Windows Authetication vs seperate process

[Jonathan Curran]

On Monday 18 December 2006 10:24, imageguy1206 at gmail.com wrote:
> I was wondering of someone could steer me in the right direction.
>
> We have a package that we would like to "secure" so that only specific
> individuals can access specific portions of the application.  Our
> wxPython application will revolve around updating a central database
> with information submitted from the app.  We will eventually have a web
> front end fo rsome aspects of the app.
>
> With several packages I have seen options to "Use Windows
> Authentication", which seems to mean that "If the user has
> authenticated and signed onto Windows, then our application will use
> their windows userid and we will just focus on the the tasks within our
> application the user is authorized to perform"
>
> Does anyone have any experience using this type of authentication
> scheme ?
>
> Any related tips or suggestions ?
>
> I have found a few wikipedia entries, but they seem to be more related
> to webpages, etc.
>
> Thanks.

Using windows authentication IMHO should only be used if there is an Active 
Directory/LDAP server set up against which the users are authenticated. I 
googled for 'active directory python' and came across 
http://tgolden.sc.sabren.com/python/ad_cookbook.html It seems to be very 
simple to use.

If I were to implement an authentication system like you want. I would:
1. Check to see if the local machine was part of a domain. If not then inform 
the user that they need to be.
2. Check to see if the user who ran the application is part of a specific 
group in AD.

I would assign each group a certain 'level' of privilege and accordingly let 
the user do what they should be able to do.

I hope this is a good starting point.

- Jonathan Curran