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Systems Integration with Libre Software subject

Next Saturday, I’m bringing to a close the subject I coordinate: Systems Integration with Libre Software which was set out in five different topics:

  • Services related with systems and network administration.
  • Web services related with web systems administration.
  • Workshop on systems integration.
  • Scripting.
  • Network, user and physical security.

Berto, Javi Muñoz, Quique and me have been the teachers, but we counted on Marcelo Branco who gave a talk about “Libre Software and open standards in Public Administration”.

During this subject we have tried to teach in a practical way testing almost all the topics while the teacher was explaining the concepts. Thanks to this approach our students have been able to develop a custom Single Sign On and a Soap Server, analyze the configuration of different servers (Apache, LDAP, etc.), practice firewalling and some hacking concepts or develop some scripts in bash and perl. You can download documents and examples from URJC Moodle.

Next Saturday I’m going to have a debate with the students about all the subject and I will try to obtain some feedback in order to improve it for the next Master on Free/Libre Software in Vigo.

Back from London

I’m back and working. I had several concerns about my trip but now I can talk about it without worry because everything was fine.
First of all, I want to talk about the accommodation and the English language school that I had to book from Galicia, only recommended by generic comments at different forums.

  • Accommodation: It was fine because the apartment was as I expected. Although the general cleaning seemed good I needed to roll the rug because of the dust. The apartments location is very good because they are near Hyde park and close to two tube stations (Bayswater and Queensway).

My apartment

  • King Street College: It isn’t a big school and the courses are thought for longer periods (3 months for example), so I couldn’t find a specific course for me. However, I’m happy about the results because I could meet people from different countries and cultures (Korea, Japan, Poland, Germany, The Czech Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Turkey), therefore I could attend class in a completely English language environment with people who doesn’t have the same mistakes than I have. I was in different classes during the first week and the second week, you can see a photo taken during the my last class.

My classmates
After school I always tried to visit the most important tourist places. I went to the museums, The Tower of London, The Tower Bridge, etc. And then, during the evenings I wanted to do different things that are difficult to do in small towns :) :

  • I went to a classical music concert. I listened the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing Rossini, Beethoven and Mendelsohn. I like the classical music so I enjoyed a lot the concert because I could attend this concert.
  • I went to the musical show “We will rock you!”: Incredible! I recommend it to everybody who likes Queen music.
  • I attended a Jazz concert at 606Club. Although it isn’t easy to arrive at and the entrance can frighten a bit, once inside, the club is lovely and I felt very well in the club. The dinner was the best I had in London and they are very interested on having the best Jazz players performing in the club.  The day I went, Paul Booth performed and I was very satisfied with the concert.

Finally, I need to comment the “pure chance” of my holidays… I was able to see the controversial Olympic torch before a girl were to walk along the Tower Bridge with the torch. I approached to the group of polices that surrounded the girl and I could take a photo :) … But I didn’t know the attempt of boycott and I didn’t realize that the police was alert and I could have been moved apart from them .. but finally nothing happened and they only said to me that I should keep away (you can see the police warning me…).

The controversial olympic torch
To sum up, I’m very happy with my trip and I think I’ll repeat when I can…

Preparing my trip to London

As part of the benefits we have because of working in Igalia, I’m going to London next month in order to improve my English level. Igalia pays part of my travel because I’ll attend an English course during two weeks.
I’ve never been in London before, so I’ve been very stressed during two weeks, searching schools, accommodation and reading all kind of information related to London.

I’m going to write some urls that can be very useful for you :) if you want to manage your travel to London. I don’t know if all my information will be good :) , but when I come back I’ll write about it.

First, I was very busy searching by apartments because I have allergic asthma and I wanted to find a room with wood laminate flooring, but all the budget hotels had fitted carpet. The problem is that it’s difficult to find studios only for two weeks, however there are a lot of apartments for more than one month.

