The discussion revolves around setting up Single Sign-On (SSO) for a college forum using student accounts. Richard_Mohorovich is seeking help to implement SSO and was directed to the Discourse SAML plugin by mpalmer.
mpalmer warns that SAML implementations can be complex and may require debugging. Richard_Mohorovich intends to try setting up the plugin, but may need guidance due to his limited programming background.
Before proceeding, Richard_Mohorovich must install the SAML plugin, but he will postpone this task due to upcoming exams and project deadlines. He also inquires if college support is necessary for SSO implementation. mpalmer believes that some cooperation with the college is required to obtain a shared secret or credential for SSO authentication.
The goal of implementing SSO is to simplify onboarding and validate Sheridan College membership, as the forum is student-run and not affiliated with the college.
Hello,
Still waiting for reply on setting this up for forum from school. SSO for students using their student account.
Would any be able to provide insight on how to do this? I’ve seen a thread about Shibboleth SSO. Anybody know how much it would cost to get a solution developed?
There’s a Discourse SAML plugin already, which if you’re self-hosting you can just drop right in. Be warned, though, that SAML itself, and the various implementations thereof, are a complete and utter trash fire, and you’ll likely need to do a certain amount of debugging to get it working right. I don’t think we’ve had an Enterprise customer SAML roll out that hasn’t needed some degree of fiddling to get working.
Thank you 
I’m going to try and figure out how to go about getting it working right. Any suggestions as to where to start? Maybe its beyond my skill level (computer programmer diploma courses).
Well, where are you starting from? Do you have Discourse already up and running, as per the setup guide? Have you tried installing the SAML plugin as per the relevant howto topic? Have you configured it? How did you configure it? Have you tried to use it? If so, how did it go? What errors did you receive?
I have Discourse up and running. Tomorrow I will try installing the SAML plugin as per the relevant howto topic.
Sorry, should’ve mentioned this sooner. I have final exams and project deadlines nearing. So, I’ll have to postpone this a couple weeks till they’re done.
Also, can this be done without support from the college? Or is there information that only they can provide for SSO to work? The intention of using SSO is for easier onboarding, and Sheridan College member validity. The forum is not by the college, but by students for the students.
Every SSO solution I can think of requres some sort of shared secret or other credential to authenticate the portion of the communication between the SSO provider and consumer. So I’m pretty sure you’ll need some sort of cooperation with the college, although if they’re doing SAML correctly, issuing such a credential should not be an undue burden on them (in fact, they should be doing it all over the place already, so one more shouldn’t hurt).