Import Users from NIS or radius?

Hello,

Not sure if this made it to the list last time, so I am resending, I
apologize in advance if it already got to many of you and it is a duplicate.
We may have been/are having email server issues, so if this is now a
triplicate, I offer my sincere apologies.

Hello Mike and everyone else,

I wanted to follow-up on our conversation below regarding users, etc.

I obviously don’t want massive data duplication so it would seem that the
best way to do this would be to import all of our internet customers into RT
as users with basically no permissions, set them up in a group and all of
that normal business.

All of my users are in our radius file and accessible via NIS, which is
great and I am pretty sure that I can figure out how to import them from
that using standard myself syntax and a exported .csv or similar file.

The problem that was brought to my attention is that I would need to do this
daily. Is there a way that you or someone would know of that would allow me
to import only the new data each day? My boss thought that using NIS would
be better, and I think that I would agree with that.

Please remember, I am not much of a programmer, but I would like to see if
this is possible and maybe an example if someone knows how to do it :slight_smile:

Regards,

Greg

Greg Evans wrote:

Hello,

Not sure if this made it to the list last time, so I am resending, I
apologize in advance if it already got to many of you and it is a duplicate.
We may have been/are having email server issues, so if this is now a
triplicate, I offer my sincere apologies.

Hello Mike and everyone else,

I wanted to follow-up on our conversation below regarding users, etc.

I obviously don’t want massive data duplication so it would seem that the
best way to do this would be to import all of our internet customers into RT
as users with basically no permissions, set them up in a group and all of
that normal business.

All of my users are in our radius file and accessible via NIS, which is
great and I am pretty sure that I can figure out how to import them from
that using standard myself syntax and a exported .csv or similar file.

The problem that was brought to my attention is that I would need to do this
daily. Is there a way that you or someone would know of that would allow me
to import only the new data each day? My boss thought that using NIS would
be better, and I think that I would agree with that.

You are going to be better off doing direct authentication off your NIS
or RADIUS platforms rather than doing a daily data import.

If your RADIUS is providing a standard LDAP interface, then you can use
Jim Meyer’s LDAP User Overlay (http://wiki.bestpractical.org/LDAP),
alternatively, Graeme Fowler did some work on a PAM interface that would
let you authenticate off of any information with a PAM module, for any
system running PAM.

Alternatively, if your RADIUS server can be converted to store its
information inside a database rather than flat files, you could use my
ExternalDB authentication overlay which will be released soon.

Alternatively, you can make Apache do the authentication. Any
authentication method that Apache supports will work because you can
just tell RT to trust Apache. And while it doesn’t seem palatable, it
seems feasible to write some custom cron scripts that convert your
radius data into .htaccess files.

Just a few things to consider…
Kind Regards,

Mike Peachey, IT
Tel: +44 114 281 2655
Fax: +44 114 281 2951
Jennic Ltd, Furnival Street, Sheffield, S1 4QT, UK
Comp Reg No: 3191371 - Registered In England

Greg Evans wrote:

Mike,

Thanks, that helps a lot and I can refer to the LDAP threads as well for
that info. I guess my question in return then is thus:

Since (at least at present) we want to have our users account information in
RT, but we don’t want them to actually be able to access it, but we do want
the information from NIS in RT, how would the NIS info populate the Users
table? I guess that is my question, since we want them all in RT so when we
take a ticket from a given user over the phone, we don’t have to create the
user and then the ticket.

You would need to make sure (I’m not sure if it does, off-hand) that the
New Ticket creation code tries calls the Update and AutoCreate methods
on the user before creating the ticket.

So that, when you create a new ticket, you enter the user’s e-mail
address in the requestor field, and then as the ticket is submitted, RT
will check for a user, update the user’s info if found, or autocreate
the user if not found, and then create the ticket.

I can try to be more clear if you decide to take this route and when
it’s not half four on a friday.
Kind Regards,

Mike Peachey, IT
Tel: +44 114 281 2655
Fax: +44 114 281 2951
Jennic Ltd, Furnival Street, Sheffield, S1 4QT, UK
Comp Reg No: 3191371 - Registered In England

Greg Evans wrote:

Quick reply,

Wenat and looked at the overlay and I think it may be overkill for my uses,
but do you know if these are still valid, as they at least appear to do
exactly what I need:

AutoCreateFromExternalUserInfo - Request Tracker Wiki

AutoCreateAndCanonicalizeUserInfo - Request Tracker Wiki

I wouldn’t bother going directly with these as these are both integrated
into LdapUserLocalOverlay - Request Tracker Wiki and also
the one I’m working on right now.

Kind Regards,

Mike Peachey, IT
Tel: +44 114 281 2655
Fax: +44 114 281 2951
Jennic Ltd, Furnival Street, Sheffield, S1 4QT, UK
Comp Reg No: 3191371 - Registered In England

Mike Peachey wrote:

Greg Evans wrote:

Quick reply,

Wenat and looked at the overlay and I think it may be overkill for my uses,
but do you know if these are still valid, as they at least appear to do
exactly what I need:

AutoCreateFromExternalUserInfo - Request Tracker Wiki

AutoCreateAndCanonicalizeUserInfo - Request Tracker Wiki

I wouldn’t bother going directly with these as these are both integrated
into LdapUserLocalOverlay - Request Tracker Wiki and also
the one I’m working on right now.

Ignore my rantings… looking again, you may be right that these are the
right options for you in your particular case.

Kind Regards,

Mike Peachey, IT
Tel: +44 114 281 2655
Fax: +44 114 281 2951
Jennic Ltd, Furnival Street, Sheffield, S1 4QT, UK
Comp Reg No: 3191371 - Registered In England

LOL!! Thanks Mike, you’re the best. Massive help, and much appreciated :slight_smile:

Greg Evans
Internet Support
Hood Canal Communications
(360) 898-2481 ext.212From: Mike Peachey [mailto:mike.peachey@jennic.com]
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 8:39 AM
To: Greg Evans
Cc: RT Users
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Import Users from NIS or radius??

Mike Peachey wrote:

Greg Evans wrote:

Quick reply,

Wenat and looked at the overlay and I think it may be overkill for my
uses, but do you know if these are still valid, as they at least
appear to do exactly what I need:

AutoCreateFromExternalUserInfo - Request Tracker Wiki

AutoCreateAndCanonicalizeUserInfo - Request Tracker Wiki

I wouldn’t bother going directly with these as these are both
integrated into
LdapUserLocalOverlay - Request Tracker Wiki and also the one
I’m working on right now.

Ignore my rantings… looking again, you may be right that these are the
right options for you in your particular case.

Kind Regards,

Mike Peachey, IT
Tel: +44 114 281 2655
Fax: +44 114 281 2951
Jennic Ltd, Furnival Street, Sheffield, S1 4QT, UK Comp Reg No: 3191371 -
Registered In England http://www.jennic.com