Xephr Administration Console
Hosts

On the Hosts screen, you can view and add Xephr® hosts. Xephr hosts identify the connection string used in the web browser to connect to the Xephr repositories. The host created when installing Xephr is displayed with the description Initial Host and can be edited.

Location: The current location within the administration console.

Host Name: the name of the host.

Auth Type: the type of user authentication being used by this host.

LDAP Server: the LDAP server computer name that will provide the user authentication for the Xephr Runtime.

Domain: the domain name that will provide the user authentication for the Xephr Runtime.

Repository: the name of the repository assigned to the host.

Console?: Yes or No indicates whether you can access the administrator console from the host.

Description: the user-defined host description.

To add a new host, click on the New Host link.

To edit or delete a host, left click on the host name.

Add Hosts

From the Hosts screen, click on the New Host link.
The Location property displays the current location within the administration console.
In the Host Name property, enter the host URL that will be used in the web browser to connect to a Xephr repository.
In the Repository pop-list, select the repository that is associated with this host.
In the Description property, enter a user-defined description for this host.
In the Support URL property, enter the URL to be displayed as the Support URL on the Support screen in the Xephr Studio when connected to this host.
In the Support EMail Address property, enter the email address to which Xephr logs will be sent if errors are encountered during Xephr Runtime or while in the Xephr Studio.
In the Support Mail Server property, enter the mail server through which the email will be sent if errors are encountered.
If you can access the administrator console from this host, set the Allow Admin Console flag to on.
Set the Authorization Type pop-list to the desired setting. Choices are Standard Xephr Authorization, External Authentication (Generic), and Web Active Directory.

The authentication type determines how the user will be authenticated when logging into the Xephr runtime, but not the Xephr Studio. Xephr Studio always checks against the Xephr users.

Standard Xephr Authentication will authenticate the user and password entered against the Xephr users set up in the Xephr Studio to determine whether the user can log into the Xephr Runtime.

External Authentication (Generic) will authenticate the user and password entered against the table defined in the extauth.properties file located in the conf directory in the Xephr home directory. For more information, see the Setting up External Authentication (Generic) section.

Web Active Directory will authenticate the user information against the Active Directory Services set up on the defined LDAP Server and domain to determine whether the user can log into the Xephr Runtime.
In the LDAP Server field, enter the LDAP server computer name that will provide the user authentication for the Xephr Runtime. The LDAP Server in this context is the Active Directory Server.
In the Domain field, enter the domain name that will provide the user authentication for the Xephr Runtime.

Note that Active Directory has fairly specific requirements with regard to domain names. If you are unable to connect, try changing the case of the domain. For example, if your domain was ABC.local, you could not enter abc.local, ABC.LOCAL, Abc.Local, or any other variations.
Click on the Save Host button.
Click on the Return to List link to return to the list of hosts.

Edit Hosts

From the Hosts screen, click on the host for which you wish to view the properties.

The Location property displays the current location within the administration console.
In the Host Name property, enter the host URL that will be used in the web browser to connect to a Xephr repository.
In the Repository pop-list, select the repository that is associated with this host.
In the Description property, enter a user-defined description for this host.
In the Support URL property, enter the URL to be displayed as the Support URL on the Support screen in the Xephr Studio when connected to this host.
In the Support EMail Address property, enter the email address to which Xephr logs will be sent if errors are encountered during Xephr Runtime or while in the Xephr Studio.
In the Support Mail Server property, enter the mail server through which the email will be sent if errors are encountered.
If you can access the administrator console from this host, set the Allow Admin Console flag to on.
Set the Authorization Type pop-list to the desired setting. Choices are Standard Xephr Authorization, External Authentication (Generic), and Web Active Directory.

The authentication type determines how the user will be authenticated when logging into the Xephr runtime, but not the Xephr Studio. Xephr Studio always checks against the Xephr users.

Standard Xephr Authentication will authenticate the user and password entered against the Xephr users set up in the Xephr Studio to determine whether the user can log into the Xephr Runtime.

