What is Authentication using Moodle API means?
Moodle API authentication is a process where users can login to their external applications and Websites using their Moodle website credentials.
miniOrange lets Moodle to act as an IDP (Identity Provider) which allows users to achieve Single Sign-On (SSO) into multiple applications and external websites.
Users will authenticate themselves via their Moodle credentials only once and they can access all the external applications.
The Moodle User database is linked to miniOrange user store to provide SSO into external multiple applications.
This use case can be achieved by Moodle API Authentication Source plugin which provides SSO login security using API endpoints.
Why should you opt for Moodle API Authentication plugin?
- Secure SSO login access for multiple applications and websites using Moodle Credentials.
- You don’t need to migrate your users from Moodle for SSO login authentication.
- On-the-fly user creation : Auto create users at the time of SSO login and auto sync up of user details.
- Multiple Authentication protocol support : SAML, OAuth, JWT etc.
Step 1: Install and setup Moodle API Authentication Plugin
- Contact us to setup and get Zip file for Moodle API Authentication plugin.
- Navigate to your Moodle admin dashboard to install and activate the Moodle API authentication plugin.
- Open the Moodle API Authentication plugin settings and copy the User Authentication URL and the User Authentication Parameter.
- Enter the attributes name that you want to release to your application during the authentication.
- Click on the Save button to save your Moodle API configurations.
Step 2: Setup Moodle as an authentication source in miniOrange
- Login with your miniOrange account.
- Navigate to User Stores and click on the Add User Store button.
- Switch to the API tab and select Custom API from the dropdown.
- Provide an API identifier name.
- Under the Authentication Configuration section, paste the User Authentication URL and User Authentication Parameters that you copied in step 1 above.
- Provide the Header Name as Content-Type and its value as application/json.
- Select the method as POST.
- Provide the Status field’s value as error and Status Message field’s value as message.
- Click on the Save button.
- To test the connection, select the user store you just added and click on Test Authorization API.
- Enter your Moodle credentials when prompted and you should be able to see a Success message.
Step 3: Configure Your application in miniOrange
- With us, You can configure application according to the the protocol it supports like SAML, OAuth, JWT, Ws-fed etc.
- For example lets say the application supports SAML. Then go with the configurations Shown in SAML Application Tab.
- Login to miniOrange Admin Console.
- Go to Apps >> Manage Apps. Click on Configure Apps button.
- Then click on Create App under SAML.
- Search for you Application. In case you do not find your app, search for Custom SAML App.
- Get the ACS URL and SP Entity ID from your application.
- Enter the following values OR click on Import SP Metadata:
| Service Provider Name |
Choose appropriate name according to your choice |
| SP Entity ID or Issuer |
Your Application Entity ID |
| ACS URL X.509 Certificate (optional) |
Your Application Assertion Consumer Service URL |
| NameID Format |
Select urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress |
| Response Signed |
Unchecked |
| Assertion Signed |
Checked |
| Encrypted Assertion |
Unchecked |
| Group policy |
Default |
| Login Method |
Password |
- Click on Save to configure Your applcation.
- Now to get the IDP metadata of the app configured, Go to apps >> your_app >> select >> metadata tab.
- Click on the Show Metadata details in the Information required to Authenticate via External IDPs section. Download the metadata XML file by clicking on Download Metadata button or copy the Metadata URL link.
- You need to Upload this metadata in your application.
Step 4: Setup Multiple IDPs (Optional)
You also have a choice to set multiple IDPS for Single Application. And there are three ways to represent them :
- Login using IDP selection page: It gives user an option to Select IDP from dropdown list during login time.
- Domain Mapping: Here we map the email domains to particular IDP. So when the user enters the Email address with specific domain he would be redirected to Respective IDP.
- App Identity Provider Mapping: gives user an option to select one specific IDP for their application before login.
Note :At once you can select either of them.
A] Login using IDP selection page
- You can configure multiple IDPs (identity providers) and give users the option to select the IDP of their choice to authenticate with.
For Example - It could be multiple AD domains belonging to different departments or multiple okta organizations.
Few usecases where customers configure multiple IDPs -
- Suppose you have a product which many of your clients use and each client has their own unique IDP so you want them to SSO into your product as well using their existing IDP only. miniOrange provides a centralized way to connect with all IDPs in a very easy manner and integrate SSO into your application.
- Suppose you are providing a course to many universities, each having a unique IDP like Shibboleth, ADFS, CAS, etc. You can provide single sign-on (SSO) into your course application to all these universities by integrating with all of them using a single platform provided by miniOrange.
- This is the endpoint to call from your saml application -
| For Cloud IDP - |
https://login.xecurify.com/moas/discovery?customerId=<customer_id> |
| For On-Premise IDP - |
https://yourdomain.com/discovery?customerId=<customer_id> |
- You should copy the Customer Key from admin console-> Settings -> and replace it with <customer_id> here. Once configured in SP, when you initiate the login from Service Provider. A user will be redirected to IDP Selection Page listing all IDPs configured for that account.
You can see the screenshot below of the IDP Selection Page with a list of IDPs .
Note: To view the IDP in drop-down list ,go to Identity Providers tab > against your configured IDP > Select >Edit , here Enable the Show IdP to Users option.
- You can also change the look and feel of this page. Login to miniOrange Admin console. Navigate to Customization -> Branding Configuration. See the below screenshot for reference-
- You can customize the title of this page.
- You can change the logo and favicon for this page.
- You can change the background and button color for this page from admin UI.
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B] Login via Domain Mapping
If you have multiple IDPs and you want a certain set of users to authenticate from one IdP whereas another set of users to authenticate from another IdP, based on their email domains then you can achieve this by using the following steps:- Our domain mapping feature
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C] Login via App Identity Provider Mapping
If you have multiple IDPs (identity provider) and you want a certain application user to authenticate with one IDP and other application users with another IDP then you can achieve this by our Identity Source Feature.
- Go to apps >> your_app >> select >>edit.
- Here You will have an option called as Identity source.
- The dropdown list would show the list of configured IDPs (Identity providers) in miniOrange Identity Providers tab and Userstore.
- Select one IDP you want for this application. Click on Save.
- Now the users of this application would be able to authenticate only by the IDP(Identity Provider) selected from Identity Source dropdown list.
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Related Pages:-
What is Identity Brokering?
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