dear readers,
This mail is not really ment for us, 'normal users', but I was told to ask questions and post remarks on this forum, and not directly to support@scalix.com (which i did first)
Basically I hope that the scalix technicians will read this and answer... :-)
So here it goes:
There is a solution called a-select [http://www.a-select.org/] that can provide single sign on for web solutions. Basically meaning that you sign on once, and then access all resources you have access to, without re-authenticating.
All resources meaning [for example] your web email (ms outlook web access for example), webfolders, intranet, even your bank account (some banks in holland are a-select enabled), blackboard, oracle, mmbase, java servlets, apache, etc, etc, etc.
Basically it enables you to build a webportal where your users authenticate, and from there on it only takes one click to go anywhere.
So, my question is: how difficult would it be to make scalix a-select enabled? (read: how modular in the scalix authentication module?)
Here is a small description from the a-select website that might help in answering my question:
<quote>
Developing A-Select aware applications means that your applications have to interface with the A-Select System. For that purpose, your application must call the A-Select Agent. The A-Select Agent implements the full A-Select API in a platform independent way. When you're building or migrating a generic Web application, you'll probably wish to use one of the A-Select Webserver filters. These filters take care of all the API calls with the A-Select Agent. Your application scripts/pages will receive requests that are authenticated only. So, the programming is reduced to an absolute minimum. If your application needs to extract the identity of the user, you can conveniently extract this from the request.
</quote>
Thanks very much for any feedback. (I am in contact with the a-select people as well, so if you need any information or would like to talk directly with one of the 'insiders', that's no problem)
Kindly yours,
Mourik jan