I’m excited to announce that the MetroStar Systems blog, SUPERNOVA, has just received a major backend upgrade, an Active Directory login system. This is a project that I have been working on for the last few weeks and was something that I really wanted to have implemented before I finished my Summer internship here at MetroStar.
The security advantages alone make this a worthwhile upgrade. Before this upgrade users of the blog had a login that was separate from their main login. This was an issue because it meant that two logins would have to be tracked for all employees. On top of that each login had to be managed by separate departments, which left even more room for miscommunication and error. Now, with the unified login system, every time a user logs in to Supernova he or she is authenticated through Active Directory, which is a major boon to network security.
All of this was accomplished through the use of the “Active Directory Integration” plugin for WordPress (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/active-directory-integration/). There were a few issues that had to be ironed out before the push to the production site but for the most part the plugin made it pretty painless. The main issue that I ran into was that none of the Active Directory users would authenticate initially. It actually turned out to be a problem with the domain controller in our development domain. This project actually helped pinpoint the issue and our IT team was able to seamlessly fix it. How all this was implemented will actually be detailed in a second post that I am writing and will be completed shortly.
-Felipe