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Abstract

This project aims to add OpenID support to Roller both for user accounts and for those leaving blog comments. Make it so that new and existing users can choose to tie their user account to an OpenID identity and use that for all subsequent logins. And, make it so that bloggers can require that folks login via OpenID before leaving a comment. These features could be implemented by modifying Roller's existing Spring Acegi configuration and/or by documenting how to use a Container Manager Authentication (CMA) configuration, e.g. OpenSSO paired with a Servlet Container.
It's quite evident that the number of online user accounts increases rapidly. It's almost impossible to remember logins and passwords on each website, and that's why systems that use authentication servers have valuable priority. As far as the Roller blog server is an application which provides access to different blog sites, and all of them require authorization, it can be very useful to reduce the amount of logins at different services to minimum. It can be done by implementing the OpenID identification to the server.

Benefits for the community

The main aim of the project is to increase the efficiency of the authentication and authorization processes at the Roller blog server by managing logon to several services and users' identity in one place via an authentication server with OpenID technology. Using this technology, we'll achieve cross-application and cross-domain single sign-on (SSO). As a result, the users will be more satisfied as they won't have to remember logins and passwords from every website, and just use single OpenID identifier. And the number of people using Roller blog will increase.
With the fulfillment of the objectives previously exposed, the community will see beneficiary in the following aspects:

1. Support single logon for user accounts and for users who leave blog comments;
2. Existing users will be able to tie their accounts to the OpenID identity for further use;
3. New users will have to provide only OpenID identity for further identification;
4. If the user is not logged-in and wants to leave a comment, the system will redirect him to the login page;
5. Integration of the new authorization system to the existing one, which is built on Spring Acegi framework;
6. Support for multiple profiles (for example, provide different names and info at different services).
7. Roller system will be automatically notified when users change their info on other sites - will always have actual information.

OpenID is a technology that allows users to use one username/password pair to login to large number of web sites, but to never have to reveal their password to any of those sites. Instead of establishing a username/password pair on each site, a user instead registers with an OpenID provider site (e.g. claimid.com) and receives in return a unique OpenID identifier URL. When logging into a site that supports OpenID logins, known as an OpenID consumer site, the user specifies this URL to the consumer site, is directed to the provider site to login and then back to the consumer site in a logged in state.

This proposal is for adding OpenID support to Roller so that Roller can act as an OpenID consumer.

Requirements

Here are the basic requirements to be satisfied by this proposal:

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• Allow new users to register and login via OpenID
• Allow existing users to login via OpenID

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Issues

Should the user have a choice of which opened_url to use during authentication?
If the user can have multiple opened_urls, there should be some additional functionality on the page where the user can edit its profile details - add or remove certain opened_url from the list - and adjusted database structure should be implemented.
Another issue is the registration of the new user: the user will be asked whether he wants to use openid or not. If not, he will be redirected to the usual registration page. In other case, he will input his openid and redirected to his openIDProvider to authenticate, then, some of the information will be received from user's profile and if necessary, he will be asked to provide some special information. At the same time when the user comes to the website for the first time, he can authenticate using openid and the new account will be automatically created. So, do we need two forms of creating a new user?

Design

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• OpenID4Java (http://code.google.com/p/openid4java/^{Image Removed})
• XRI (Extensible Resource Identifier)

• Allow site operators to choose one of three modes of operation:
  • Disabled: no OpenID support and no evidence of OpenID in the Roller web UI
  • Hybrid: allow users to login via either username/password or OpenID identifier
  • Only: require users to login only via OpenID identifier

Issues

Here are the major issues we discussed during the development of this proposal:

• Allow users to specify more than one OpenID? Decision: no, one is sufficient
• Allow commenting users to login via OpenID? Decision: good idea, but we'll do this later
• Add OpenID specific methods to Roller's User Manager? Decision: no, use generic user attributes to store each user's OpenID identifier instead.

Design

Here is an overview of the design of the OpenID consumer support in Roller:

Use Spring Security's OpenID support

We will use Spring Security v2.0.3 (the latest release) and its OpenID support feature.

New database table and POJO

We will add a new database table 'roller_userattribute' and a new POJO UserAttribute to store each user's OpenID identifier URL. Later, this table can be used to associated other data with each user.

New UserManager methods

Add methods for setting and getting user attributes.

New startup properties

Add a new startup property called 'authentication.openid' with three possible values: disabled, hybrid and only. See the requirements for the meanings of these strings.

Changes to registration form

Add an OpenID identifier field that will be shown in hybrid and only modes. Here's what the form will look like in hybrid mode:

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Changes to login form

Add an OpenID identifier field that will be shown in hybrid and only modes. Here's what the form will look like in hybrid mode:

Image Added

Changes to user profile form

Add an OpenID identifier field that will be shown in hybrid and only modes

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• org.apache.roller.weblogger.User.java - add the list of openids and method of casting openid to the canonical view (so in the database it will be stored in the predefined format)
  • String castToCanonical(String url)
• Create a new POJO class UserAttributes which will represent the userattributes database table.
• Modify class JPAUserManagerImpl.java - add method and methods connected with receiving an username and managing his openIDs, for instance:
  • User getUserByOpenIDUrl (openid_url) - returns instance of user by the verified openid_url
  • GetOpenIDsByUser(user_id) - returns the list of openid's that belong to one user
  • AttachOpenID(openid_url, user_id) - add openid url to the user's profile
  • DetachOpenID(openid_url, user_id) - delete certain openid url from the user's profile
  • DetachOpenIDsByUser(user_id) - delete all openIDs from the user's profile

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Project Plan

1. Examine the application structure and the features of the existing authorization system, built using the Spring Acegi framework. Understand, what types of security filters are used and how they can be replaced. Outline, what features to change and what to edit in the existing system.
2. Plan the main functionality of the project and install required libraries to the system.
3. Release the main functionality - add necessary classes, scripts, database tables and Spring Security filters.
4. Change the visual interface of the application (add authentication prompt to ask users for their OpenID identifier rather than their username and password).
5. Test the system and write necessary documentation.

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