Client IP based session validation in OpenAM

In Single Sign On (SSO), the cookie itself is the sole mode of validation for most systems.

With OpenAM, one can assign extra attributes to the session other than the cookie. Validation based on client IP addresses can be done as well. What this means is that, when the IP address changes of an user, the user has to login to OpenAM (or Relying Party/Service Provider )  again, since his session is no longer valid for the IP.

So this is how one would do this:

Go : Configuration -> Server & Sites -> Default server settings

 Then to advanced:

OpenAM database connectivity with MySql

This post comes after a long time. I had been really stuck with my project in creating a Single Sign On implementation. I was working with an amazing piece of software, OpenAM, formerly OpenSSO, currently maintained by the Forgerock community. 

My setup: I used Tomcat with Mysql and OpenAM 11.0.0 running on Centos

So first things first, install mysql-connector-java for your operating system and you should get a jar file. Here is what I got on my box:

# rpm -ql mysql-connector-java | grep jar
/usr/share/java/mysql-connector-java-5.1.17.jar
/usr/share/java/mysql-connector-java.jar

Now copy this to your tomcat installation directory. At "$CATALINA_HOME/lib" and restart tomcat.

Logstash undocumented

So I was playing around with logstash for a few days and it frustrated me that their documentation was awful. These guys really need to get someone to write more of the usability of the utility. For those who are not aware of this awesome tool, logstash, please do check out it's homepage. It is used for analysis of log files (in servers in most cases). So what is does is essentially 3 steps:

1. Collects logs by monitoring files or sockets, executing commands, etc. It has a host of input plugins, check out the docs page for a very sparse view.
2. Apply filters on the inputs, modify the way the input looks like eventually.
3. Output filters, dump the data to a socket, webapp, queues, etc. 

Logstash is generally used in cases of elastic search (e.g. kibana) that shows up neat graphs and searching can done in this data as well.

So in my particular case what I was trying to do was send data across to graphite, which just shows the data in a neat graph.

OSS on Linux Mint 10

 Finally a relief! The Mint 10 based on Ubuntu maveric meerkat proved useful to me as I could install OSSv4.

Firstly, an introduction on OSSv4 is required. OSS or Open Sound System was developed by 2 hackers, who feel the current scene in Linux Audio is pathetic and also feel that they are not bound to be ruled by the GPL only. They have come up with an audio solution for *nix based systems (works on Linux, Solaris, BSD and other nix-es) that, judging from sound quality and mixing capabilities is much better than ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture). True, ALSA is far more advanced in terms of harware support and general integration, but take a look at OSS! It is coming to terms with the real world and now has an experimental USB sound driver included. Bluetooth would not be far behind, and well, it would really close the gap between ALSA and OSS.

OSS Hack

The latest OSS (Open Sound System) version 4.2 from 4front technologies is a rock solid sound solution of *Nix-es and worked beautifully on my Mint* OS. (The * Actually means a heavily customized Mint very far from the real Mint.) Well actually it made my new Creative X-Fi 6 channel + Midi Enabled sound card produce Music! ALSA will not work (as of Now Jun, 2010) and Creative officially does not support Linux (or any other *NIX). A series of e-mails I wrote made me confirm I cannot exchange my sound card with another model from them... and a refund was out of question!

Okay, so Apparently the latest download drivers will expire on May 2010, 6 days ago that is. But I am enjoying music from my OSS right now! How is that possible!

Mystery ended, mere mortals... here's how it can be reversed:

So, the OSS system starts-up via
soundon.