15 June 2009, 18:43

Hi Everyone -

I've almost got Mahoodle working, but I've run across something strange.

I can SSO Out (ie. new accounts on Mahara can be created and accessed on Moodle), but I can't SSO in (i.e. new Moodle accounts aren't able to automatically login at Mahara).  I tried turning everything on in both directions but that didn't seem to help.  I looked the forums as well, and tried toggling various settings (like turning off "update user on login"), but nothing seems to fix it.

 My PHP error logs say this:

/home/evenmore/public_html/epoch/mahara/htdocs/auth/xmlrpc/error_log:

17:24:04] [WAR] 30 (api/xmlrpc/client.php:76) Client error code: 404[15-Jun-2009 17:24:04] Call stack (most recent first):[15-Jun-2009 17:24:04] * Client->send("http://www.epochlearning.com/moodle") at /home/evenmore/public_html/epoch/mahara/htdocs/auth/xmlrpc/lib.php:117[15-Jun-2009 17:24:04] * AuthXmlrpc->request_user_authorise("5f287e45f0b33a5a9861983a1aee92ba44de74e2", "http://www.epochlearning.com/moodle") at /home/evenmore/public_html/epoch/mahara/htdocs/auth/xmlrpc/land.php:95

 But it's not immediately clear what the issue is.  Can anyone help?

It feels like I'm soooo close....    Thx for helping me get the last piece configured!  

Chris : ) 

15 June 2009, 19:58

Error code 404 - that sounds like you may have configured the Mahara XMLRPC a little incorrectly. What have you got the 'application' field set to? It should say 'Moodle' if you're connecting to a Moodle.

Other possibly helpful information: what platform is the moodle and mahara installed on?

17 June 2009, 17:30

Thx for the quick reply Nigel!  I've seen your postings in the forums here, and I sincerely appreciate the time you spend helping all of us.

The platform is a typical LAMP stack on a shared host - BlueHost.  I know other folks had issues getting certain pieces to work on BlueHost, but I've been able to solve every issue but this one.

 Yes - I have the app set to Moodle. Here is a screenshot of my current setup, but I've played with just about every variable on this page without any luck.

 Again - many thx for any help you can provide!

Chris  : )

17 June 2009, 20:01

Hmm, the only thing I'd change there is to un-tick 'we sso out'. Really SSO is in one direction only, trying to do it both ways ends up in duplicate accounts. But it does look like you have every thing set correctly, so I'm not sure why that wouldn't work.

It might be worth re-investigating that 404. What file exactly does it claim is missing, and is that file actually present on your server?

17 June 2009, 22:43

Thx for the advice, but unclicking that option didn't work. I agree that the 404 error is where we need to focus. 

Here's a more specific run down of what I'm seeing:

I created a user on Moodle called "dolly", used the Network Servers link on Dolly's homepage (which links to "http://www.epochlearning.com/moodle/auth/mnet/jump.php?hostid=4") to go over to Mahara, and it resulted in:

"Sorry, could not log you in :("

 And here's what the error logs said:

/home/evenmore/public_html/epoch/moodle/login/error_log:

[17-Jun-2009 21:20:38] [client 66.234.208.91] http://www.epochlearning.com/moodle Failed Login: dolly Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.11) Gecko/2009060215 Firefox/3.0.11 (.NET CLR 3.0.30618)

/home/evenmore/public_html/epoch/mahara/htdocs/auth/xmlrpc/error_log:

[17-Jun-2009 21:21:01] [WAR] 87 (api/xmlrpc/client.php:76) Client error code: 404 [17-Jun-2009 21:21:01] Call stack (most recent first):

[17-Jun-2009 21:21:01] * Client->send("http://www.epochlearning.com/moodle") at /home/evenmore/public_html/epoch/mahara/htdocs/auth/xmlrpc/lib.php:117

[17-Jun-2009 21:21:01] * AuthXmlrpc->request_user_authorise("77f16a463e6c5570c1fa6a15811aba92f7ff50c3", "http://www.epochlearning.com/moodle") at /home/evenmore/public_html/epoch/mahara/htdocs/auth/xmlrpc/land.php:95 

BTW - This is an example of the string that Moodle is passing over to Mahara (not taken from the same error above):
http://www.epochlearning.com/mahara/htdocs/auth/xmlrpc/land.php?token=3d2a0d2da7260991fc394f37edbab84e73ac84a9&idp=http://www.epochlearning.com/moodle&wantsurl=

The last variable (wantsurl) has no value, and I wonder if that is part of the problem.

Thx again for your help.  I'd love to solve this!  So weird that SSO works from Mahara to Moodle, but not the other way around.

 Chris : )

21 June 2009, 18:26

26 June 2009, 2:00

Yep.  MNET is enabled and that file is on the server in the proper location. Does it need any special permissions?

 I did the whole setup again for Mahoodle.  But now I can't even get user accounts to be created from Mahara to Moodle.  The SSO connection seems fine, but no user creation happening.

 I've read a lot of the forums here and on Moodle.org, and you've said that there are some unresolved issues when hosting Mahara on a hosted server (I'm on BlueHost).  Is this still the case?  Any other ideas?

Thx again for all your assistance!

Chris : )

26 June 2009, 22:28

Hi - nope, no special permissions, just the same permissions that all the other files have.

Yes, there are unresolved issues when using shared hosting. This is because shared hosting is such a mess it's impossible to develop something reliable for . Your best bet is really to get onto something like a VPS, where you can have 100% control.

Other than that, I'm afraid I've run out of ideas as to exactly why you're having this issue

22 July 2009, 22:21

Hey Nigel and others -

I thought I'd officially close the loop on  this thread and let everyone know that we did solve our authentication issues by moving to a dedicated virtual server.  BlueHost is great, but there is something about their environment that makes it impossible to get SSO working perfectly.  We need to address this for future versions of Mahara - or simply make a install package that works with tools like Fantastico Deluxe.

But for now we have a nice installation of Mahoodle running.  In fact - if anyone's interested - we successfully integrated it with Google Apps for Education, creating "Gahoodle"! (TM Chris Walsh 2009 - J/K).

 We're still just gathering feedback from users before comiting to a full production environment, but people are liking what they see.

 I've started to notice a number of improvements that I'd like, especially on the UI side.  Where should I document those requests?

 Thx again for all your help.

 Chris : ) 

23 July 2009, 1:47

Hi - you've been filing feature requests like fury today, that's the right place for them . I'll go through them when I get a chance and reply with my thoughts.

Gahoodle eh? Any code that could be contributed?