Enabling remote access to projects in a large collaborative environment

Paper in proceeding, 2010

In the context of the Integrated Tokamak Modelling Task Force, a large number of software projects are made available to the task force members, including developers and end-users. This has been achieved through a combination of tools and technologies. The front-end is represented by a Java based portal system exposing a PHP project management system, GForge. These two applications are linked by a single sign-on mechanism, Shibboleth [1], and through secure HTTP [2] request rewriting, where appropriate. Furthermore, the underlying storage facility is an OpenAFS [3] distributed file system and the user base comes from both a network information server and an LDAP [4] directory. Security mechanisms are those of a distributed system, with multiple access points and protocols used for reading and writing data. The present paper presents the challenges of integrating these different technologies and programming languages into a single, working, application presented to its users as a web portal. Chaining of the tools is explored through the user perspective, with an in-depth overview of the background transitions between the various systems involved with regard to security requirements for the front-end nodes and the policies as seen by the users.