New JBoss Portal and SSO framework integration guide

JBoss Portal supports integration with various well known SSO frameworks such as CAS, JOSSO and OpenSSO. Basic integration with CAS and JOSSO frameworks is described in Portal reference guide but if you are interested in more advanced configurations, you can look at our new SSO Frameworks Integration Guide.

This guide covers step by step instructions of JBoss Portal and SSO frameworks integration in various setups that are commonly found in software enterprises. Maybe you can find an answer for some of questions that have been plaguing you.

The guide covers these integration scenarios:

• Integration of JBoss Portal and SSO server on same host (HTTP protocol is used).
• Integration of JBoss Portal and SSO server on same host. Secure communication is used between JBoss Portal agent and SSO framework (HTTPS protocol is used).
• Integration of SSO server and more JBoss Portal instances deployed on multiple hosts
• Integration of JBoss Portal, SSO server and sample thirdparty web application.
• Integration of JBoss Portal and SSO server deployed on different hosts. SSO server is configured for authentication against portal database.
  

Since we are focussed on delivering a high quality portal server, we always try to integrate various scenarios in our automated test suite. We currently have automated most of the scenarios mentioned above using Selenium and Hudson and you can see the test results at http://hudson.jboss.org/hudson/view/JBoss%20Portal/job/jboss-portal-2.7-sso-selenium-tests/lastBuild/testReport/(root)/. Please let us know if your setup does not belong to one of these and we will try to include that as well.

How does your portal QA compare ?

QA has always been an advantage of JBoss Portal over other open-source portals: we've had strong coverage of databases and LDAP servers with the JBoss Portal 2.x series in addition to specification implementation and unit tests. However, we're not stopping there. We're always looking for ways to improve JBoss Portal's quality, and one way to accomplish this is better testsuite coverage. Here's an overview of our QA work:

• Testsuite coverage

  We have continuous run of portal 2.6 testsuite and trunk testsuite against JBoss 4.2.0.GA. Results can be seen at 2.6-testuite and trunk-testsuite. We plan to add JBoss AS 4.2.1.GA to the matrix as well.

• Database Compatibility

  We've been continuously running our testsuite against following the most popular database products for over a year now:

  
  
  1. Oracle 9i
  2. Oracle 10g
  3. MySql4
  4. MySql5
  5. MS SQL Server
  6. PostgreSQL 8
  7. Hypsersonic (HSQLDB)
  
  

  The result of these test runs can be seen at DB-tests.

  
  
• LDAP compatibility

  LDAP support has been added in the 2.6 release and we've also had continuous runs of identity module tests with the following LDAP servers:

  1. OpenLDAP
  2. RedHat DS (of course)
  3. Sun DS
  4. Open DS

  The test results can be seen at ldap-tests.

  
  
• Modules detachment

  I won't speak here about the detachment of modules since Julien covered it nicely in another post already. It is the last item that has been added to the mix, just a couple of days ago. The following modules have been detached from the trunk source tree so far and they are used in portal as thirdparty libraries:

  
  
  • common
  • identity
  • web
  • portlet
  
  

  Basically it is about modularizing the code base and make it container agnostic. As a result, we now have continuous runs of these modules test suites against JBoss AS 4.2.0.GA, JBoss AS 4.2.1.GA and Tomcat 6. We plan to add JBoss 5 and Tomcat 5.5 very soon to the matrix.

• Interoperability with other portal servers

  This effort is still in its early stages. We have started doing some deeper testing of WSRP interoperability with BEA portal server. We plan to try to make it part of a continuous run and include more vendors as well. This might prove tricky and the lack of a TCK for WSRP makes interoperability testing rather dauting.

A portal is a key integration product for enterprise applications and it should be tested with the different products it integrates with. If you need a portal and you worry about how it will behave in your environment, a continuously run, well covering test suite is a major factor for your peace of mind. QA is a necessary evil and, as you can see, we are serious about it. How does your current portal compare (if you're not already using JBoss Portal, that is ^_^)?