Documentation

Registration

Registration Fields

  1. First log in to the administrative backend.
  2. Once logged in, find Components in the main menu bar located toward the top of the page. You should be presented with a drop-down menu containing a list of your installed components.
  3. Choose Registration from the available options.
  4. You should now be presented with a table of available user fields and their status for a particular action. This controls what fields the user will see, must fill in (required) or can fill in (optional) depending upon which action or state they are currently in. That is, you can make the username field required for the registration page (“create” column) but may not wish for your users to be able to edit this after creation (“read only” for the “update” and “edit” columns).

    • Create column: 
What the user sees on the registration page

    • Proxy column
: What columns an administrator sees or must fill in when creating an account by proxy (i.e., for someone else)

    • Update column: 
What fields the user will see and/or must fill in if something has changed with what information is required at registration. An example of this would be if the “citizenship” field was, at one point, optional for registration but is now required. Setting this field to “Required” for the “Update” column will now require logged-in users to fill this information out.

    • Edit column: 
What fields the user will see and can edit for their user profile


    • Field Option Definitions:
 Required = Must fill in
Optional = Can fill in
Hide = Not visible
Read only = Can view but cannot change


  5. Once you feel ready to save your changes, scroll back to the top of the page and click Save in the upper right portion of the page. 

Changes take affect immediately.

Customizing Confirmation Email

All component layouts can be customized through overrides. Except for files that are provided in the Joomla! distribution itself, this method for customization eliminate the need for designers and developers to "hack" core files that could change when the site is updated to a new version. Because they are contained within the template, they can be deployed to the Web site without having to worry about changes being accidentally

User Authentication Plugins

A Hub can offer multiple ways for users to login through other services like LinkedIn, Facebook, ORCID, etc.

  • Authentication-Certificate: Handles user authentication against client side SSL certificates
  • Authentication-Facebook: Handles user authentication against Facebook
  • Authentication-Google: Handles user authentication against Google
  • Authentication-Hubzero: Default user authentication
  • Authentication-LinkedIn: Handles user authentication against LinkedIn
  • Authentication-ORCID: Handles user authentication against ORCID
  • Authentication-Picas: Handles user authentication against Purdue's CAS
  • Authentication-Twitter: Handles user authentication against Twitter

 

To activate these authentication plugins acquire a customer secret and customer key from the other service by registering your App on the service and selecting the Web format. Once you have the keys you can enable the plugins from the backend of the Hub. 

  1. Navigate to the backend of the Hub and locate the Extensions Tab and click on Plug-in Manager.
  2. Inside of the Plug-in Manager, search for the authentication plugin. 
  3. Click on the title of the plugin and inside the plugin insert the customer secret and customer key.
  4. Change the Status of the plugin to Enabled and then click Save & Close.

TLS Certificate Authentication

Certificate Authentication Plugin:

This plugin is in charge of actually checking the certificate, and creating new accounts or linking existing ones to the identity presented in the certificate.  With this plugin on, users can login using their certificate credentials.  If a link between those credentials exists, the process is complete and the user is logged in.  If a link does not exist, the user is allowed to create a new account, thus linking their current certificate to the newly created hub account.  A user can also elect to link their current certificate to an existing account, assuming they are able to provide the password for that existing account (in the event that someone already has an account on the system).  This plugin is called: Authentication - Certificate.

Enable the Authentication - Certificate Plugin:

  1. Navigate to the backend of the Hub and locate the Extensions tab.
  2. Click on the Extensions tab and from the drop-down click on the Plug-in Manager.
  3. Locate from the plugin list or through search the Authentication - Certificate plugin.
  4. Click on the title of the plugin then locate the Status section inside the plugin.
  5. From the Status drop-down, select Enabled then click Save & Close.

 

Certificate routing plugin:

This plugin handles the requirement for a certificate to be present while browsing the site.  While the authentication plugin is what checks and links the user to the cert, other authentication could still be allowed.  With this plugin enabled, a certificate must be present and authentication options are limited to just certificate based authentication.  This plugin is called: System - Certificate.

Enable the System - Certificate plugin by following the same steps listed out above.

 

New account approval:

This allows admins to require approval of new accounts prior to their being able to access the site.  When this is enabled, accounts pending approval can be found in the users manager on the backend.  You can also elect to turn on an administrative dashboard module that lists accounts pending approval.  And in the users manager parameters, you can enable administrator notifications to receive an email when new accounts are created.  This allows the certificate->user link to be user initiated (rather than admin initiated), but still gated and admin approved.

In terms of apache configuration, "SSLVerifyClient optional” should be set.  This will allow the certificate to be included, but also allow the CMS to handle the requirement for the certificate through the use of the certificate routing plugin mentioned above.  "SSLOptions +StdEnvVars” should also be set, as I’m sure it already is for you all.  Lastly, make sure the site is forced to SSL via the Joomla global configuration on the backend.

 

Note: In order for this feature to be useful, all users need to gain a TLS Certificate and have it implemented in their browser prior to utilizing this authentication process.

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