Topic: Moodle authentication

[johnhebert]

I recently installed Moodle from dungog (moodle and smeserver-moodle) and the basic installation seems to be working OK. I need help to configure the user authentication. It defaults to email-based self-registration which I want to avoid if possible. Moodle provides options including IMAP, POP, LDAP, RADIUS, and PAM. I thought the PAM would do it but it states that PHP4 PAM Authentication install is required. I would like to be able to authenticate against the SME user account database by some method so I don't have to manually create users in Moodle. Can anyone help with this?

[steever]

As long as you have POP enabled on your server, you can use it for authentication.  I have done this at a number of schools.  IMAP should work, but for some reason I could never work it out.  POP does the trick.

LDAP would be better, as you would be able to assign different user groups different rights in moodle, but until SME Server allows LDAP Authentication, maybe in SME 8  , POP's the way to go.  By the way, I have also used POP authentication and pGina to allow XP Home clients to connect to the SME Server as if they were Pro machines.  Nice for companies that purchased computers with XP Home on them, not knowing that they would be next to useless for business purposes.

Good luck.

[johnhebert]

Thanks steever for your quick reply! That is good information.
Can you provide a little more detail about the POP3 authentication options in Moodle site admin:
Under "Host" did you leave the default 127.0.0.1 or enter the internal or external SME IP address?
Under "Type" the choices are "pop3", "popcert", and "popnotls" which do you select?
Under "Port" the choices are 110 or 995 for SSL which do you enter?
Also, in SME Server Manager email settings does it matter if POP3 is "private" or "private and public POP3S"?
Does Webmail access need to be enabled?
Sorry for all the questions, and I appreciate your help.

[steever]

From memory:

Use plain old POP3, host is 127.0.0.1, use port 110, private's fine because it's all on the same computer.  You don't need webmail.

Give it a try.

Steve

[johnhebert]

Moodle login is working fine with regular POP3 port 110 127.0.0.1 in Moodle and "allow private" in SME server-manager.
Also seems to work with POP3cert port 995 in Moodle and "allow private and public" in SME server manager.
Only gotcha with both is it doesn't seem to carry over the SME users name and email address into the Moodle user profile when they login to Moodle. Was that your experience as well?
I also was unable to get IMAP to work but I can't complain.
Thanks again!

John