[Mediawiki-l] Best strategy to populate User data from Single Sign On?

Thu May 4 19:00:08 UTC 2006

If doing a SQL call on the option is easier for you, than it would be one
way to go; however, since you have the user's ID in the username, you could
skip that step (I'll use the user-option way, since it fits my plugin
better).

Essentially, you'll need to add code to userExists() to check to see if that
user has already been created, and either send an error message, or call the
rename script.

I don't believe you would need to change the rename user special page to
replace the ID, since it is supposed to be unique. If your ID is not unique,
then you are probably going to start running into problems ;). 

Notice that the function you mentioned returns the user's mediawiki ID. It
probably won't help you too much. You should look at how mediawiki pulls
options instead.

If you aren't a developer, these changes may be hard for you. Especially
since this may (probably will...) require either a new hook, or logic
changes in the core code.

I'll be implementing this functionality in the future to my plugin, so I may
be doing some of the work for you. This isn't on my plate for my next
release, and I haven't had much time for changes lately, so don't expect
this to happen soon.

V/r,

Ryan Lane

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mediawiki-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-
> bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Brian Carpenter
> Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2006 1:20 PM
> To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list
> Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] Best strategy to populate User data from Single
> Sign On?
> 
> Too much for a novice like me to grasp and run with it alone...
> If I understand correctly, your proposed method would create an option in
> the $userclass and set it to the employee's ID.  I would then need to
> create
> a statement to check if that value exists for any other $user prior to new
> user creation. Sounds good. I just don't have the peices. Would I then
> also
> have to modify Specials:Renameuser to replace the
> $user(uniqueSSOID)optional
> value during rename?
> 
> While scavaging in user.php, I found a query snippet that checks if a user
> with the given name exists, then returns the ID.
> 
> function idForName() {
>   $fname = 'User::idForName';
>   $gotid = 0;
>   $s = trim( $this->getName() );
>   if ( 0 == strcmp( '', $s ) ) return 0;
>   $dbr =& wfGetDB( DB_SLAVE );
>   $id = $dbr->selectField( 'user', 'user_id', array( 'user_name' => $s ),
> $fname );
>   if ( $id === false ) {
>      $id = 0;
>   }
>   return $id;
> }
> 
> How could the above be copied/modified to return the
> full username ($username) that contains the string ($UniqueSSOid) of  the
> about-to-be created user?
>  I''m not a developer, but if I get help with the above, I can figure out
> how to alter the Autologin script to:
> 1) halt auto new user creation and display a html informative message/page
> to the browser.
> 2) send wgEmergencyContact email with existing and proposed usernames.
> 
>  As for actually renaming the user:
> If I get this far, I would be very happy to perform the
> Special:Renameuser process manually...  ... Until I learn more php
> 
> Thx again,
> Brian
> 
> This thread is also related to:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-l/2006-May/011779.html
> 
> On 5/4/06, Lane, Ryan <laner at navo.navy.mil> wrote:
> >
> > > Now if I can just create a method to determin if the user exists prior
> > to
> > > new user creation - detailed in:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-l/2006-May/011779.html
> > > Thanks again,
> > > Brian
> > >
> >
> > You could add the user's ID as a user option on user creation:
> >
> >        $user->setOption('uniqueSSOID',$yourUniqueSSOID);
> >
> > in function initUser() in the authentication plugin you are using. If
> you
> > do
> > that, you can search the database based upon the ID.
> >
> > I'm not sure if the core code currently has any hooks that would allow
> you
> > to rename the user when the user logs in, without reporting errors...
> >
> > I'm glad you brought this up, because I really didn't think about this,
> > and
> > this is definitely something I'll run into in the future. I'll have to
> > look
> > into adding support for this in my plugin.
> >
> > V/r,
> > Ryan Lane <Lane at Wikimedia.org>
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