The Authentication Open Service Interface Definition (OSID) is an O.K.I.

specification A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard. There are different types of technical or engineering specificati ...

which supports invoking an

authentication Authentication (from ''authentikos'', "real, genuine", from αὐθέντης ''authentes'', "author") is the act of proving an assertion, such as the identity of a computer system user. In contrast with identification, the act of indicatin ...

process. OSIDs are programmatic interfaces which comprise a

Service Oriented Architecture In software engineering, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that focuses on discrete services instead of a monolithic design. By consequence, it is also applied in the field of software design where services are provide ...

for designing and building reusable and

interoperable Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader def ...

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

. The implementation of this service is responsible for gathering whatever information is appropriate to perform authentication. This service also supports testing if a user is authenticated, returning the Agent identity that corresponds to the authenticated user. The OSIDs can interact with information and resources over which some form of access control is required. Authentication, Agent, and

Authorization Authorization or authorisation (see spelling differences) is the function of specifying access rights/privileges to resources, which is related to general information security and computer security, and to access control in particular. More fo ...

work together where Authentication ensures interactions are at the request of an identified user and Authorization reports what the identified user can do.

Known Authentication OSID Providers

* Kerberos Authentication System *

Password A password, sometimes called a passcode (for example in Apple devices), is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of ...

X.509 In cryptography, X.509 is an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standard defining the format of public key certificates. X.509 certificates are used in many Internet protocols, including TLS/SSL, which is the basis for HTTPS, the secu ...

References

{{reflist Software architecture