[Opensim-dev] Guest logins for grids, an idea which could change a lot

Wed Dec 17 08:50:59 UTC 2008

Mircea,

When Darren and I drew up our visions for the 3D web, 2 years ago, we were already then seeing a 'mesh' of standalone 3D regions, used for everything from closed private desktop applications (logged onto with local authentication) over social worlds (where building identity is key) to public product demos and casual gaming (which could be accessed anonymously) - and the user would just hop as easily between them as between web pages in a browser.

This is why we concentrated so on the region, and for OpenSim to be more of a framework, not an implementation.

It is only recently the discussions about how the 'mesh' itself should be organized have started moving. The hypergrid was a big step forward to fulfilling the vision. We are now on the verge of being able to let people publish _regions_ not connected to any grid - self-sustained entities serving all that is needed.
These concepts of yours fall well within this vision - we need to extend on the authentication mechanisms to allow for these cases you mention, and the ones I added as a response.

Of course, as I understand it, much of this should probably be available today - if you set up your own grid, you can start hypergridding, your identity being under your own control (more or less)

So, I'd say the next steps would be:

* Getting a viewer modified to support 'hypergridding' by being able to specify a region url and mimicking a legacy-compatible hypergrid teleport out of that, so that the current legacy backends are kept synchronized. Maybe something for the Hippo crew?

* Introducing the 'public standalone' mode that has been discussed on this list, where all grid services are started up from within OpenSim.exe, but listenin to ip ports so that it can function as a home grid in itself - and making sure this mode is as easy to get running as 'private standalone'.

* Being able to 'connect grid to grid' in hypergrid - what I e-mailed about earlier, being able to register a whole grid onto another grid, so that you can start building conglomerates.

The 'public standalone' should not be a problem at all - the problem there lies, as has been discussed elsewhere, in maintaining codepaths.

The solution is, as always, to do careful refactoring. The current startup code is a mess, and there is no real division into 'proxy' and service - it's there, in the code, just not reflected in names or layers.
Best regards,Stefan AnderssonTribal Media AB

From: mircea_the_kitsune at hotmail.comTo: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.deDate: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 04:07:31 +0200Subject: [Opensim-dev] Guest logins for grids, an idea which could change a lot

I have been thinking about this feature for a while and thought it's time I post it here to discuss it with the team. In the latest version of Opensim there is an "allow anonymous logins" option in opensim.ini.example for standalone mode, which allows avatars who haven't registered to that region to login by choosing any random first name, last name and password. This has always been helpful for me and an easy method of connecting to local sims, and made it quick and simple to easily log in and be in-world even if you didn't have an account set up. Watching this possibility and how easy that makes things work has then gotten me thinking in depth about something: What would it be like if on grids like OSGrid and others anyone could be allowed to login anonymously as guests without having registered their avatar from the grid's website? How much easier and better would it make it if anyone could just open the SL client pointing to the grid's -loginuri and go in?I'm not trying to say that going on a page like osgrid.org and registering there is too hard to do, but I think that anonymous logins in grids could have a positive impact and severily open and change the metaverse. For example, whenever you want to visit a forum or go onto an IRC server / channel, you most often don't register before entering there to read or talk, and yet it's very helpful that you are allowed to just go in anytime from anywhere and stick around with some limits, allowed to register your nickname / username when and if you wish to later on. Opensim works a lot like a forum from certain points of view, and a region works like a thread with its own topics in some ways. People often come in, configure theirselves as they wish, see what's there, talk with other people... unless they are builders and have their own sim as well. So just think about it... all that made easy for all. For instance you quickly want to invite someone to your sim on a grid, and if this would be allowed it would be as simple as dropping that person the loginuri for the client and in a second he could join you as a guest (given he couldn't register or figure out how to register in that moment). And now that there are SL viewers which work off web browsers as well, think what use this could be put to... an avatar could just go to www.something.com, choose a nickname (firstname / lastname) and be in-world!Of course I'm talking about a non-default setting, this would only be a feature which grid owners would enable if they wanted to, and unless someone specifically wants this enabled grids would remain restricted to registered users only. There are of course other questions this raises as well... for instance, avatars loging in as guests would not have their inventory, profile and all other settings stored between login sessions, as it would be very complicated and pointless to persist stuff like inventory for someone who only logs in once with a random auto-generated name and avatar UUID. Yet they could walk around, talk, build as well, and I think this would bring the community on Opensim closer and offer a lot of advantages if done proberly.Ways to differ guests from registered users should be placed in as well. Best way would be forcing the Last Name to be "Guest", so to login as anonymous the user would need to use any first name they want, the last name "guest" and no password. That would be the best way to know when someone did not log in as a registered user or not. Also, individual regions should be given the option to specify if they allow guests in or not, as long as the grid itself does too. A grid could allow anonymous logins but a region may specify if it doesn't want to allow that from opensim.ini.example, and a guest trying to TP or border cross to such a region would be blocked with a popup telling them they need to use an avatar registered to the grid to enter. Grids and / or sims could also give what permissions they would wish to guests as well, such as if guests should be allowed to build on that grid / sim, script, upload files and all else.I think this is an interesting point and would love to hear your opinions as to wether or not this should be done one way or another. This couldn't ruin anything or make anyone unhappy if they don't want to enable it, and I for one see a bright future with allowing such a thing to work. To make things even more clear I made a small personal list of pros and cons for allowing anonymous logins on large grids. Here it is:Pros:- Allowing anonymous logins on grids would make it easier for people to get in and have at least a tour of things, thus increase user count and popularity of Opensim and OS based grids. When many people hear they have to register to look around OSGrid they often say "forget it, I don't have time to bother with this right now", but if people could easily visit as guests many would likely get in and take a look more often. On OSGrid I believe this could severily increase user count and popularity.- Such a feature would allow easily using Opensim as something similar to a forum or IRC system, as I had mentioned above. Just like on forums where guests are allowed to post but cannot have an avatar or signature and upload files until they register, Opensim could allow guests to login and chat, build, while registering would offer an unique name for the user as well as a persistent inventory and profile, probably more rights as well depending on what the grid would allow guests to do. This could also make usage between Opensim and other platforms like chat systems even more easier, and encourage other applications on guest-based user systems to try to connect with Opensim creatively.- Useful for testing and especially for running bots. For pCampBot you need to register an avatar for every single bot you want to login, and don't forget that on most grids you need a different email address for each avatar you register as well. On OSGrid for instance I used up all my email addresses to make two bot accounts and my own account. This would allow running bots easily without having to register each first as well as making other types of tests easier as well.Cons:- One thing this would do would be to open new doors to griefers. Many griefers could try to barge in and do what they want with scripts, attacks, etc. There would be ways to prevent that of course... for instance access from a certain IP address should remain be possible to restrict in the same way rather that you attempt to login as a registered grid user or as a guest from that machine.- As mentioned above, features like static inventory, profiles, groups, friends list, and other things related to storing information in the grid for an avatar would not be doable for guests, and all that would be temporary for each login session in their case. Still they can run and fly, talk and build, etc.So yeah, that's what I thought of so far. I hope this idea will be considered and maybe OSGrid and other grids would be better and have a bigger and more open community this way. What do you think? Would allowing anonymous logins for grid mode and using them in a limited amount on large grids be a good idea? Is it doable, are there any plans on that?

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