Grouper Developers Forum

["Sanjay Vivek" <>]

Hi everyone,

This is a brief progress report on our work with Grouper and WS. We
currently have the following Web Service Calls:

1) getGroupMembers(String groupName) - returns all the members of a
group

2) getMemberGroups(String userID) - returns all groups a user is member
of

3) addUserToGroup(String userId, String groupName) - adds user to a
group

4) deleteUserFromGroup(String userId, String groupName) - deletes user
from a group

We have so far successfully tested the WS with both Java and PHP
clients. We are looking into further testing with .NET and Ruby.

We are currently working on Web Services authentication using Apache
Rampart. One of the things we're looking at is identifying the user once
he has logged in and using his credentials to figure out whether he is
authorised to add user to a group (as an example). 

WS authentication was slightly easier with Axis1 because Axis1 could
easily be set up for HTTP authentication (since Axis is implemented as a
servlet in a web app). However, things are different with Axis2.
WS-Security is the preferred method of authentication for Axis2. Rampart
wraps the WSS4J functionality (the library that implements WS-Security),
and can be integrated into Axis with little effort. 

A detailed reference to authenticating Grouper WS with Rampart will be
posted soon. Cheers.

Regards
--------------
Sanjay Vivek
Web Analyst
Middleware Team
ISS
University of Newcastle Upon Tyne