[WEB4LIB] another remote authentication query

[Gregory Sennema]

Thanks to all who responded to me and the list.

It looks like some vendors (e.g., OCLC FirstSearch's webscripting
option) would support the setup we are thinking of, but other vendors
only deal with IP recognition.  For the time being, I do not think we
can get away from IP recog, or at least a hybrid setup.

Thanks again

>>> "Gregory  Sennema" <GSENNEMA at calvin.edu> 01/24/01 12:42PM >>>
Greetings.

Our IT department is working towards the single authentication system
to access our college's web-services (courseware, registration,
library
databases) for both local and remote logins.

I thought this was going to involve the setting up of a proxy, so that
the remote patron would change the proxy settings on their browser,
with
the databases "thinking" they are being accessed from the correct IP,
and so on. 

However, if I understand correctly, our IT is not wanting our users to
go through a proxy, but rather when the local or remote user logs into
the system, attached to their login file info (LDAP?) are the various
passwords for our research databases.  When the user, after being
authenticated, links to one of our research databases, the id/password
is automatically filled out behind the scenes (ip becomes irrelevant
in
this scenario).

Does this sound familiary to anyone?  Is there any documentation that
I
could be referred to?  Has anyone tried this and found success with
some
databases but not others?

thanks in advance for any help on this.


Greg Sennema
Digital Resources Librarian
Hekman Library
Calvin College & Calvin Theological Seminary
3207 Burton St SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49546
tel: (616) 957-8455
fax: (616) 957-6470