Grouper Developers Forum

[Emily Eisbruch <>]

Draft Minutes: Grouper Call 18-Jan-2012

Attending

Tom Barton, U. Chicago, Chair 
Chris Hyzer, University of Pennsylvania 
Shilen Patel, Duke  
Mike McDermott, Brown
Steve Olshansky, Internet2  
Emily Eisbruch, Internet2 (scribe)  

New Action Items

[AI] (Chris) will start a Grouper UI Planning wiki page outlining the phases to develop a new Grouper UI  (DONE)

https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/Grouper/Grouper+UI+redesign+v2.2

[AI] (Mike) will review and contribute to the Grouper UI Planning wiki page

[AI] (Shilen) will review and contribute to the Grouper UI Planning wiki page


Carry Over Action Items

[AI] (TomZ) will document steps he took regarding naming for LDAPPC NG modules 

[AI] (Jim) will email the grouper-users list soliciting input on JNDI source adapter work. 

[AI] (Emily) will make recommendations based on feedback from Peter S.
https://lists.internet2.edu/sympa/arc/grouper-users/2011-12/msg00020.html

[AI] (Jim) will create a wiki page on reconciling the two LDAP source adapters 

 (DONE, see  https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/Grouper/LDAP+Source+cleanup )

 [AI] (TomZ) will put test data in the Grouper demo to show using an LDAP source 

[AI] (TomZ) will review Jira issues for the next release and ensure they are properly fleshed out.  

[AI] (TomZ) will review the Grouper LDAP Loader doc and provide feedback to Chris, possibly with lessons learned from LDAPPC work. 
https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/Grouper/Grouper+-+Loader+LDAP

[AI] (TomZ) will update JIRA to reflect the priorities  

[AI] (Rob) will follow up with Danno on obtaining the server for the Continuous Integration Environment.  

[AI] (Everyone) review Rob's chapters and give him feedback on the Grouper Users List.


DISCUSSION

Grouper v2.0.3

- Grouper V2.03 was released. 

- Penn discovered one issue (a subject API caching problem) described in this JIRA:

https://bugs.internet2.edu/jira/browse/GRP-725

- This issue has been fixed in the Grouper v2 branch and trunk
- Other than that one issue (now fixed), Penn is using the new release and it's working fine. 

 
Grouper Installer

https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/Grouper/Grouper+Installer

- Chris finished the Grouper Installer and has received good feedback on the list

- Chris implemented features that TomZ suggested, including being sure memory is bumped up for Tomcat  

- Chris merged the Grouper installer work forward to the trunk
- TomZ mentioned possibly getting some LDAP elements working in the installer, which would be great

Always Available Client

https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/Grouper/GrouperClient+failover+client+API

- For this Failover Client API , you provide a list of endpoints and some logic

- You register the configuration (how many servers and if they are active, etc.) and that’s called a configuration type

- Can have multiple configuration types
- For example, you might have a configuration type for LDAP and one for discovery and one for web services
- For each type, you call the failover logic and pass in what you want done in case of a fail

- The API finds a client that returns a successful response before a timeout has occurred

- Chris is working the Failover Client API into Grouper client, web service, LDAP and into discovery
- Discovery part is so you can have a web server or two  that will specify where your web  service servers are 

- So if you have a new cluster, you don’t have to change the config files.
- This work is based on database failover work at Penn 

- Can be used in command line or in a server

- This doesn't replace load balancers

Q: Does this depend on discovery service?

A: No, discovery service is optional
- Can hard-code all your servers in the Grouper client. or can use discovery
- Discovery file is cached locally too, so sif discovery is not available it will use the cached discovery

Q: How much coding in the Java client is needed to integrate with the failover client?
A: With this API, not a lot of coding is needed , there is just configuration

Q: Do you plan to package this with Grouper Client?

A: Chris: Grouper Client should be only one Jar, according to the design principal.
- But this is in the Client
- Could use just this from the Client if you want.


Grouper 2.1 Planning

- Mid- Feb is the planned freeze date for Grouper 2.1

- Waiting to get status report from TomZ, since LDAPPC-NG real-time is the primary item.

 
XML Import

- Shilen is making changes to how the point in time data is stored to account for reuse of identifiers (such as when data is exported, deleted, and reimported). 

- if you export a group and delete it in Grouper and you reimport, then there is a new group row with that UUID

- Plan is to add an additional  column to each table to track UUIDs for such cases 
- basic problem is  if UUIDs can be reused, then point in time must not assume they’ll always be unique

- eventually  there might be a start and end (delete) date for a group and this feature will help with that too
- In general every database table should have its own  unique ID column
- This is what Shilen will implement for Gruoper 2.1
- So could be multiple rows associated w a single UUID, to report on the comings and goings of a group

Developing the New Grouper UI

Plan is to redo the Grouper UI for Grouper 2.2

https://spaces.internet2.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=14517754

[AI] (Chris) will start a Grouper UI Planning wiki page outlining the phases to develop a new Grouper UI  (DONE)

https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/Grouper/Grouper+UI+redesign+v2.2

[AI] (Mike) will review and contribute to the Grouper UI Planning wiki page

[AI] (Shilen) will review and contribute to the Grouper UI Planning wiki page

Accessibility Issues

Chris and Shilen completed a course called Designing Accessible Web Forms On-Line

http://formsonline.cita.illinois.edu/

Important concepts covered included:
- Browser plug-ins and validator
- high visitbility mode
- Screen reader
- Keyboard only

 
Robust Web Services

- MikeM asked about the focus on robust web service 

- He noted this is the direction at Brown U. 

- Having a clear division of API from the interface works well.

- Chris stated it’s more productive to work on the UI as a UI, but the community will still be able to build web services-based UIs

Next Call: Wed. 1-Feb-2012 at noon ET


Emily Eisbruch, Technology Transfer Analyst
Internet2

office: +1-734-352-4996 | mobile +1-734-730-5749

Visit our website: www.internet2.edu
Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/internet2
Become a Fan on Facebook: www.internet2.edu/facebook