NetBadge

Information for Web Developers and Server Administrators

[Nov 23, 2009 14:09] Web access to Microsoft Live@edu accounts now works.

Introduction

This section presents information for developers who need to build or adapt applications to use NetBadge, and for Web server administrators who need to work in the NetBadge environment. The terms “Pubcookie” and “NetBadge” will be used, respectively, to denote the underlying authentication technology and the UVa implementation of that technology. Find more information about Pubcookie at pubcookie.org.

Authentication Vs. Authorization

Pubcookie/NetBadge only verifies the identity of a user (authentication); it does not determine whether a given user is authorized to use your application. You should take special care, therefore, in configuring NetBadge access to your site.

  • In its default configuration, NetBadge will grant access to all authorized UVa network users—students, faculty, staff, guest account holders, applicants, contractors, and others.
  • If you wish to restrict access to a smaller group, you must explicitly specify allowed user IDs or use NetBadge in conjunction with some other tool, such as LDAP. Review the specific information for UNIX and Windows to learn more.

Get Platform-Specific Information

In configuring an application to use NetBadge, the first step is to use a Web server that has the pubcookie module installed. Apache (Unix) and Microsoft IIS can both be configured to use pubcookie. Once the web server has been installed and configured, then the web server itself handles the NetBadge authentication magic. The web application does not need to do any authentication at all.

After setting up your Apache- or IIS-based application to use NetBadge, contact ITC’s Unix Systems group to let them know you want your server to participate in NetBadge authentication, and they can make the necessary entries on their end.

© 2009 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia.

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