If you want to go more than several months you can find letting agents using several national associations:

You can use the following url to check information about a company if you don’t feel very confident about it:

The main problem is going to London only two or three weeks. You’ll have to search apartments using specific sites for short letting apartments. Some examples:

The problem is the difficulty to know if you can be confident with this companies… I’m going with the first… So, when I come back I’ll tell you my opinion about it. This company works as middleman between you and the owner of the apartments.

After I could close my accommodation, I could know that there is a site that works with young hostels, where you can get good offers (even better if you don’t mind to share rooms):

I decided to use that site because I found a FAQ about London very useful:

There, you can find information about London transport, restaurants, pubs, accommodation, places you should visit…

Then, if you want to find some English courses you can use British Council where you cand find several schools and the kind of courses they offer. I’ve decided attend a course in King Street College near to Shepherd’s Bush tube station (that is currently closed :( ).

I hope I will come back from London very happy with my selection and I expect I can give you more detailed information about ShortStay and King School.

Xavi.

Colexio Profesional de Enxeñeiros en Informática de Galicia

Ola a todos,

o próximo día 15 de Decembro os Enxeñeiros en Informática de Galicia temos nas nosas mans a decisión máis importante, que como grupo, nunca tivemos. O vindeiro sábado votaremos os primeiros estatutos do Colexio Profesional de Enxeñaría en Informática de Galicia, así como a primeira Xunta de Goberto do mesmo.

Anímovos a todos que vaiades votar porque así teredes nas vosas mans a posibilidade de decidir por onde queredes que de os primeiros pasos esta nova institución.

Algúns compañeiros de Igalia (entre os cales estou eu) pensamos que podemos aportar o noso grao de area neste inicio de andadura do Colexio e decidimos formar parte de un equipo de persoas que se presenta para a xunta de goberto. Un grupo de persoas heteroxéneo, pero ó mesmo tempo, con perfís moi ricos. Esto daranos a posibilidade de contar con puntos de vista diferentes sobre a realidade da Enxeñaría en Informática e en consecuencia permitiranos dar lugar a un Colexio que represente todas as sensibilidades.

Se queredes saber máis sobre quen somos e que ofrecemos podedes visitar o noso blog:

http://candidaturabrancacpeig.blogspot.com/
Espérovos a todos na asemblea!

After a long time

Today I’ve published cas_auth and caslogin extensions on Typo3 extension repository. You can download them from:

Both extensions have been developed in order to allow integration between CAS and Typo3.

As I said on a previous post -see CAS and Typo3 (II)-, an administrator must create a cas server in order to integrate CAS and Typo3. This kind of record is defined by cas_auth. Once the record exists, system knows where CAS server is running and tells to CAS server the url where Typo3 will check the user validation. Furthermore, cas_auth register an auth service offered by Typo3, so Typo3 will check user as cas_auth does it.

However, with cas_auth, Typo3 only knows how to validate users. Typo3 needs, a least, a frontend link or something to allow users to access to CAS login page. “Caslogin” creates and shows that link.

You’ll you can integrate completely CAS and Typo3 with these two extensions.

byGalicia na Forxa de Mancomún

O proxecto byGalicia é un proxecto que foi desenvolto sobre Typo3. Typo3 é un xestor de contidos libre e desenvolto na linguaxe php. Este sistema de xestión de contidos esconde un potencial importante para a implantación de aplicacións web de bastante envergadura e ofrece unha gran capacidade de ampliación grazas ó seu sistema de extensións.
Igalia, dende un inicio, prometeu a súa intención de publicar todo o traballo desenvolto sobre Typo3 na Forxa de Mancomún, coa intención de converter a byGalicia nun proxecto que, non só esté implantado sobre software libre senón que o sexa, en si mesmo.

Por esta razón, dende o grupo de traballo de xestión de contidos levouse a cabo o traballo poder publicar as extensións, e grazas ó labor de Diego, Loren, Iván e Manuel durante o mes de Agosto, xa podemos dipoñer das extensións do o proxecto byGalicia na Forxa.

