OK. Just so I don’t forget this when I inevitably have to do it again. We are starting to add some CWebProxy channels that access the portal web server via its external URL rather than one of the loopback interfaces (long story why, but there are a few issues with proxying to a localhost URL,…

What’s this… a rare work-related entry on a weekend?? Well, it is the weekend, but I’m hacking on the portal anyhow, to get ready for our relaunch this August. It’s coming along marvelously, thanks mainly to Collier, but I’ve been busy with it too. The relaunch will include: A complete redesign of the front end…

OK, policy decision for our up-and-coming launch of uPortal 2.5.. I’m going to stop using the LDAP GUID as the uPortal ‘unique username’, and use the new UMBC Campus ID instead. Background: Every uPortal user gets an entry in uPortal’s user table, UP_USER. This table contains (among other things) a numeric ID for primary key,…

We had another portal meltdown this morning. I figure I’ll keep a “meltdown log” of sorts to record notes, etc. Hopefully it’ll help me get to the bottom of this. Background: Every so often, the portal becomes unresponsive. There seems to be no correlation to system load (high demand etc). For example, spring final exams…

Today I fixed the latest crop of users with portal-access issues: Previous students who took a semester off, or never completed a degree, who want to use myUMBC to register or retrieve a transcript. These students do not have a student affiliation in LDAP, because they’re not “current” students. They also lack an alumni attribute…

CWebProxy provides a channel parameter called cw_person, which is a comma-separated list of person attributes. If this parameter is set, CWebProxy is supposed to fetch the listed attributes and pass them to the back-end web application as CGI parameters. This is a potentially handy feature, because then we can develop “smart” unauthenticated apps which present…

First: The facts of life. UMBC has the concept of a “student ID number.” This number is used in SIS as the primary key for almost every table. All students have these IDs, as do faculty members who teach courses, etc. uPortal itself does not use or require this number to do its work. The…

So, we have this new campus portal at UMBC. And for the most part, the launch has gone pretty well. As part of this whole thing, we’re rethinking some of our old, outdated business processes and changing the way they work under the new portal. One of these is the PIN (Personal ID Number). Waaaaay…

As expected, the whole uPortal affinity thing is really drawing folks out of the woodwork. For those of you who came in late, uPortal uses a totally different scheme from the old portal to determine who sees what content. Let’s take the “Faculty Options” channel as an example: Portal You see faculty options if… old…