Moodle in English: Auth prob with etherpad

Auth prob with etherpad

by Svenja Lell - Friday, October 2, 2020, 1:04 AM

Hi,

from our Moodle (Moodle 3.6) instance we want to work with Etherpad. So I set up an Etherpadserver on our Moodle - domain "my.sub.domain.com" from here:

https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite

So the etherpad server is available under https://my.sub.domain.com:9001. It is working flawlessly. I can create and edit pads.

So our Moodle is located under https://my.sub.domain.com.I put the following in the settings:

wwrz

Than I created an etherpad activity. But when I open it in order to edit the pad I get the error msg that I'm not allowed to access this pad.

Simultaneously when opening the etherpad activity in Moodle I see the following the console of the etherpad server:

werwer

It is may be bit tricky to read but the last line tells, that the authentication has failed. Can you get me started how to get this running. The api-key is the default one, The session is also ok.

Thanks a lot for your help

heyho

Svenja

Re: Auth prob with etherpad

by Andreas Grabs - Friday, October 2, 2020, 6:04 AM

Hi Svenja,

what version of etherpad do you use? The last one "1.8.6" has a bug it does not work with moodle. The developer version already has fixed this bug. So you could use this one or the previous version "1.8.5".

Another thing I saw in your post is the subdomain you chose.

If both systems run on the subdomain "my.sub.domain.com" so the cookie-domain should be set to the same.
If both systems run on different subdomains, e.g. Moodle: "mdl.sub.domain.com" and etherpad: "ep.sub.domain.com", then your cookie-domain should be ".sub.domain.com" (note the dot ".").

I hope this helps.

Best regards
Andreas

Average of ratings:Useful (1)

Re: Auth prob with etherpad

by Svenja Lell - Friday, October 2, 2020, 5:00 PM

Hi Andreas,

that was indeed helpful! ... for I had version "1.8.6" in use. I checkout the "1.8.5" version and all of a sudden it worked!

May that be a help to others. It is a quiet helpful tool!

Regards,

Svenja

Average of ratings: -

Re: Auth prob with etherpad

by Svenja Lell - Friday, October 2, 2020, 10:24 PM

Hi Andreas,

sorry for asking again... but I need to secure my etherpad lite server. Is it possible to allow access by api only and close it for others ? How did you secure your etherpad lite server ?

Thanks beforehand!

Regards,

Svenja

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Re: Auth prob with etherpad

by Andreas Grabs - Saturday, October 3, 2020, 4:35 AM

Hi Svenja,

If you only access your etherpad from Moodle, you can set the following two values to "true" in settings.json.

"requireSession" : true,
"editOnly" : true,

Best regards
Andreas

Average of ratings:Useful (1)

Re: Auth prob with etherpad

by Svenja Lell - Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 10:39 PM

Hi Andreas,

now I have more severe probs, because it no longer works at all.

When I want to use the etherpad activity or createone I get this error:

So I re-installed the plugin and the errors remains. When I restart the server I get on the console:

myetherpaduser@ourcompany:~/ETHERPAD/etherpad-lite$ ./bin/run.sh
Ensure that all dependencies are up to date... If this is the first time you have run Etherpad please be patient.
npm WARN prepare removing existing node_modules/ before installation

> wd@1.12.1 install /home/myetherpaduser/ETHERPAD/etherpad-lite/src/node_modules/wd
> node scripts/build-browser-scripts

