[wp-hackers] Single sign-on with Wordpress & Mediawiki

Callum Macdonald lists.automattic.com at callum-macdonald.com
Tue Oct 30 22:46:01 GMT 2007


OpenID does exactly what's been described. You log in to the OpenID 
server, you visit a client application (MW/WP/etc) and it makes a call 
to the OpenID server for authentication.

I don't know how you'd integrate the permissions / group structures / 
etc within each application. It might be possible to manage that through 
the OpenID server. Ultimately, I think each application will store it's 
own group, permissions, and role data alongside the user table. In WP 
it's in usermeta, I'm guessing it's a similar setup in the other apps. 
To combine those, you're facing the same challenge whether you use 
OpenID as the base or WordPress.

Cheers - Callum.

Sneaks wrote:
> Pardon my ignorance, but given the possible permissions/roles/groups 
> and UI management in each package, how well would a local OpenID 
> server handle these issues and pass authentication to each application?
>
> I know the OpenID concept is ideally nice, but I'm more interested in 
> getting a traditional, seamless integration out of these disparate 
> packages. My main concern is the end-user's experience. Security 
> issues aside (not to minimize them), WP seems to make most of the 
> management and authentication process pretty painless.
>
>
>
> Callum Macdonald lists.automattic.com-at-callum-macdonald.com 
> |wordpress| wrote:
>> I agree, it sounds very much like OpenID.
>>
>> Rather than re-invent the wheel I'd suggest using OpenID as a basis. 
>> There are OpenID plugins for an awful lot of OSS apps out there 
>> already, including WordPress, MediaWiki, etc.
>>
>> I'm not sure WordPress makes the best base to store the user tables.
>> 1) Passwords are stored insecurely (the hashes should be salted)
>> 2) The login cookies are ridiculously easy to fake (simply md5 what's 
>> in the db)
>>
>> Something which stores passwords salted, and keeps a separate key for 
>> login would be much more secure. If you suspect your database might 
>> have been stolen, simply update all the login tokens. Every user has 
>> to log in again, no major inconvenience .With WordPress, you'd have 
>> to send everyone new passwords, major pain in the ass.
>>
>> That's my tuppence worth!
>>
>> Cheers - Callum.
>>
>> DD32 wrote:
>>> On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 08:18:28 +1100, Sneaks 
>>> <0vcqn5q02 at sneakemail.com> wrote:
>>>  
>>>> how about an open-source, WP-suite of auth sharing plugins for 
>>>> commonly
>>>> bundled software?
>>>>
>>>> 1. mediawiki
>>>> 2. bbPress
>>>> 3. ??
>>>>
>>>> i'll host SVN and a website if anyone wants to do this.
>>>>     
>>>
>>> I was just thinking of something similar, Something which acts like 
>>> Googles signin page might be good, All sign in attempts get 
>>> redirected from 3rd party software to WP's login page, If the user 
>>> is allready logged in, it redirects back to the application with a 
>>> key, the plugin in that software package reads the key, checks if 
>>> its correct, and then logs the user into that application too, 
>>> Actually, Thats sounding a bit like OpenID, exept more streamlined 
>>> for a single domain.
>>>
>>> That is assuming that other software have the great plugin hooking 
>>> abilities that WP has :)
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>>
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