Resaltar que o sistema de extensións de Typo3 promove a creación de bastantes dependencias entre extensións e a creación de algunas de pequeno tamaño como base para desenvolver funcionalidades máis importantes. En consecuencia, decidíuse publicar todas as extensións que utilizamos -ou modificamos- xuntas nun arquivo tgz coas últimas versións de cada unha para que todo o mundo que o desexa poida descargalas, probalas e melloralas.

Entre as extensións publicadas destacar varias pola importancia e envergadura que teñen:

  • Extensións para integrar CAS con Typo3.
  • Extensión que mellora o sistema de desenvolvemento de formularios de Ameos: Formidable.
  • Extensión de xestión de currículos.
  • Extensión para a xestión da sección de Empresas de Galicia, onde as empresas galegas poden dispor de unha pequena páxina web para contar quen son e que fan.
  • Extensión de xestión de rexistro de usuarios.
  • Extensión que xestiona a portada personalizada dos usuarios de byGalicia.

E unhas cantas máis, ata 89 extensións das utilizadas, con algunhas que xa estaban dispoñibles previamente no repositorio de Typo3 desenvoltas por outros autores. En xeral, as extensións creadas explícitamente para byGalicia son as que comezan por “gl_“.

Xavi.

byGalicia xa é unha realidade

Despois de duros meses de traballo, no que houbo que xestionar a coordinación, só na parte técnica, en algún momento do desenvolvemento de un equipo amplo, conseguimos publicar http://www.bygalicia.eu.

Síntome especialmente orgulloso de xestionar este proxecto polo que byGalicia poida supoñer para Galicia, a quen sempre estou disposto á axudar, como bo galego. A intención da Consellería de Innovación e Industria é convertela na marca país. Esto pode significar que as empresas galegas que saian ó exterior poidan levar unha marca paraugas detrás súa e lles sexa máis doado entrar en novos mercados.

Este portal non sería posible sen a cooperación de todos os actores que formamos parte do proxecto, por iso me gustaría darlle as grazas ás persoas implicadas no desenvolvemento mesmo:

Grazas ó equipo de traballo da Fundación para o Fomento da Calidade Industrial e Desenvolvemento Tecnolóxico de Galicia, en especial a Toño, polas posibilidades que nos ofreceu para a realización de propostas e a confianza depositada en nós; e a Javi, Julio e Vicente que entraron co proxecto xa comezado pero se implicaron nel como se estivesen dende o primeiro día.

Ademáis gustaríame destacar o traballo de Fernando Beltrán e Andrés Moratinos, de “El nombre de las cosas” e “Exágono” respectivamente, porque sen eles byGalicia non sería o que é hoxe. Verdadeiros cracks!

Finalmente e non menos importantes, agradecer a todos os que en algún momento axudaron a que este proxecto chegara a bo porto: Diego, Iván, Loren e Manuel, con axudas puntuais de Mario e Berto ;) , e non me vou esquecer, de nomear a Miriam como parte do equipo nos seus inicios, responsable de que o portal sexa personalizable.

Grazas a todos,

Xavi.

CAS and Typo3 (II)

Hi,

after several months without publish comments, I’ll try to take up again this healthy habit :) . I’ll try to explain several steps to get CAS integrated with Typo3 without going into details.

My partners and I have installed CAS and Typo3 and we’ve integrated them. In order to do this, you should have the following running:

  1. CAS installed and running on application server. We’ve installed CAS on Apache Tomcat 5.5.17 and integrated with LDAP. We have installed esup-cas-server-2.0.7 using LDAP and “uid” as user identifier.
  2. Typo3 installed and running on another server (or the same, but we don’t recommend it).

