Re: [VuFind-General] Authentication options - SIP?

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We have a couple options for authenticating with SIP.  

     23 - Patron Status Request
     63 - Patron Information
     93 - Login

Message 23 is a subset of 63 and all three methods take userid and password.  I know EZProxy uses message 23.

As of this afternoon I have my vuFind install authenticating against SIP2.  I use the following sequence to logon.

     1) Send message 99 SC Status
     2) Read the response 
     3) Send message 23 with userid and password
     4) Check for success

I will probably switch to message 63 since it returns more information including email address.  It might also make sense to implement all three methods for greater flexibility.

One gotcha is the way the users full name is returned.  My system seems to return 'Doe, John' while the SIP documentation shows 'John Doe'.  Little things like this will need to be configurable.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael D Doran" <do...@ut...>
To: vuf...@li...
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2008 4:42:39 PM (GMT-0500) America/New_York
Subject: Re: [VuFind-General] Authentication options - SIP?

Hi Bob,

> I don't thinks it's as bad as that. 

That would be good news.  :-)

> Out of the whole spec I  really only need two SIP commands
> and they appear to be fairly generic. 

That's promising.  What two commands are those?

> Otherwise how would things like Overdrive and EZProxy work?
> Our EZProxy setup authenticates via SIP and it doesn't have
> any Unicorn specific configuration.

I didn't mean to suggest that any VuFind-side SIP2 API (i.e. a SIP2 client) would need to be customized, only that the ILS-side SIP2 API (i.e. a SIP2 server) may either not be present, or may lack the functionality needed to do the authentication.  Regardless of the client-server communication standard, it takes two to tango, and unfortunately, unlike most other protocols that we use, one side of the client-server SIP2/NCIP transaction may not be everything we want, or need.

I've long been a proponent of leveraging the SIP2/NCIP standards -- I'm on your side on this!  I would be tinkering around with one, or the other, of them here, but we haven't purchased either of the add-on modules that would give us those APIs.

Good luck!

-- Michael

# Michael Doran, Systems Librarian
# University of Texas at Arlington
# 817-272-5326 office
# 817-688-1926 mobile
# do...@ut...
# http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Wicksall [mailto:bwi...@pl...] 
> Sent: Friday, April 11, 2008 3:13 PM
> To: Doran, Michael D
> Cc: vuf...@li...
> Subject: Re: [VuFind-General] Authentication options - SIP?
> 
> I don't thinks it's as bad as that.  Out of the whole spec I 
> really only need two SIP commands and they appear to be 
> fairly generic.  Otherwise how would things like Overdrive 
> and EZProxy work?  Our EZProxy setup authenticates via SIP 
> and it doesn't have any Unicorn specific configuration.
> 
> I have seen SIP2 quirks in our ILS but all I need is a very 
> small subset of the whole spec.  The functions that support 
> SelfCheck provide far more than I need to authenticate.  
> Worst case we may need to add some ILS specific configuration 
> options. 
> 
> SIP2 doesn't come by default with Unicorn but we needed it 
> anyway for Overdrive.  
> 
> Bob Wicksall
> Systems Administrator
> 
> Pioneer Library System
> 2557 State Rt. 21
> Canandaigua, New York  14424
> 
> Voice: (585) 394-8260
> Fax: (585) 394-1935
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael D Doran" <do...@ut...>
> To: vuf...@li...
> Sent: Friday, April 11, 2008 3:49:05 PM (GMT-0500) America/New_York
> Subject: Re: [VuFind-General] Authentication options - SIP?
> 
> Hi Bob,
> 
> > There is a SIP2 PHP library available that has done most of 
> the work.  
> > It should be simple enough to incorporate it into vuFind.
> 
> >From my limited understanding of SIP2 (and/or NCIP) 
> implementation on the ILS side of things, authentication via 
> SIP2 would be very ILS-specific.  So while simple in your 
> case, a VuFind SIP2 API is unlikely to be plug-and-play for 
> other sites.  For instance, for the Voyager ILS, a SIP2 or 
> NCIP server is not available by default, but is only 
> installed to support add-on products (ILL & SelfCheck 
> modules).  Those Voyager SIP2/NCIP servers only support the 
> functionality needed for those add-on products and a lot 
> (most?) of the SIP2/NCIP protocol functionality is not 
> available for developers to hook into.
> 
> However, if you can make VuFind authentication work via your 
> ILS's SIP2, that would certainly help us make the case to our 
> ILS vendors to get with the standards compliance program.  
> Please keep us updated -- this would be pretty exciting.  :-)
> 
> -- Michael
> 
> # Michael Doran, Systems Librarian
> # University of Texas at Arlington
> # 817-272-5326 office
> # 817-688-1926 mobile
> # do...@ut...
> # http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/
>  
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: vuf...@li...
> > [mailto:vuf...@li...] On 
> Behalf Of Bob 
> > Wicksall
> > Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 12:00 PM
> > To: Andrew Nagy
> > Cc: vuf...@li...
> > Subject: Re: [VuFind-General] Authentication options - SIP?
> > 
> > That sounds like an interesting project.  I'll see what I can do.
> > 
> > There is a SIP2 PHP library available that has done most of 
> the work.  
> > It should be simple enough to incorporate it into vuFind.
> > 
> > Bob
> > 
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Andrew Nagy" <and...@vi...>
> > To: "Bob Wicksall" <bwi...@pl...>, 
> > vuf...@li...
> > Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 12:07:31 PM (GMT-0500) 
> America/New_York
> > Subject: RE: [VuFind-General] Authentication options - SIP?
> > 
> > Bob - I think SIP authentication would be a great addition 
> - it's just 
> > that no one has gotten to it yet.  Most vufind implementers 
> are using 
> > LDAP and that has satisfied the masses thus far.
> > 
> > If you would like to build SIP authentication into vufind 
> and submit a 
> > patch, I would be more than happy to include it in the source.
> > 
> > Andrew
> > 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: vuf...@li... 
> [mailto:vufind- 
> > > gen...@li...] On Behalf Of Bob Wicksall
> > > Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 11:12 AM
> > > To: vuf...@li...
> > > Subject: [VuFind-General] Authentication options - SIP?
> > >
> > > I haven't done anything with authentication on my vuFind
> > site yet so
> > > I'm asking this question from a position of ignorance.
> > >
> > > Has anyone thought about authenticating against SIP 
> instead of LDAP?
> > > We already use SIP authentication for our database access 
> and audio 
> > > books.  It would be nice to do the same with vuFind.
> > >
> > > Bob Wicksall
> > > Systems Administrator
> > >
> > > Pioneer Library System
> > > 2557 State Rt. 21
> > > Canandaigua, New York  14424
> > >
> > > Voice: (585) 394-8260
> > > Fax: (585) 394-1935
> > >
> > >
> > > 
> 
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