5 MKWS accesses targets using the Pazpar2 metasearching engine. Although
6 Pazpar2 can be used directly, using a statically configured set of
7 targets, this usage is unusual. More often, Pazpar2 is fronted by the
8 Service Proxy (SP), which manages authentication, sessions, target
11 This document assumes the SP is used, and explains how to go about
12 making a set of targets (a "library") available, how to connect your
13 MKWS application to that library, and how to choose which of the
14 available targets to use.
17 1. Maintaining the library
18 --------------------------
20 The service proxy accesses sets of targets that are known as
21 "libraries". In general, each customer will have their own library,
22 though some standard libraries may be shared between many customers --
23 for example, a library containing all open-access academic journals.
24 A library can also contain other configuration information, including
25 the set of categories by which targets are classified for the library.
27 Libraries are maintained using MKAdmin (MasterKey
28 Admin). Specifically, those used by MKWS are generally maintained on
29 the "MKC Admin" installation at
30 http://mkx-admin.indexdata.com/console/
32 In general, Index Data will create a library for each customer, then
33 give the customer a username/password pair that they can use to enter
34 MKAdmin and administrate that library.
36 Once logged in, customers can select which targets to include (from
37 the list of several thousand that MKAdmin knows about), and make
38 customer-specific modifications -- e.g. overriding the titles of the
41 Most importantly, customers' administrators can add authentication
42 credentials that the Service Proxy will used on their behalf when
43 accessing subscription resources -- username/password pairs or proxies
44 to use for IP-based authentication. Note that **it is then crucial to
45 secure the library from use by unauthorised clients**, otherwise the
46 customer's paid subscriptions will be exploited.
48 Access to libraries is managed by creating one or more "User Access"
49 records in MKAdmin, under the tab of that name. Each of these records
50 provides a combination of credentials and other data that allow an
51 incoming MKWS client to be identified as having legitimate access to
52 the library. The authentication process, described below, works by
53 searching for a matching User Access record.
56 2. Authenticating your MWKS application onto the library
57 --------------------------------------------------------
59 Some MKWS applications will be content to use the default library with
60 its selection of targets. Most, though, will want to define their own
61 library providing a different range of available targets. An important
62 case is that of applications that authenticate onto subscription
63 resources by means of backe-end site credentials stored in MKAdmin:
64 precautions must be taken so that such library accounts do not allow
67 Setting up such a library is a process of several stages.
69 Stage A: create the User Access account
71 Log in to MKAdmin administrate your library:
72 - Go to http://mkc-admin.indexdata.com/console/
73 - Enter the adminstrative username/password
74 - Go to the User Access tab
75 - Create an end-user account
76 - Depending on what authentication method it be used, set the
77 User Access account's username and password, or IP-address
78 range, or referring URL, or hostname.
80 If your MWKS application runs at a well-known, permanent address --
81 http://yourname.com/app.html, say -- you can set the User Access
82 record so that this originating URL is recognised by setting it into
83 the "Referring URL" field.
85 If your application accesses the Service Proxy by a unique virtual
86 hostname -- yourname.sp-mkws.indexdata.com, say -- you can tie the use
87 of this hostname to your library by setting the User Access record's
88 "Host Name" field to name of the host where the SP is accessed. NOTE
89 THAT THIS IS NOT SECURE, AS OTHER APPLICATIONS CAN USE THIS VIRTUAL
90 HOSTNAME TO GAIN ACCESS TO YOUR LIBRARY.
92 TODO Authentication by IP address does not yet work correctly -- see
93 bug MKWS-234 ("Improve SP configuration/proxying for better
96 Alternatively, your application can authenticate by username and
97 password credentials. This is a useful approach in several situations,
98 including when you need to specify the use of a different library from
99 usual one. To arrange for this, set the username and password as a
100 single string separated by a slash -- e.g. "mike/swordfish" -- into
101 the User Access record's Authentication field.
103 You can create multiple User Access records: for example, one that
104 uses Referring URL, and another that uses a username/password pair to
105 be used when running an application from a different URL.
107 Stage B: tell the application to use the library
109 In the HTML of the application, tell MKWS to authenticate on to the
110 Service Proxy. When IP-based, referer-based or hostname-based
111 authentication is used, this is very simple:
113 <script type="text/javascript">
114 var mkws_config = { service_proxy_auth:
115 "//sp-mkws.indexdata.com/service-proxy/?command=auth&action=perconfig" };
118 TODO This should be the default setting
120 And ensure that access to the MWKS application is from the correct
121 Referrer URL or IP-range.
123 Stage C1 (optional): access by a different virtual hostname
125 When hostname-based authentication is in use, it's necessary to access
126 the Service Proxy as the correctly named virtual host. This can be
127 done by setting the service_proxy_auth configuration item to a
128 URL containing that hostname, such as
129 //yourname.sp-mkws.indexdata.com/service-proxy/?command=auth&action=perconfig
131 TODO It should be possible to change just the hostname without needing
132 to repeat the rest of the URL (protocol, path, query)
134 TODO When changing the SP authentication URL, the Pazpar2 URL should in
135 general change along with it.
137 Stage C2 (optional): embed credentials for access to the library
139 When credential-based authentication is in use (username and
140 password), it's necessary to pass these credentials into the Service
141 Proxy when establishing the session. This can most simply be done just
142 by setting the service_proxy_auth configuration item to a URL such as
143 //sp-mkws.indexdata.com/service-proxy/?command=auth&action=perconfig&username=mike&password=swordfish
145 TODO It should be possible to add the username and password to the
146 configuration without needing to repeat the rest of the URL.
148 Stage D (optional): conceal credentials from HTML source
150 Using a credential-based Service-Proxy authentication URL such as the
151 one above reveals the the credentials to public view -- to anyone who
152 does View Source on the MKWS application. This may be acceptable for
153 some libraries, but is intolerable for those which provide
154 authenticated access to subscription resources.
156 In these circumstances, a more elaborate approach is necessary. The
157 idea is to make a URL local to the customer that is used for
158 authentication onto the Service Proxy, hiding the credentials in a
159 local rewrite rule. Then local mechanisms can be used to limit access
160 to that local authentication URL. Here is one way to do it when
161 Apache2 is the application's web-server, which we will call
164 - Add a rewriting authentication alias to the configuration:
166 RewriteRule /spauth/ http://mkws.indexdata.com/service-proxy/?command=auth&action=check,login&username=U&password=PW [P]
167 - Set thwe MKWS configuration item "service_proxy_auth" to:
168 http://yourname.com/spauth/
169 - Protect access to the local path http://yourname.com/spauth/
170 (e.g. using a .htaccess file).
173 3. Choosing targets from the library
174 ------------------------------------
176 MKWS applications can choose what subset of the library's targets to
177 use, by means of several alternative settings on individual widgets or
178 in the mkws_config structure:
180 * targets -- contains a Pazpar2 targets string, typically of the form
181 "pz:id=" or "pz:id~" followed by a pipe-separated list of low-level
184 At present, these IDs can take one of two forms, depending on the
185 configuration of the Service Proxy being used: they may be based on
186 ZURLs, so a typical value would be something like:
187 pz:id=josiah.brown.edu:210/innopac|lui.indexdata.com:8080/solr4/select?fq=database:4902
188 Or they may be UDBs, so a typical value would be something like:
191 * targetfilter -- contains a CQL query which is used to find relevant
192 targets from the relvant library. For example,
197 * target -- contains a single UDB, that of the sole target to be
200 This is merely syntactic sugar for "targetfilter" with the query