integration

[inspireme]

Integration Mod :

I have been thinking about integration with other software, it seems pointless trying to make solutions for hundreds of possible products, people want integration with forums, other indexU directories, and hundreds of other pieces of software. I thought i would write a post, and see if anyone has some suggestions to add to this.

The logical way to integrate to hundreds of scripts is to make a separate database. This user database can have fields added to it from an admin panel, (like custom fields in indexU). This is required because different user systems have different fields, so if i was to set up a forum that asked for ICQ number, i could then add it as a custom field.

All member registrations will point to a separate global sign up page, when all fields are completed a script copies member details over to all the different databases, It requires a user to set up relationships between the user database and all the seperate scripts... this is easy enough, although could take a little explanation for new users, perhaps some kind of visual way of doing this could be made?

Okay so here are a few problems :

Login/logout is separate for each script, as each script is going to be setting cookies in a different way we cannot stay logged in across all sites, even though the login details are the same. If someone logs into indexU, they will also need to login to the forum using the same info so the cookie gets set correctly.

Solution? Maybe from an admin interface it will be possible to include a page to setup how different cookies work (cookie names, cookie fields, and if they use md5 hash on the password) you would then use a global login form that set all the cookies and logged you in to everything.

Event hough the principle works, it seems however this is done its going to take a fair bit of digging around in scripts to find out information on how cookies are st, and inspecting databases so you can set up where fields go... its not really suitable for anyone other than intermediate/advanced users... and if your at that level you could probably hack something together with user databases anyway...

So, im not sure if its worth making a mod. The alternative is to write instructions for integration on a few big scripts. I have integrated miniBB, and its actually not that difficult to do, maybe some good instructions are all thats required.

Anyway, what do people think?

[dody]

you forgot the problem how each script storing user password.
indexu by default use plain, non encripted password.
but you can also set to md5 encription, by editing /lib/auth/auth.class.php

define('USER_AUTH_TYPE', 'md5');

Indexu already has it in modular, so if you want to add another encription method, just create a new class in that auth folder. It's very simple. For md5

  class auth_md5 {
    function Convert($plain_password) {
      return md5($plain_password);
    }
  }

And also don't forget to convert current database to use the proper encription method.

[Bruceper]

Take a look at vbulletin, their passwords are stored with md5+salt, which means there's no way you're going to get the passwords out easily.

Of course, you could reset everyones password using a script to autogenerate a password and email it to them once you have completed the integration. But that'll annoy a bunch of users.