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In search for a multi app login system.

By SaWey | January 23, 2008

Prequel 

As a web developer, I like to use great applications that do whatever I need, but when it comes to integrating different apps into one, the troubles begin.
Wouldn’t it be great if all those different apps used one authentication system, so when you login to one of them, you are logged in to all of them.

Around most of the applications there is an active community available, and most of the time someone is working on integrating that app into another. All that precious time that could be spent on new features, security enhancements, home relaxation…
 

The way I see it: 

Let’s call the system interconnect.

Interconnect would be a login-framework that uses a basic backend.
It should include all available authentication methods (openId, LDAP, Apache, …) and support all databases commonly used in web apps.

The database should have a layout similar to this:

-User table

Contains basic user info like id/username/real name/password/email/…

-Group table

A basic implementation of usergroups

-User-Group table

Offcource we need to know which user resides in which group.
This table should also contain a field called ‘application’.
The ‘application’ field can be used to set a per application group assignment.

-Config

Not sure if this would be necessary, but it could contain some configuration of the system.

To autenticate a user, an application would include a class of the framework to handle all the checks if the user may be logged in.
This class would also return a User-object which contains all info about this user.
Same thing for adding/editing users, the same class does it all : -)

I think this would be fairly easy to do and if I would be able to get the attention of some application development teams, this project can come to life.
We first should have a big discussion on how and what it has to be able of.
So, if you’re interested, please comment and spread the word!!!

How ironically, when writing this post, and browsing the net (yes, that’s a strange combination), I just stumled upon an app that does what I am talking about: Crowd.
Only problem is, this is a commercial package an thus can’t be integrated in open-source projects.

Topics: Small talk, Web developments | 4 Comments »