Authentication on Mick's Place

NOTE: The forums and main page (Drupal and phpBB3) now have a merged account list and integrated logins. If you create or update your account on the Forums, it is automatically synchronized to Drupal. This should help a bit.

I wanted to clarify a few things for folks here, I know the site can cause some confusion.  Much of the site is fairly tightly locked down for security reasons. I get tons of hits from hackers and such on my site, and I regularly clean bogus signups off the message board. Many of you are familiar with the additional restrictions I have had to place on the Forums over the years to cut off the spammers. Unfortunately this leaves me with a bit of a mess with regards to user identity management.

There are three separate components that all have their own identity management and security systems: The Forums (phpBB3), the Photo Gallery (Gallery 2), and now the main site (Drupal). Until I can find a way to consolidate the identity stores (Single Sign-on), users will have to maintain up to three separate accounts or "user registrations", one for each of the components they want to use. So for the time being, please bear with me. I'm looking at the possibility of integrating the Forums identity with the Main site in the future, I think it's possible. I just need to assess how disruptive it will be. My guiding principle is that the most important of the identities is for the Forums.

What does this mean to you? If you just want to get to the Forums, click on the link and you will be in familiar territory. There's a link at the top of the page. If you want to get to the Photo Gallery, same thing. NOTE: you do NOT have to log into the main page to do that or to get to any of the content on the site that is publically available.

OK, so what are the benefits of creating yet another account on the main site? You will then be able to comment on blog entries and stories. You will be able to create your own blog. And if it makes sense, you can even have your own content area with your own stories and web pages (we'll have to talk about that one). The downside is that you will have to maintain a separate identity. You can use the same username and even password, but you will have to keep them in sync yourself.

I hope this explains stuff better; if you have any questions, please let me know. Best, make a post on the Forums so my answer can maybe help more than one person. Or register and leave a comment on this story.