Question

I consider to use Twiki in my project but I'd rather like to use the same login names (users.sourceforge.net) as for the project itself. As much as I see Twiki (and also freedesktop.org) requires a WikiName which is completely different. Is this possible?

Environment

-- TWikiGuest - 17 Apr 2004

Answer

Yes it's possible but you'll need to some tweaking. Authentication is handled by the webserver not twiki. The reason for requiring a WikiName is to set the users home page where they can define their own preferences; and have the home page automatically linked.

You can create a non-wiki page using double bracket syntax. In order to get the page to autolink, in signatures for example, you'll have to continue to use the 2x-brackets: [[some_username]] .This will take care of creating and referencing the non-wikiname user page, I don't know what you have to do to get users' preferences in that page activated. UseLoginNames might do it, but I think the code might need to be brought up to date for current twiki.

-- MattWilkie - 17 Apr 2004

On same login name: You can configure Apache to authenticate against the existing user database (LDAP, NIS, etc), that way a John Smith can login with his existing jsmith account (all TWiki needs is the REMOTE_USER environment variable). Users still need to register in TWiki; the registration form asks for the user name, WikiName but not for a password. When the user logs in as jsmith, TWiki maps the name to the WikiName JohnSmith. See the authentication options in TWikiUserAuthentication.

With some additional programming you could automate the TWiki registration process, e.g. create new TWiki home pages in batches based on new accounts in the LDAP.

-- PeterThoeny - 19 Apr 2004