upon the User Source library, so to use SSO you will need to install the User Source library.

Plugins

JAuthTools has various plugins that provide functionality. Generically speaking there are two categories for plugins, SSO and User Sources. SSO provides the Single Sign On support and utilizes User Sources to enable automated user creation.

SSO

The SSO system consists of a system plugin that bootstraps the SSO plugins. SSO is a new type of plugin created for the system and there are two SSO plugins available by default. This means that SSO plugins can be controlled using the normal plugin manager interface.

User Sources

The User Sources system consists of two major plugin, the Sync System plugin and the LDAP user source plugin. The sync plugin is designed to ensure a user is set to the appropriate group and the LDAP user source is designed to provide user information.