[Opensim-users] Grid <-> Authentication Service

[Diva Canto]

Hi,

We have set up a small OpenSim grid here at UCI, for experimentation.
We are about to hook it up to the existing campus identity service, but
before we do that, I thought I'd ask if someone has already done something
like that, and what your experiences were.

Here's the situation: UCI, like most other organizations, already has identities
for its community -- 50,000 of them, in our case. These identities are used all 
over web-based services provided by the departments/units on campus. There is 
one central ID / authentication service for all of this. So what I want is to reuse 
that for ID and authentication of grid logins, instead of forcing people to create
new OpenSim grid accounts -- the proliferation of on-line identities is one
of the biggest plagues of the internet, right after spam. I don't want new accounts,
and I don't want our grid to store passwords -- that's the job of the campus-wide
authentication service, which works pretty well.

The usage scenario is this: pull up the viewer, and type as first name the UCI ID and as last name: uci.edu. That's all. No prior account setting or registration of any kind. The login request will be forwarded to the campus authentication service, which sends back information about the user.

I know we're going to have to tweak the LoginService a little bit.
Any past experiences doing this? Any general advice?
 
Thanks.

Diva Canto / Crista Lopes + Associate Professor

Information and Computer Sciences + University of California, Irvine