If you want other GPL software, there's Yet Another Web Portal System, and its derivatives WebApp and Poas. Out of these three WebApp seems to have the largest user base, and it has a semi-automatic install script.

You can also take a look in CGI Resources Directories and Portals and CGI Expo Portal Scripts for other community portal scripts.

Most of these are complete member site applications encompassing multiple scripts. If you just want some perl scripts that you can use to put together your own flavor of community check out Extropia.com for several open source web apps you can use for your site.

--
hiseldl

P.S. YAWPS, WebAPP, and POAS are all 100% Perl with no DB required.

When you consider Microsoft Passport and the Liberty Alliance specification single sign on will be standardised into something everyone will have to use and maybe then we'll all get to use the same modules. It's a nice idea I just hope for my sake it is based around an ldap server

use MySite::SubClass;

my $webapp = MySite::SubClass->new();
$webapp->run();
[download]

package MySite::SubClass;

use MySite::SuperClass;

sub setup {
    # setup runmodes and script specific stuff
    # ...templates perhaps?
}

# …
# runmodes subs and whatnot :)
# …

1;
[download]

package MySite::SuperClass;

use base 'CGI::Application';
use CGI;
# other modules here..

sub cgiapp_init {
    my $self = shift;
    
    # create database handler
    # do session management
}

sub teardown {
    my $self = shift;
    
    # dbh->disconnect
}

# …
# other functions
# …

1;
[download]

For the record, I downloaded YaWPS, which was small, quick to configure, uses cookie-based session authentication, and is hugely packed with features.

My only problem will be removing all the features I don't need.
--

($_='jjjuuusssttt annootthheer
     pppeeerrrlll haaaccckkeer')=~y/a-z//s;print;
[download]

It really isnt very difficult to get right. I've created a superclass that inherits from cgi::application that implicitly manages sessions and access control (in a secure manner, using "non determinate" tokens and a postgres backend.

The authentication scheme is such that if i wanted to change to ldap, rather than an RDBMS, i just write another module with the same methods, and switch it over... nice and simple... ;-)

I've written objects to take care of authentication and access control. The two objects are called session.pm and (pooly named) login.pm

If the password matches (encrypt and compare) it then creates a "non determinate" token and issues it to the browser via a cookie, and also stores it in a session table alongside the primary (artificial) key of the user.

Access control is a vanilla users -> group, and group -> application style. Access control can also be done at the method level in the same way (ie group -> method). This type of method level control must be explicitly programmed by the application programmer.

The AppFrame is based on cgi::app so for each new application you do a use base 'AppFrame' (which in turn uses CGI::Application). Each time the application is invoked a method in AppFrame goes and checks to see if the user (based on the session id retrieved from the cookie) has access to the page (url) they want to access. ie its all implicit. the application programmer doesnt have to worry about either verifying access, or verifying a session.

The current AppFrame GUI design has a level of menus down the lefthand side for each applicaton. If you dont have access to an application, its icon will not be shown. (This is handled by the poorly named login.pm module.)

The tables used at the back end are:

I've also made something like what other people here have made. A 'plug-in' solution to authenticate logged in users (and of course log in users etc.). It's really easy to write an application to use it, too.

It doesn't have many features yet, because it's still very simple. But it uses cookies like merlyn recommends in his WebTechniques column.

Lur: "But if this cape shrinks, consider your species extinct!"