[Web4lib] Single Sign-On [SSO] Software

[Andrew Hankinson]

I've dabbled with it a bit.  What sort of 'single sign on' are you  
looking for?  I've used Kerberos, which can be a mighty pain to set  
up and administer.  It's SSO in that you can log in to your machine  
once, and your machine can pass your credentials on to various  
services, including websites, but also email servers, chat servers,  
etc.  I'm assuming you're meaning SSO from website-to-website, and  
not a Directory-service type of SSO.

OpenID has been gaining some traction, and, although I'm not familiar  
with it, you may want to have a look at it.  http://openid.net/

Andrew

On 14-Jun-07, at 8:36 PM, Bruce Brigell wrote:

> Does anyone have any experience with Single Sign-on Software  
> utilities?
>
> I know that they are in use at Ann Arbor Public Library and Phoenix
> Public Library, but have not as yet been able to contact people  
> there to
> find out which one they are using.
>
> Wikipedia has a nice list of some of the products available--just
> curious which ones have been adapted successfully in a library
> environment.
>
> Background info:
>
> John Blyberg in his blog entry entitled Library 2.0 websites: Where to
> begin?
> http://www.blyberg.net/2006/03/12/library-20-websites-where-to-begin/
> <http://www.blyberg.net/2006/03/12/library-20-websites-where-to- 
> begin/>
> writes:
>
> I think it's time libraries took the notion of single sign-on  
> seriously.
> We need to get away from the model where patrons are required to have
> their library cards handy every time they reserve an item. Who  
> wants to
> have one set of credentials to access the OPAC and yet another to  
> make a
> blog comment, or fill out an ILL request? Why not be like the rest of
> the world and simply require a username and password? Let me take this
> one step further, as well, and suggest that your new websites support
> session-based single sign-on--a useful little bit of web technology  
> that
> has been around since, well, almost forever. When I create an  
> account on
> a site I use frequently, I expect that I'll not have to keep re- 
> entering
> my password every time I visit. Otherwise, I won't be visiting that  
> site
> very frequently.
>
> Wikipedia has an entry on SSO
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_sign-on
> <http://library20.ning.com/forum/topic/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
> Single_sign
> -on>  that links to an interesting article
> <http://www.authenticationworld.com/Single-Sign-On-Authentication/ 
> >  on
> the Authentication world site.
>
>
> Bruce Brigell
> Skokie Public Library
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