Enable AREA authentication

You use the AREA API to create an AREA server, which mediates between the data source and AR System. The AREA API is installed with the AR System C API. The AR System provides the name, password, and IP address in a remote call to the AREA server, which validates the name and password and then passes the account information back to the AR System. The AR System combines the account and user schema information.

Related topic

Configuring AR System servers to use the AREA LDAP plug-in

ar-cfg-or-ar-conf

Implementing AREA authentication

  1. Create a library (.dll or .so) to handle AREA API calls. See the following sections:
  2. Link to the AREA library.
  3. Install the AREA library on the computers that contain the AR System server.
  4. Configure the AR System server to use external authentication. For more information, see Configuring authentication processing.

Set up the AREA hub

The AR Systemplug-in server supports only one AREA plug-in directly. You can, however, add a single AREA hub plug-in to the plug-in server and then add multiple AREA plug-ins to the AREA hub plug-in. The AREA hub propagates the calls it receives from the hub-plug-ins to the plug-in server. The AREA hub loads the hub-plug-ins in the order in which they appear in the ar.cfg or ar.conf file. That is, the first entry that the AREA hub finds in the ar.cfg file is the first plug-in loaded, the second entry is the second plug-in loaded, and so on.

You do not need to configure the AREA hub manually to use multiple AREA LDAP plug-ins. For more information, see Configuring the AREA LDAP plug-in.

Setting up AREA hub plug-in

  1. Create the following entry for the AREA hub in the ar.cfg file:

    Plugin: areahub.dll

    Make sure this is the only entry for an AREA plug-in in your ar.cfg file.

  2. Create an entry for the first AREA plug-in as follows:

    AREA-Hub-Plugin: my_area_plug-in.dll

  3. If necessary, create entries for subsequent AREA plug-ins as follows:

    AREA-Hub-Plugin: my_area_plug-in_1.dll
    AREA-Hub-Plugin: my_area_plug-in_2.dll
    AREA-Hub-Plugin: my_area_plug-in_3.dll

  4. Restart the AR System plug-in server. 

For more information, see Restarting-the-plug-in-server.

Install the sample AREA LDAP plug-in

AR System includes a sample AREA LDAP plug-in, which is installed during installation if you select the AR System server option. To configure the plug-in, see Configuring the AREA LDAP plug-in.

 

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