added 1125 packages in 15.823s
Clearing minified cache...
Starting Etherpad...
All relative paths will be interpreted relative to the identified Etherpad base dir: /home/myetherpaduser/ETHERPAD/etherpad-lite
Random string used for versioning assets: 393f4bd3
[2020-10-07 14:00:05.877] [DEBUG] AbsolutePaths - Relative path "settings.json" can be rewritten to "/home/myetherpaduser/ETHERPAD/etherpad-lite/settings.json"
[2020-10-07 14:00:05.882] [DEBUG] AbsolutePaths - Relative path "credentials.json" can be rewritten to "/home/myetherpaduser/ETHERPAD/etherpad-lite/credentials.json"
settings loaded from: /home/myetherpaduser/ETHERPAD/etherpad-lite/settings.json
No credentials file found in /home/myetherpaduser/ETHERPAD/etherpad-lite/credentials.json. Ignoring.
[2020-10-07 14:00:05.897] [INFO] console - Using skin "colibris" in dir: /home/myetherpaduser/ETHERPAD/etherpad-lite/src/static/skins/colibris
[2020-10-07 14:00:05.906] [INFO] console - Session key loaded from: /home/myetherpaduser/ETHERPAD/etherpad-lite/SESSIONKEY.txt
[2020-10-07 14:00:08.103] [INFO] APIHandler - Api key file read from: "/home/myetherpaduser/ETHERPAD/etherpad-lite/APIKEY.txt"
[2020-10-07 14:00:08.471] [INFO] console - Installed plugins:
[2020-10-07 14:00:08.483] [INFO] console - Report bugs at https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite/issues
[2020-10-07 14:00:08.490] [WARN] console - Can't get git version for server header
ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/home/myetherpaduser/ETHERPAD/etherpad-lite/.git/37488fa93a0159c141e1ce7df7691241f63'
[2020-10-07 14:00:08.492] [WARN] console - Can't get git version for server header
ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/home/myetherpaduser/ETHERPAD/etherpad-lite/.git/37488fa93a0159c141e1ce7df7691241f63'
[2020-10-07 14:00:08.493] [INFO] console - Your Etherpad version is 1.8.5 ()
[2020-10-07 14:00:08.498] [INFO] console - SSL -- enabled
[2020-10-07 14:00:08.499] [INFO] console - SSL -- server key file: /etc/ssl/uni/uni.edu.cn_server.key
[2020-10-07 14:00:08.502] [INFO] console - SSL -- Certificate Authority's certificate file: /etc/ssl/uni/uni.edu.cn.crt
[2020-10-07 14:00:08.961] [INFO] console - You can access your Etherpad instance at http://189.67.215.105:9001/
[2020-10-07 14:00:08.961] [INFO] console - The plugin admin page is at http://189.67.215.105:9001/admin/plugins
[2020-10-07 14:00:08.961] [WARN] console - Etherpad is running in Development mode. This mode is slower for users and less secure than production mode. You should set the NODE_ENV environment variable to production by using: export NODE_ENV=production
[2020-10-07 14:00:11.814] [WARN] console - Update available: Download the actual version 1.8.6

Can You help me one more time in order to get the etherpad plugin running ?

Must be due to invalid argument ... but how to find!

Thanks for help !

Best,

Svenja

Average of ratings: -

Re: Auth prob with etherpad

by Svenja Lell - Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 10:44 PM

What I did was, I tried to switch to another port from 9001 to 8090. But I changed it back. May that have caused the trouble.
In the longer run,we need to change he port because of technical restrictions. Is that possible at all ?

Thanks!

Svenja

Average of ratings: -

Re: Auth prob with etherpad

by Svenja Lell - Thursday, October 8, 2020, 10:20 PM

Hi Andreas,

finally everything works...

but I have further requirements:
1.) people want use colors in the editor
2.) is it possible to let the editor recognize the Moodle-usernem automatically ?
So you see each participating Moodle - user by klicking the button in the upper right button .

Again it is very nice tool ...
Can you recommend particular plugins ?

K.R.
Svenja

Average of ratings: -

Re: Auth prob with etherpad

by Svenja Lell - Friday, October 9, 2020, 4:11 PM

Hi Andreas,

...tested your configuration. but I cannot set "editOnly" : true. If I so Moodle is also not allowed to access the etherpad lite server.
But that helped me
...Best Thanks!!!

non-the-less I have another (stupid) question. Is there only one etherpad possible for all Moodle users ? That sounds plausible, because you give it a name the configuration. But is there a way to have more simultaneously ?

Thanks!

Svenja

Average of ratings: -

Re: Auth prob with etherpad

by Andreas Grabs - Saturday, October 10, 2020, 6:07 AM

Hi Svenja,

I am sure there is something wrong in your etherpad installation. The "editOnly" Option should be true. This option prevents creating new pads over the web interface. The creating of new pads over the API is still possible.

I don't really understand the last question. In Moodle you can create multiple instances of the Etherpad activity. Each instance has its own pad. The name you define in the plugin configuration is only a suffix of a group pad. A pad build by the API should be named like "g.jfldjflsfjlfs$moodlepad" (moodlepad is the part from your configuration). You can look at your iframe src url to check this. It should look like:

"https://your-etherpad-server.com/p/g.KiFL7KI8e2M5pNXY$moodlepad"

Best regards
Andreas

Average of ratings: -

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