Professional K2 blackpearl®

Chapter 17. Administering and Creating Security Providers

Jason Montgomery

No matter how many features a software product has, it always seems to be missing something that would be beneficial or useful in certain situations. K2 blackpearl solves this issue in just about every way by providing a high level of extensibility. K2 blackpearl itself is built on a framework of services that allow for powerful customization, including a Provider model for managing authentication (users who can login) and authorization (roles allowing what users can access). These are called security providers and are also known as User Providers since they expose user information from other systems to the K2 platform. At this time, there is only one functional security provider in K2 blackpearl — the Active Directory User and Role Provider. A SQL Server- based security Provider is currently in the works and should be available around the time this book is published. In most situations, the Active Directory Provider will meet the needs of most organizations. However, situations do arise where having the ability to add a prebuilt custom security provider or even create a custom security provider that ties into third-party systems is desirable. K2 blackpearl utilizes the Provider pattern to allow developers to add their own pluggable custom security providers. Additionally, multiple providers can be used in concert and the K2 system will continue to function as expected allowing for a broad range of interoperability ...