I suppose this is more a question for the devs of Xoops.

First of all the talk of multi sites with one login, I see theres something for phpbb: http://www.sebflipper.com/?page=scripts_mfp_phpbb

Any way for my question, in the new version of Xoops, I understand there will be a LDAP feature, I have no idea how this will work, but would it allow noob xoopers the option of multi sites without the need for secondary programs or scripts, servers like OpenLDAP.

If LDAP servers are needed, then this tool would not be of much use to the average Xoopser, is there no chance of a easier method of sharing details between XOOPS sites, maybe something like the phpbb sample above, or the multi-sites hack done awhile ago, this works, and sure it could be done, as a standard feature.

I thought it was about catering for the majority, if so will options be availiable for for xoopsers.

The inclusion of the subsite hack, would help so many members and is idea, and not too difficult to use.

Sorry Tom, couldn't help myself

I see the biggest advantage for LDAP being for Intranet or Extranet environments where there will be existing user databases such as Active Directory (Windows) or NIS (Unix). The thing I like about LDAP is that it is a standard, and therefore this would make XOOPS a much more powerful tool given that it would be compatible with any system complying to this standard.

I see where you are coming from regarding it's usefulness to the XOOPS users that don't have access to an LDAP server though. Still, I don't know if looking to implement a system specific authentication method is going to be in the long term best interests for Xoops. Maybe have it in there as an option along with LDAP?

I love the idea of LDAP, but I'm too thick, and this kind of feature would benefit so many, but too many are like me or are confined by thier hosting company.

I personally think and yes for selfish reasons I know, lol that there should be a feature like the subsite hack in there, for us normal members.

I see the subsite hack should have support for multi DB's soon, which should be cool. This news was posted on the developers site.

I guess thats a no answer from the Devs then? lol

well shared authentication means that the authentication mechanisms are available to many (obvious I know). These mechanisms all rely on using common repositories, for private sites this might mean a shared MySQL database, for public sites this might mean an open repository (such as LDAP, or Web Services - ala Microsoft Passport). Regardless, for these mechanisms to be created the authentication / registration process needs to be abstracted away from the core functionality so that it can be replaced with alternative mechanisms. Mercibe's work on this subject is available as a hack in XOOPS 2.0 and will be part of the architecture in 2.1. Now all we need are interested developers to extend this work and create the alternative mechanisms. I have created 1 that uses Windows Active Directory, and am planning on one that uses Radius. Perhaps one built on PAM authentication would be nice as well, and yes, even Microsoft Passport.