Authentication

There are various ways of managing user authentication. You can enable one or more of them. If enabled more then one, each of them will be used to find the username/password match. Once found, the user is logged in and the other authentication methods don't need to be tested any more. Therefore it is good practice to put the authentication method on top which handles the most logins so less load is put on your authentication servers.

Authentication plugins

• Manual accounts
• No login
• Email-based self-registration
• CAS server (SSO)
• External database
• FirstClass server
• IMAP server
• LDAP server
• Moodle Network authentication
• NNTP server
• No authentication
• PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules)
• POP3 server
• RADIUS server
• Shibboleth
• NTLM/Integrated Authentication (3rd party plugin)

Common settings

The settings chosen here will apply for any chosen authentication method. Most of them are self explaining.

• With the Selfregistration option, it is possible to choose a method whereby users can make there own account (if you want that possibility).
• The Alternate login url should be used with care, since a mistake in the url or on the used login page can lock you out of your site. If you do mess it up, you can remove the entry from your database (table mdl_config), using e.g. phpmyadmin for mysql.

Locking profile fields

To prevent users from altering some fields (e.g. students changing profile information to inappropriate or misleading information), the site administrator can lock profile fields.

• These fields are optional. You can choose to pre-fill some Moodle user fields with information from the LDAP fields that you specify here. If you leave these fields blank, then nothing will be transferred from LDAP and Moodle defaults will be used instead. In either case, the user will be able to edit all of these fields after they log in.
• Update local: If enabled, the field will be updated (from external auth) every time the user logs in or there is a user synchronization. Fields set to update locally should be locked.
• Lock value: If enabled, will prevent Moodle users and admins from editing the field directly. Use this option if you are maintaining this data in the external auth system.
• Update external: If enabled, the external auth will be updated when the user record is updated. Fields should be unlocked to allow edits. Note: Updating external LDAP data requires that you set binddn and bindpw to a bind-user with editing privileges to all the user records. It currently does not preserve multi-valued attributes, and will remove extra values on update.

If you are using a mixture of authentication types (such as IMAP and manual), then the fields you lock in the authentication options will only apply to the type of authentication indicated by the drop down box at the top of the screen. Remember to test the field locking by logging in with the proper type of account! If you test with a manual account but have set the field locking to apply to IMAP accounts, you will not be able to tell if it worked!

See also

• Multi authentication in Upgrading to Moodle 1.8
• Using Moodle: User authentication forum