Authentication

Supported Browsers

  • Current and recent Firefox, IE, Safari, Seamonkey, Opera an Chrome versions all supported
  • Requires browser to have Javascript enabled. The CORAL interface relies heavily on AJAX, JQuery and JQuery plugins

Server-Side Requirements and Setup

Database

The recommended name for the auth database is coral_auth_prod. If you have created a “coral” user for your other modules, it should have select, insert, update and delete privileges to the coral_auth_prod. If you are using different users for your other CORAL installs, you will need to make sure that all of your other users have select access to the new authentication database.

Installation

Installation can occur in one of two ways – either through the web installation script or manually. Web installation will provide advantages over manual because will check MySQL privileges and PHP version. Installation is recommended in the /coral/auth/ directory. It is also recommended that you check out the CORAL Main Landing page and place it into the /coral/ directory. This contains an HTML file and graphics for each module, similar to the landing page on the CORAL demo website.

Web Installation

Visit http://.../coral/auth/install/ and follow instructions on the screen

Be sure to remove the /install/ directory once installation is complete

Manual Installation

Install database tables

  1. Create new database schema (recommended name is coral_auth_prod)
  2. Run SQL file

Update /admin/configuration.ini

Important: First rename /admin/configuration_sample.ini to /admin/configuration.ini

  1. Under [settings]
    1. timeout=length of time (in seconds) the user remains logged in
  2. Under [database]
    1. type=mysqlcurrently only MySQL is supported but other database types could be supported if modifications to the generic database classes are made
    2. host=MySQL server - could be localhost as well
    3. name=database name (for example, coral_resources_prod)
    4. username=recommended to have a single user with select, update, insert, delete access to all coral modules
    5. password=password for above mentioned user
  3. For security reasons, remove the /install/ directory once the installation is complete

Setting up and using Authentication module for the first time

After installation a single default user will be set up with the username coral and password admin. In your browser, visit the page /coral/auth/admin.php to add your username/password and set yourself (or anyone else) as ‘admin’. The ‘admin’ users will be able to add, edit and delete users in Authentication. Once you have another ‘admin’ user set up you can delete the original coral/admin user.

Important: Your usernames should always match the usernames in other CORAL modules for proper privileges. Note that after the CORAL Authentication install the only user set up is ‘coral’. Be sure to add all other users from other modules on the CORAL Authentication Admin page – link is at the bottom of the login page.

Using Authentication with other CORAL Modules

CORAL Authentication should be installed before this point, and all of your users from the other CORAL Modules should be added to CORAL Authentication. If you already have other CORAL modules installed and wish to switch to CORAL Authentication, you will need to add the following to each config file - /coral/module_name/admin/configuration.ini under [settings]

authModule=Y
authDatabaseName=coral_auth_prod

You can leave the remoteAuthVariableName alone.

Users will still need to be set up in each module separately because of varying permissions for each. In Organizations and Resources any users in CORAL Authentication will be set up as view only users if they are not already set up. In Usage and Licensing users must be set up explicitly for access. The username in the CORAL module and CORAL Authentication need to match.

You also will probably want to add a ‘logout’ link to your modules pages. You can either download the new /coral/modulename/templates/header.php or you can make the following manual change:

Around line 85, replace the following line:

<br /><span style='color:red;font-size:90%;'>&nbsp;</span>

With the following line:

<br /><?php if($config->settings->authModule == 'Y'){ echo "<a href='" . $coralURL . "auth/?logout'>logout</a>"; } ?>

If you find yourself with mismatching users (i.e. only the ‘coral’ user in auth but only other users in the remaining modules), you should go into CORAL Authentication as your ‘admin’ user (coral/admin by default), go into the Admin page, and add the usernames to match the other modules.