pubcookie

There had been a problem using the new weblogin server with metric, a redhat 7.3 box. This was preventing us from using the new login server.

This problem was resolved today, with a lot of help from the pubcookie folks. You can follow the thread here:

http://mailman.u.washington.edu/pipermail/pubcookie-users/2004-April/000374.html

The problem had been traced to a build issue with the compiler version on rh7.3 (gcc 2.96) by some folks at the U. of Newcastle upon Tyne. The fix was to build mod_pubcookie with out the compiler optimization.

Anyway, this is great news and I'm happy it's working.

The weblogin service is a WebISO solution. It leverages the Pubcookie technology from University of Washington, which is an open-source software for intra-institutional Web authentication. There may be many Websites that require authentication in UAB. The weblogin helps user just login once and then reuse the existing authentication to visit the other Websites.

Pubcookie consists of a login server and modules for Web server like Apache HTTP server or Microsoft IIS.
If IIS is used as Web server, ISAPI Filter is needed. For Apache HTTP server, we need to install Apache Module. Please see the Pubcookies Websites for the detail: http://pubcookie.org/docs/

We need to understand what the purpose of the authtypeN values in the ISAPI filter are for (looks like backward compatibility) and if we need them (I'm guessing not).

We need an email list geared towards users of the weblogin service. This could potentially be a forum need to scratch head and think. List name would look like weblogin@lists.lab.ac.uab.edu.

This is a page that can be visited by users interested in setting up their webapp with pubcookie. It should include links to all the necessary files and documentation on how to this up.

The propsed URL is http://lab.ac.uab.edu/beta/weblogin

We need to know if the ms patch application process has any impact on the operation of the ISAPI pubcookie filter.

This involves setting up a vanilla w2k box, install and config pubcookie, make sure everything is working, and then apply all ms patches to the os and iis, after that see if pubcookie still works.

We need to create a presentation for the TIMGROUP meeting. It should cover the needs of an audience of technology professionals interested in a WebISO solution.

We need to set up the login server for the beta service. This machine should simply house the login server and nothing else. Instructions and stuff can go on a diffent machine.

We need to test the per-application custom logout message feature that is part of the login server. We need to determine if this is a service we want to provide to application writers on campus.