Changing the authentication mechanism

It is possible to change the authentication mechanism using the TIMP.NET Console; the authentication mechanism is the way to verify the password of the users who log-in to an IM domain.

In the following document we assume that users already have an IM Address of this type: user@myserver.com; we also assume that "Plain XML" is the starting authentication mechanism.

Changing to e-mail authentication

Log-in to the TIMP.NET Console; on the left, under the Domain listing:

• click on the IM Domain (myserver.com in the example) and click on the arrow left of Filter.
• If no authentication mechanism is enabled, right under filter you will find "New"; if you want to add an e-mail authentication, you must:
• click on New
• click on the new NullFilter node
• in the center column select the tab "Type"
• in the dropdown-box (type), select "tipic.timp.filter.POP3AuthFilter"
• click on changetype

The center column now shows the typical options of the new authentication filter. Click on the Pop3Filter Tab and you can change the incoming e-mail server (POP3), which is set to mail.myserver.com by default; click on "Apply" to commit the changes.

When you commit any change, you should always remember to Click on Apply to have the changes applied to the running instance of TIMP.NET; also click on Save to Disk to have the changes committed to the configuration file (so that, if you restart your machine, the changes in your configuration will not be lost.

To test the newly configured authentication mechanism, use the Tab "JSMAuthFilterTest":

• assuming that the user mypop3user is the one which is speicified in the configuration of your e-mail server, to check that everything is working fine:
• add mypop3user@mycompany.com to the "IM Address" box
• add the password (the one you normally use to login to download the e-mail of "mypop3user")

If an account is deleted from the e-mail server user base, or if the e-mail server is not reachable, you will not be able to log-in to the IM server.

Also, it is not possible to use more than one authentication mechanism at the same time.

Changing to DB authentication

To change to DB authentication do the following:

• Select the IM domain (the one used in the example is myserver.com) and click on the arrow left of filter
• click on "POP3AuthFilter" from the above example (or on any XYZAuthFilter)
• in the center column select the "Type" Tab
• in the dropdown-box (type), select "tipic.timp.filter.MySqlAuthFilter"
• click on "ChangeType"

The center column now shows the typical options of the new authentication filter. Click on "SQLAuth" tab and you are able to set the query to execute to verify the username and password on your database: the user will be able to log-in only if the username and password make the query return at least a row.

By default TIMP assumes that the Database contains a table "users" with a filed name, representing the username (username WITHOUT @myserver.com) and a password save in the md5 format.

Clicking on the "Database" Tab, you can set the .NET driver to connect to the database (By default the driver is set to MySQL) and all the typical parameters to reach your RDBS.

Using the "JSMAuthFilterTest" Tab, it is possible to test the new authentication mechanism.

When you commit any change, you should always remember to Click on Apply to have the changes applied to the running instance of TIMP.NET; also click on Save to Disk to have the changes committed to the configuration file (so that, if you restart your machine, the changes in your configuration will not be lost.

Removing the authentication mechanism

To remove the authentication mechanism you should:

select the IM domain (myserver.com ion our example) and click on the arrow left of filter.

click on "POP3AuthFilter" of the above example (or on another XYZAuthFilter)

click on "Remove"

When you commit any change, you should always remember to Click on Apply to have the changes applied to the running instance of TIMP.NET; also click on Save to Disk to have the changes committed to the configuration file (so that, if you restart your machine, the changes in your configuration will not be lost.

Now you can create new users; these users will not be synchronized to external authentication mechanism.

Warning: any users that performed at least one log-on with an external authentication mechanism, will be able to log-in to the TIMP.NET Server ONLY IF:
- the TIMP.NET Windows service is shut down
- the XML files correposnding to those users are deleted from the <TIMPROOT>\spool\myserver.com directory
- the TIMP.NET windows service is started again
These users will loose their contact list, which they will have to create again using their IM clients.