Having this environment running, we’ve had to follow the steps:

  1. Download the esup-PHPCas client from http://esup-phpcas.sourceforge.net/.
  2. Implement a new Typo3 extension “cas_auth“.
  1. esup-PHPcas was copied to cas_auth extension in order to be included from my class. CAS client provides this methods:
  • client(): Gets a client CAS instance.
  • forceAuthentication(): Checks if user is authenticated, if he isn’t redirects to CAS login form.
  • getUser(): Gets current authenticated user.
  1. This extension should extend tx_sv_authbase.
  2. We have implemented a method getUser(), called on “Logout” and “Login” operations. That method invokes CAS client methods which authenticate user, calling to forceAuthentication() method that redirects to login form if user hasn’t a valid session.
  3. cas_auth has the property BE_enableSSO, which, if it’s set, allows to authenticate on backend if user exists both on fe_users and be_users tables.
  4. We have added the new class as a service:
    t3lib_extMgm::addService($_EXTKEY,  'auth' /* sv type */,  'tx_casauth_sv1' /* sv key */,
    array(  'title' => 'CAS Auth',
    'description' => 'Authentication with CAS',
    'subtype' => $subTypes,
    'available' => TRUE,
    'priority' => 80,
    'quality' => 80,
    'os' => '',
    'exec' => '',
    'classFile' => t3lib_extMgm::extPath($_EXTKEY).'sv1/class.tx_casauth_sv1.php',
    'className' => 'tx_casauth_sv1', )
    );
    1. Implement a new Typo3 plugin.
      1. We’ve named this extension caslogin.
      2. That extension shows a link to CAS login form if user isn’t authenticated and a link to logout if user has a valid session.
      3. There is another option that allows to set up caslogin form with a IFRAME on your site.
      4. That plugin should be added to the page where you want to validate user (showing login form or showing welcome text :) ).

    Backend configuration:

    • One “cas server” record should exist on site main sysfolder. Cas server is provided by “cas_auth“. Cas server defines:
      • Server name: Base url where Apache Tomcat serves our CAS instance.
      • Server port: Port where Apache Tomcat serves our CAS instance.
      • Log path: Complete path for cas client logging.
      • Cas servlet: Relative uri where Apache Tomcat serves our CAS instance.
      • URL to come back from CAS: Url used by CAS login form to come back to Typo3 site.
    • At least, one caslogin plugin added to one page (it could be good idea to add caslogin plugin as TypoScript Object Path over all pages).
    • ldap_server, ldap_lib and ldap_sync should be installed and configured on Typo3.

    When user accesses to site the sequence is:

    1. User goes to home page (which must have a caslogin plugin configured).
    2. Typo3 checks if user is authenticated on caslogin.
    3. CAS login form is shown on home page depending on configuration.
    4. User fills in his/her username and password.
    5. If username and password are correct, CAS login form redirects to Typo3 check login page, which can be any page that receives several “GET” variables, for example:
    “http://typo3_url/index.php?id=alias&submit=Login&logintype=login”

      Typo3 and CAS

      CAS is the Central Authentification Service. CAS is very useful for developing webs where companies wish to integrate several client services (services offered by independent tools) and offering that services avoiding that clients have to insert login and password several times (one for independent platform). In other words, CAS allows to deploy a Single Sign On among several tools.
      I have installed CAS (using the esup-cas-server) integrated with LDAP. Now, i’m trying to test integration between Typo3 CMS and CAS. By now, i have developed a service and a frontend plugin that allows to redirect to CAS login page and then, using the service, a user can access to Typo3 without authentication on Typo3.

      The following steps will be to improve the frontend plugin to show the CAS login page inside of Typo3, to avoid users to exit from Typo3 to CAS. With this improvement, the full scenario will be:

      1. A user will see public pages as anonymous user. The CMS will show an IFRAME with CAS login page.
      2. If the user wants to access to private contents, the user must introduce username and password on CAS login page.
      3. CAS login page redirects to CMS to log in the user and IFRAME will show the username and a button to log out.
      4. The user will be able to access to all private services and contents to which user has permissions.

      Reference:

      • CAS: http://www.ja-sig.org/products/cas/
      • Typo3: http://www.typo3.org

      Comenzamos!

      Hola, este es el comentario inicial del blog! Hoy es el primero de mis comentarios, espero que no sea el último :D .

      No soy un persona acostumbrada a escribir en blogs con lo que este primer comentario sirve para iniciar mi contacto con el mundo del blogger y ver si soy capaz de acostumbrarme a mantenerlo actualizado.

      Saludos.