Single Sign-On API for MITS Discover and MITS Report

Introduction

Single sign-on is a feature that allows a user to sign in to a third party software solution and be simultaneously signed in to MITS. This feature requires two steps to authenticate a user with the database server where the MITS accounts reside.

This is an advanced feature and is intended only for those who are familiar with the following concepts: HTTP GET vs. HTTP POST, URL structure, and UTF-8 encoding of query values.

Note: MITS Report and MITS Discover handle Single Sign-On in a similar manner, with the following variations:

• MITS Report uses getAuthenticationToken.html and useAuthenticationToken.html, whereas MITS Discover uses getToken.md and useToken.md.

• URLs are case sensitive and vary between MITS Report and MITS Discover. Please note the case used in each example provided.

Conventions

• Values surrounded by brackets [ ] are optional, and may not be necessary for every user

• Values that are underlined are required, and must be provided for the service to work

Step 1: Request Authentication Token

First, your server must get an authentication token from the database server where the MITS accounts reside. The token is retrieved by sending an http request to:

(MITS Report)

http://serverName[:portNumber][/sub-directory]/getAuthenticationToken.html?

USERNAME=username&PASSWORD=password

(MITS Discover)

http://serverName[:portNumber][/sub-directory]/getToken.md?username=username&

password=password Step 2: Authenticate the User 2

An example request might look like this:

(MITS Report)

http://MITS:8080/mitsreport/getAuthenticationToken.html?USERNAME=admin&

PASSWORD=report

(MITS Discover)

http://MITS:8080/mitsdiscover/getToken.md?username=admin&password=discover

This will return a simple html response that contains the token ID. The token ID will consist of a series of numbers, separated by a single underscore. An example token ID might look like this:

44_2374983208825

Step 2: Authenticate the User

The token ID requested in Step 1 can now be used to generate a user authentication request. This request will then authenticate the viewing browser with the database server where the MITS accounts reside. The authentication request is sent to:

(MITS Report)

http:serverName[:portNumber][/sub-directory]/useAuthenticationToken.html?

TOKEN=tokenID

(MITS Discover)

http:serverName[:portNumber][/sub-directory]/useToken.md?token=tokenID

An example request might look like this:

(MITS Report)

http://MITS:8080/mitsreport/useAuthenticationToken.html?TOKEN=31_1134769743992

(MITS Discover)

http://MITS:8080/mitsdiscover/

useToken.md?token=31_1134769743992&redirectUrl=frameset.md

Note: The above example for MITS Discover includes an additional redirectUrl parameter at the end to specify what page to go to in MITS Discover. In MITS Report, the user will be automatically sent to the report listing page.

An alternate single URL that can be used is:

(MITS Report)

http://mda.mits.com/mitsreport/j_acegi_security_check.html?j_username=admin&

j_password=report

(MITS Discover)

http://MITS:8080/mitsdiscover/doLogin.md?username=admin&password=discover

Note: The above example for MITS Discover will direct the user to their landing page.

Once this authentication request has been sent, the browser session is authenticated.