Difference between revisions of "Org.eclipse.higgins.hss"

Revision as of 18:10, 31 January 2009

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• A switching component that sits between a browser add-on on the one hand and one or more Identity Selectors on the other. The user decides what their "current" selector is. The browser requests a security token from the selector switch that then passes this request on to the current selector.
• Provides an app/UI to allow the user to change their default selector
• Uses a "connector" architecture that allows developers to create new connectors for new Identity Selectors
• Only currently available for Windows

Service

Higgins Selector Switch is responsible for:

• Accepting I-Card token request from browser plug-in
• Dispatching token request to registered selector through selector connector
• Returning token from registered selector to browser
• Registering a default selector from available selectors

Depends on:

• Connectors for Higgins Selector Switch
• Higgins Information Card MIME handler for IE and/or Higgins Browser Extension for Firefox

Architecture

The diagram below shows the relationship between two different browsers, the Higgins Selector Switch, the connectors and the Identity Selectors. As you can see different connectors use different techniques to invoke/launch their associated Selector. The connector that launches CardSpace, for example, uses a DLL, whereas the connector that launches the AIR Selector uses a TCP socket.

Note: at present there is no connector for the RCP Selector

Shown below are the utility sub-components that launch the selector switch on system startup as well as provide the UI to allow the user to change his/her choice of current selector

Used By

Possibly incomplete list of Solutions 1.1 that use this component:

• AIR Client and Server

Links

• AIR Client and Server 1.1 solution uses the Higgins Selector Switch
• Installer for Higgins Selector Switch
• Higgins Selector Switch download