klop Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 Hi, long shot.. and probably can't be done but is there a way to... Basically i would like to be able to allow students access to a website (possibly our learning platform) but to avoid the logging in on the website. Is there a way to use AD to make this happen? I'm guessing not as the website is external, just wondered, or maybe a script of some kind could be run at start up giveing the website login credentials, read from the AD login? Hope this makes a little sense? Oh, currently we've server 2003, but about to up to 2008 if that makes any difference. Cheers for any advice :-)
mb2k01 Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 If they're accessing externally (via their home computer etc) then they'll have to log in and authenticate somehow. In school you can get around it as you know they're accessing via station and know they're logged on as themselves. Outside the only way of authenticating would be via typing a username and password of via VPN etc (which obviously would still require some for of login!)
klop Posted March 19, 2009 Author Posted March 19, 2009 When they're home they will need to log in to the site, that's cool.. but what i really would like to be able to do is to enable their network login to login to the website for them.. so when they visit the website they're automatically logged in. I know this will only work in school, but would be good here.
mb2k01 Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 If your talking about a locally hosted LP like Moodle, then it's possible yes. Use LDAP and Windows Authentication via IIS (if you go down the MS route instead of Linux - if it's Linux I can't help - can't use it!!) 1
SteveBentley Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 If you go the unix route, there's a PHP class called ADLDAP which you can use. Works very nicely.
Domino Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 I'm guessing not as the website is external, just wondered, or maybe a script of some kind could be run at start up giveing the website login credentials, read from the AD login? the website is external? so hosted and controlled by someone else..? if so there's really no way to do this.... 1
mb2k01 Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 the website is external? so hosted and controlled by someone else..? if so there's really no way to do this.... I'd missed the external bit when making my previous posts! It's technically still possible to get LDAP authentication via an external site, but you would have to have a very good relationship with the hosting company! If it's an LEA hosted site (i.e. by your schools ISP) then it might well be still possible with some Firewall changes at both ends to allow that kind of traffic. I'm not sure I'd want to go down that avenue myself. 1
klop Posted March 19, 2009 Author Posted March 19, 2009 Afraid yes it is external.. and there's not really that close a relationship so i'm guessing it's not really going to happen. New we should have investigated moodle a little more thoroughly! ho hum, thanks for all advice anyways.. was the answer i expected.. but if you don't ask n all that Cheers
mb2k01 Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 Out of interest, what LP is it, and who's hosting it?
Geoff Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 The only way you could have this work is if there was a VPN between your AD server(s) and the external web site. Thus allowing the two to communicate authentication information.
sahmeepee Posted March 20, 2009 Posted March 20, 2009 The only way you could have this work is if there was a VPN between your AD server(s) and the external web site. Thus allowing the two to communicate authentication information. I could think of at least one other way in the general case, but unfortunately it won't work for Uniservity. Generally speaking you could set up a lookup database which would act as an intermediary between AD and the website. Your user would click on a link which would take them to an ASP page on a local IIS server. The page would take their AD username as a variable, look it up in the database, then redirect them to the VLE login with the VLE username and VLE password embedded into the URL. You could put it into an IFRAME or something similar so that the username and password don't show up in the address bar for all to see. Once the page has had time to load, redirect the parent window to the VLEs homepage without credentials - it will still be logged in thanks to the site's cookies. If the user had access to change their own password you would find that those users who did would have to log in manually. Why won't it work with Uniservity? The Uniservity login page: https://www.school-portal.co.uk/Secure_UserVerifylogin.asp?GroupID=YOURGROUPIDHERE ...will only accept txtusername and txtpassword when passed via POST rather than GET. I will be generous to them and suggest this was done for security reasons
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now