This directory contains authentication modules.

Each of these modules describes a different way to

check that a user has provided a correct
- username, and
- password.
Even when external forms of authentication are being used, Moodle still
maintains the internal "user" table with all the associated information about
that user such as name, email address and so on.
Multiauthentication in Moodle 1.8
------------------------------------The active methods are set
authentication plugins can
One plugin can be selected
part of the enabled plugin

by the admin on the Configuration page. Multiple

now be used and ordered in a fail-through sequence.
for interactive login as well (which will need to be
sequence).

email - authentication by email (DEFAULT METHOD)

-

user fills out form with email address

email sent to user with link
user clicks on link in email to confirm
user account is created
user can log in

none - no authentication at all .. very insecure!!

- user logs in using ANY username and password
- if the username doesn't already exist then
a new account is created
- when user tries to access a course they
are forced to set up their account details
nologin - user can not log in, login as is possible
- this plugin can be used to prevent normal user login
manual - internal authentication only
- user logs in using username and password
- no way for user to make their own account
ldap - Uses an external LDAP server
-

user logs in using username and password

these are checked against an LDAP server
if correct, user is logged in
optionally, info is copied from the LDAP
database to the Moodle user database

(see the ldap/README for more details on config etc...)

imap - Uses an external IMAP server

-

user logs in using username and password

these are checked against an IMAP server
if correct, user is logged in
if the username doesn't already exist then
a new account is created

pop3 - Uses an external POP3 server

-

user logs in using username and password

these are checked against a POP3 server
if correct, user is logged in
if the username doesn't already exist then
a new account is created

nntp - Uses an external NNTP server

-

user logs in using username and password

these are checked against an NNTP server
if correct, user is logged in
if the username doesn't already exist then
a new account is created

db - Uses an external database to check username/password

-

user logs in using username and password

these are checked against an external database
if correct, user is logged in
if the username doesn't already exist then
a new Moodle account is created

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Authentication API
-----------------AUTHENTICATION PLUGINS
---------------------Each authentication plugin is now contained in a subfolder as a class definition
in the auth.php file. For instance, the LDAP authentication plugin is the class
called auth_plugin_ldap defined in:
/auth/ldap/auth.php
To instantiate the class, there is a function in lib/moodlelib called
get_auth_plugin() that does the work for you:
$ldapauth = get_auth_plugin('ldap');
Auth plugin classes are pretty basic and should be extending auth_plugin_base cl
ass.
They contain the same functions that were previously in each plugin's lib.php fi

le,
but refactored to become class methods, and tweaked to reference the plugin's in
stantiated
config to get at the settings, rather than the global $CFG variable.
When creating new plugins you can either extend the abstract auth_plugin_base cl
ass
(defined in lib/authlib.php) or create a new one and implement all methods from
auth_plugin_base.
The new plugin architecture allows creating of more advanced types such as custo
m SSO
without the need to patch login and logout pages (see *_hook() methods in existi
ng plugins).
Configuration
----------------All auth plugins must have a config property that contains the name value pairs
from the config_plugins table. This is populated using the get_config() function
in the constructor. The settings keys have also had the "auth_" prefix, as well
as the auth plugin name, trimmed. For instance, what used to be
echo $CFG->auth_ldapversion;
is now accessed as
echo $ldapauth->config->version;
Authentication settings have been moved to the config_plugins database table,
with the plugin field set to "auth/foo" (for instance, "auth/ldap").
Method Names
----------------When the functions from lib.php were ported to methods in auth.php, the "auth_"
prefix was dropped. For instance, calls to
auth_user_login($user, $pass);
now become
$ldapauth->user_login($user, $pass);
this also avoids having to worry about which auth/lib file to include since
Moodle takes care of it for you when you create an instance with
get_auth_plugin().
The basic class defines all applicable methods that moodle uses, you can find
more information in lib/authlib.php file.
Upgrading from Moodle 1.7
----------------------------Moodle will upgrade the old auth settings (in $CFG->auth_foobar where foo is the
auth plugin and bar is the setting) to the new style in the config_plugin
database table.

Upgrading from Moodle 1.8

-----------------------------user_activate() method was removed from public API because it was used only from
user_confirm() in LDAP