[wp-edu] Federated Authentication? Anyone thought about it?

[Amy Hendrix]

Hi Patrick,

Are you using the latest version of the WP Shib plugin? It now
sanitizes names order to deal with the @ problem. We're using it to
allow integration with our existing login systems, and not (yet) for
off-campus logins, but if the problem you're having is just the name
syntax that shouldn't make a difference. There are some details here:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-shibboleth-username-at-risk-of-breaking-permalinks-with-author
(note that that thread is about broken links, but it gets into user
name rewriting further down the thread).

best of luck,
Amy

On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 3:03 PM, Patrick Laverty
<patrick_laverty at brown.edu> wrote:
> Has anyone else thought about allowing federated authentication to
> your Wordpress instance?  Where you can allow people at different
> institutions log in to your server with a username and password that
> is not a part of your school's?
>
> We're trying to do it with Shibboleth (as opposed to OAuth or some of
> the other mechanisms).  The problem that we're running into is usually
> a federated ID will look like an email address, which is what
> indicates who the identity provider is.  However, Wordpress has some
> validation checking that doesn't allow anything other than letters for
> the username and the @ and . make the username invalid.  We've even
> tried creating an additional plugin, or extending the existing
> Shibboleth plugin, but we're still having trouble.  One source even
> said that we shouldn't be allowing the @ and . in the username and
> should allow for something else.
>
> So I ask you, have you thought about this problem?  Have you had to
> deal with it?  Does a solution sound easy?  Thoughts?
>
> Thank you.
>
> Patrick Laverty
> Brown University
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-- 
Amy Hendrix
Center for Instructional Technology
Duke University
amy.hendrix at duke.edu | 1 919 681 1886