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Google-Moodle Integration Config.

agreenlees — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:11:03 +0000

As promised the configuration of the Moodle-Google Integration plugin:

Download Google-Moodle Integration plugin
Unzip the files and upload them to your Moodle installation
Login to your Moodle site and click Notifications to update the newly installed blocks
From the Users menu, select Authentication then Google Authentication
Enter your Google domain name
On your Moodle server create the private and public keys:
Private Key (stored in Moodle only)
Command: openssl genrsa -out rsaprivkey.pem 1024

(Visit Google Documentation for Key Generation Help)

Public Key (stored in Moodle and Google)
Command: openssl req -new -x509 -key rsaprivkey.pem -out rsacert.pem

(Visit Google Documentation for Key Generation Help)
Upload the created RSA Key File (rsaprivkey.pem) to Moodle (Users -> Authentication -> Google Authentication)
Upload the created SSL Signing Certificate (rsacert.pem) to Moodle (Users -> Authentication -> Google Authentication)
Login to your Google Apps Admin Control Panel (http://google.com/a/yourdomain) in a new window
Browse to Advanced Tools – > Authentication -> Setup Single Sign-on (SSO)
Check the Enable Single Sign-on box
Copy and paste the Sign-in, Sign-out and Change Password page URL’s from the Setup Instructions box located on the Google Authentication setup page in Moodle
Upload the Verification Certificate (rsacert.pem created in step 6) and Save the changes in Google Apps
In your Google Apps Control Panel, browse to Users and Groups -> Settings and check the Enable Provisioning API box
Save the Changes
(This allows users to be updated)
Browse to Advanced Tools -> Manage OAuth Domain Key
Upload the created certificate (rpacert.pem from step 6)
Copy the OAuth Consumer Secret
In Moodle, enable all Google Blocks and add them to the Front Page of your Moodle
(I had issues with a couple of the blocks and therefore only enabled the GMail Block. See how you go but if you have issues disabling the other plugins would be the first port of call)
Browse to Modules -> Blocks -> GMail Blocks and paste the Google OAuth Consumer Secret into the supplied field
Save the Changes
Select the Google User Sync block from Modules -> Blocks and fill in your Google Admin info.
Save the Changes
Test the config…

Our current configuration allows our staff and students to login to Moodle using their Active Directory credentials (via the Moodle LDAP authentication plugin) and link straight to their GMail account. This has allowed us to continue to provide a complete Single Sign-on (SSO) environment for our users.

Moodle-Google Intergration

agreenlees — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:09:11 +0000

The school I work at currently uses Moodle as our chosen LMS for students. Moodle is linked with our School Management system to sync courses, assignments and course enrollments among other things. This greatly assists in minimising administration work, but more on this at another time…

Our school also uses Google Apps Education Edition to provide our students with Email accounts and usage of the other Google Apps services. Google provides a great LDAP sync tool that can easily sync users and groups memberships but lacks a way to sync users passwords (not secure). For this to be possible a Single Sign On (SSO) system must come into the equation. These systems can cost thousands of dollars (depending on user numbers) from 3rd party developers or require a large amount of IT admin time and server resources to perfect a solid solution. I searched long and hard for a suitable tool for this job and tried a number of solutions but none worked well enough for my liking.

At the same time that I was searching for solutions for this issue I was also browsing around for some useful Moodle plugins. This is where I came across the Moodle-Google Intergration plugin that would solve all my issues. The plugin provides a SAML based authentication method to allow users to use their LDAP credentials (LDAP must be configured in Moodle) to log into their Google Apps account. This plugin talks with the SSO feature built into Google Apps via SAML 2.0 post and the use of the generated keys and certificates for security. Users then login to Moodle and from there can access their Google Apps account.

More to come on the configuration of this plugin. Stay tuned…

Moodle explained using Lego

agreenlees — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:52:34 +0000

[kml_flashembed movie="http://au.youtube.com/v/_XPZl6LLvik" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

WordPress MU & SMF Intergration

agreenlees — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:10:21 +0000

Recently I was asked to create a forum for our teachers to use to communicate with their students. As a few ofd our teachers are currently using WordPress to post their blogs we decided to find a web2 forum system that would integrate well with WordPress. I have previously used and like Simple Machine Forum (SMF), so I decided to see if WordPress and SMF would play nicely together.

My first result was the WP & SMF plug-in for WordPress. This plug-in once installed, allows you to create users in WordPress and have them automatically populated into your SMF user database. The plug-in also comes with three functions to allow you to show the following information inside WordPress:

1. The last SMF forum posts,
2. The last SMF forum topics,
3. The last SMF forum members,
4. SMF forum statistics; otal Members, Total Posts, Total Topics, Total Categories, Total Board, etc.

The WP & SMF plugin was relatively easy, although I did run into one error which was easily resolved. I will post the installation procedure and the resolution to the issue I encountered soon…

WordPress MU: http://mu.wordpress.org
SMF: http://www.simplemachines.org