patrickpollet/mahara_plugin_auth_cas

        CAS Authentication Plugin for Mahara.

Requires

An institutional CAS server AND a LDAP server for user's details

The php ldap extension MUST be installed

Some experience with Moodle's CAS auth plugin will certainly help, since the settings are the same

Some guts since this is a preliminary version ;-)

How it works

This plugin provides an alternate login url which is mahara/auth/cas/index.php. After authentication to the 'central CAS' server, user account will be autocreated if needed from the associated LDAP server.

Currently there can be only ONE instance of this plugin on a whole Mahara site. Unpredictable results will occur if you add several instances to several institutions.

Installation

Get the latest zip file from github https://github.com/patrickpollet/mahara_plugin_auth_cas 1) if you rae running Mahara < 1.8 change branch to 1.7_stable, otherwise stay on master branch

 2) unzip the file (named something like patrickpollet-mahara_plugin_auth_cas-ef163b7.zip) into the auth/ directory 
    of your Mahara installation

 3) rename the folder from patrickpollet-mahara_plugin_auth_cas-xxxxx to cas

OR if you use git (recommanded method): 1) on the command line, go to your mahara/auth directory and type
2) git clone https://github.com/patrickpollet/mahara_plugin_auth_cas.git cas 3) this will create the required cas directory at the proper place for Mahara to find it
3bis) if you are running Mahara <1.8 change the branch by typing git checkout 1.7_stable 4) if your main mahara is also under git type echo htdocs/auth/cas >> .git/info/exclude 5) you could update at any time by typing git pull from mahara/auth/cas directory ;-))

3) Enable the plugin: Log in Mahara as an administrator. Go to "Site Administration" > "Administer Extentions" Enable the cas plugin

4) Configure THE institution you want to authenticate with the CAS plugin : in "Site Administration" > "Manage Institutions" click on "Edit" for the institution you want to configure under "Authentication plugin" select "CAS" and click "Add" enter CAS specific field's and LDAP field's values as required These values are exactly the same as those required for the CAS authentication plugin of Moodle. click submit

5) Testing : Stay connected as administrator and, USING ANOTHER BROWSER, or ANOTHER PC ( important in case something goes wrong) call the URL http://yourmaharasite/auth/cas/ You should be redirected to the CAS server and after authentication, back to the Mahara front page logged in as the proper user

6) Caution : In Mahara, users are associated with the authentication method they have used at the first connection (internal,LDAP...); thus if the username used in CAS already exists in Mahara database, he won't be able to login by CAS. You must change manually in table 'usr' the value of the column 'authinstance' to match the numeric id of the CAS authentification plugin (the value of column id in table 'auth_instance' for the line having authname='cas').

7) Add the link to the CAS entry page on your site. It can be done by editing the site front page or adding a site link (public only so it will diseapear when user is logged in) or editing the sideblock's template login.tpl in your theme to add the link and eventually remove the regular username/password entry boxes if you are 100% CAS

7 bis) Don't forget to also customize the template login.tpl (by copying first it in theme/yourtheme/templates/) see https://github.com/patrickpollet/mahara_plugin_auth_cas/issues/8

8) AN emergency login box (for admin and internal users) is available at http://yourmaharasite/auth/cas/admin/login.php

9) Getting rid of it : Goto to site administration / extensions and click on the link [hide] for the cas plugin
Remove all references to http://yourmaharasite/auth/cas/ in your site

10) TODO HAve a site config option screen instead of an instance configuration
Make the french translation

Enjoy

PP 13/12/2011