External Authentication (Generic) will authenticate the user and password entered against the table defined in the extauth.properties file located in the conf directory in the Xephr home directory. For more information, see the Setting up External Authentication (Generic) section.

Web Active Directory will authenticate the user information against the Active Directory Services set up on the defined LDAP Server and domain to determine whether the user can log into the Xephr Runtime.
In the LDAP Server field, enter the LDAP server computer name that will provide the user authentication for the Xephr Runtime.
In the Domain field, enter the domain name that will provide the user authentication for the Xephr Runtime.
Click on the Save Host button.

Delete Hosts

From the Host Edit screen, click on the Delete Host link.
The host will be deleted.
Click on the Return to List link to return to the list of existing hosts.

Setting up External Authentication (Generic)

You can use a custom table in your database to authenticate users for logging into the Xephr Runtime. This is called external authentication because the authentication is performed against the values in the custom table from the repository's datasource, external to the Xephr Studio and its objects. Users that are not defined in the external table will not be able to log into the Xephr Runtime.

Xephr Studio always uses Xephr Users for authentication.

The following set up must be performed.

Create a file called extauth.properties in your xephrX.X/conf directory. This file will always be manually maintained, and the Xephr service must be stopped and restarted after changes have been made to the file.

The file should contain the following entries for each repository that will be using external authentication. Text in italics should be replaced with the information described by the text.
For example, if your repository was REP1 and the datasource for the repository was DATA, you would replace your-repository-here.datasource=repository datasource name with REP1.datasource=DATA

your-repository-here.datasource=repository datasource name

your-repository-here.user.table=user table name in the datasource

your-repository-here.user.pk=primary key column for user table

your-repository-here.user.uuid=primary key column for user table

your-repository-here.user.fname=first name column in user table

your-repository-here.user.lname=last name column in user table

your-repository-here.user.email=email column in user table

your-repository-here.user.uid=log in user ID column in user table

your-repository-here.user.pwd=log in password column in user table

your-repository-here.user.startpage=column containing the Xephr start entity in the user table

your-repository-here.globals.table=user globals table name in the datasource

your-repository-here.globals.fk=column in globals table that joins to user table

your-repository-here.globals.name=global name column in globals table

your-repository-here.globals.value=global value column in globals table

your-repository-here.roles.table=roles table name in the datasource

your-repository-here.roles.fk=column in roles table that joins to user table

your-repository-here.roles.name=xephr role column in roles table

your-repository-here.dblogins.table=database log in table name in the datasource

your-repository-here.dblogins.fk=column in database log in table that joins to the user table

your-repository-here.dblogins.ds=the name of the datasource in Xephr Studio

your-repository-here.dblogins.uid=the user ID to access the datasource in Xephr Studio

your-repository-here.dblogins.pwd=the password to access the datasource in Xephr Studio

If you are not using global variables or roles in this repository for logging into the Xephr Runtime, you can leave the values to the right of the equal sign (=) for these parameters blank, but they must exist in the file.

Example File Entries:

REP1.datasource=DATA

REP1.user.table=users

REP1.user.pk=user_id

REP1.user.uuid=user_id

REP1.user.fname=first_name

REP1.user.lname=last_name

REP1.user.email=e_mail

REP1.user.uid=username

REP1.user.pwd=password

REP1.globals.table=globals

REP1.globals.fk=user_id

REP1.globals.name=gvariable

REP1.globals.value=gvalue

REP1.roles.table=

REP1.roles.fk=

REP1.roles.name=

In the Xephr Administration Console, for the Host for the repository, change the Authorization Type to External Authentication (Generic).
Click on the [Save Host] button.
Xephr Runtime will use the tables defined in the extauth.properties file to determine if a user exists, verify the user name and password for logging in, and to determine which global values and roles the user has assigned.
Only users defined in the custom table will be able to log into Xephr Runtime. Users defined in the Xephr Studio will not be able to log into the Xephr Runtime, only the Xephr Studio.