[MKDoc-dev] Using cookie/ticket authentication rather than Basic Auth

[Bruno Postle]

On Sun 26-Sep-2004 at 13:02 +1000, Charlie Garrison wrote:
> 
> Speaking of names, I would love an introduction from people on
> this list. Do you and Bruno both work for the company that
> developed MKDoc? How big is the MKDoc community?

There are four of us employed at mkdoc, Chris has been responsible
for setting the general specification of the software and has
created all the Petal templates.  I've been doing more admin duties,
though I know the evolution of the code as much as anyone.

The 'community' as it exists is basically the sum of all our
customers as a company.

The mkdoc core code has only recently been released so we have a
task to build a community of developers around that, though the
spin-off modules - Petal in particular - Already have a life of
their own.

> Bruno, let me know if you have any other naming suggestions for
> the MKDoc::Auth modules I want to create.

MKDoc::Auth is intended to have a framework for adding new
authentication methods, so it's appropriate to add the cookie code
directly to that as you suggested.

> At the simplest, to switch between methods I figured it would be a
> matter of changing the modules listed in the plugin conf file, and
> changing the module assigned to the auth handler in httpd.conf.

That sounds like the right way to do it, at least initially.
Integrating magic multiple auth methods is probably a task for later
on.

> What is the goal for changes in 1.8?

The goal for us with 1.8 is to make sure it is stable enough for
production use - 1.8 is (in principle) much more maintainable.  We
also have some extra features that need to be added in the near
future - The stability of 1.8 determines if we add those features to
1.6 or 1.8.

> How much of the code (& templates) from mkd will be moving to
> packages listed on CPAN?  What is the separation between the MKDoc
> support modules on CPAN, and the 'app' modules in mkd?

The criteria for splitting a module from 'mkd' and putting it on
CPAN was to do it if the module was useful independently of the
MKDoc CMS.  The long term aim was to end up with a small package of
purely CMS related code - This process obviously hasn't finished.

MKDoc::Core is intended to be a generic web-application framework
rather than a CMS system:

  http://search.cpan.org/~jhiver/MKDoc-Core-0.9/lib/MKDoc/Core/Article/Overview.pm

The design is that the plugin system is REST-ful and that the
templates are TAL.

> Specifically in this case, where should I create the module for
> the login-tkt plugin?

Functionality that has analogues in existing code (such as
alternative auth methods) can be added in-place - I can release a
new MKDoc::Auth module onto CPAN including your changes - If you see
an opportunity to break some generic-looking code out of 'mkd' and
put it into a new CPAN module then that would be even better.

-- 
Bruno