Synchronize Alfresco users with another application

[jco]

Hello,

i've been looking through the Alfresco documentation and forums for one day, and i couldnt find a lot of help there to give me an answer…

I am looking for a way to synchronize my users / groups / spaces in Alfresco , using another user database from my own application. The synchronization would go in only one direction , considering i want to restrict user management in Alfresco itself.

My wish is to create a java application providing restful web-services to post/put users in Alfresco when they are modified on my app. This restful wrapping is already set up, but i need help for the alfresco side.

Are there any available alfresco REST api to do such things ? The only thing i could find were typical javascript side consuming APIs … And my wish is not to use the SOAP webservices, as i want to keep homogeneous technologies (Rest webservice from my app calling SOAP ws from alfresco sounds like a mess to me…).

If this is not possible through REST apis , is it possible to use alfresco native services (by adding dependencies to the repository, core etc..) to populate the database with my users ?


Thanks a lot for your help,

Jco.

[openpj]

If this is not possible through REST apis , is it possible to use alfresco native services (by adding dependencies to the repository, core etc..) to populate the database with my users ?

Yes, it is possible using REST and using native exposed services, most of the services are exposed using the following context path:

- /alfresco/service/api/people
- /alfresco/service/api/person

If you try to access at the WebScripts service page of Alfresco (/alfresco/service/) you should see the following details about person and people service:

Update user password
POST /alfresco/service/api/person/changepassword/{userName}
—
Update the password of a current user. It can only be executed for the current user or by an administrator to update any user.
—
Authentication:   user
Transaction:   required
Format Style:   argument
Default Format:   json
Id:   org/alfresco/repository/person/changepassword.post
Descriptor:   classpath:alfresco/templates/webscripts/org/alfresco/repository/person/changepassword.post.desc.xml

Get People
GET /alfresco/service/api/people?filter={filterQuery?}
—
Get a collection of people stored in the repository. This can optionally be filtered according to a given filter query string
—
Authentication:   user
Transaction:   required
Format Style:   argument
Default Format:   json
Id:   org/alfresco/repository/person/people.get
Descriptor:   classpath:alfresco/templates/webscripts/org/alfresco/repository/person/people.get.desc.xml

Add Person
POST /alfresco/service/api/people
—
Adds a new person based on the details provided. 
userName
mandatory - the user name for the new user
firstName
mandatory - the given Name
lastName
mandatory - the family name
email
mandatory - the email address
password
optional - the new user's password. If not specified then a value of "password" is used which should be changed as soon as possible.
disableAccount
optional - If present and set to "true" the user is created but their account will be disabled.
quota
optional - Sets the quota size for the new user, in bytes.
groups
optional - Array of group names to assign the new user to.
title
optional - the title for the new user.
organisation
optional - the organisation the new user belongs to.
jobtitle
optional - the job title of the new user.
—
Authentication:   admin
Transaction:   required
Format Style:   argument
Default Format:   json
Id:   org/alfresco/repository/person/people.post
Descriptor:   classpath:alfresco/templates/webscripts/org/alfresco/repository/person/people.post.desc.xml

Delete Person
DELETE /alfresco/service/api/people/{userName}
—
Delete a person.
—
Authentication:   admin
Transaction:   required
Format Style:   argument
Default Format:   json
Id:   org/alfresco/repository/person/person.delete
Descriptor:   classpath:alfresco/templates/webscripts/org/alfresco/repository/person/person.delete.desc.xml

Get Person
GET /alfresco/service/api/people/{userName}
—
Get the details of a person.
—
Authentication:   user
Transaction:   required
Format Style:   argument
Default Format:   json
Id:   org/alfresco/repository/person/person.get
Descriptor:   classpath:alfresco/templates/webscripts/org/alfresco/repository/person/person.get.desc.xml

Update Person
PUT /alfresco/service/api/people/{userName}
—
Update the details of a person.
—
Authentication:   user
Transaction:   required
Format Style:   argument
Default Format:   json
Id:   org/alfresco/repository/person/person.put
Descriptor:   classpath:alfresco/templates/webscripts/org/alfresco/repository/person/person.put.desc.xml

Get sites
GET /alfresco/service/api/people/{userid}/sites?size={pagesize?}&pos={position?}
—
Get a collection of the sites of which a a person is an explicit member.
—
Authentication:   user
Transaction:   required
Format Style:   argument
Default Format:   json
Id:   org/alfresco/repository/person/person.sites.get
Descriptor:   classpath:alfresco/templates/webscripts/org/alfresco/repository/person/person.sites.get.desc.xml
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If you need to expose from Alfresco a custom service you can implement your own WebScript using the People API:
http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/3.4_JavaScript_API#People_API

Hope this helps.

[mrogers]

The other thing you might like to look at is some sort of user import into alfresco.   Its probably easiest if you just throw your users into a directory system in particular one with an LDAP interface and then have both your app and alfresco use it.

[jco]

Thanks for giving me all these informations .
The REST API is definitely what i want to use to achieve this 🙂
Do you know if i can find samples of remote calling to these API using java ? i'm especially wondering on how can i authenticate with my "admin" user (my first attemps gives me a 401 http response).

Thank you for any hint 

jco.

[jco]

Hello all,
after some trial&errors, i achieved to get and use a token to get or create users thanks to REST APis. I'm available if someone needs help about how to do this in java

Everything is alright , but there is something i couldn't achieve. I would like to be able, during user creation, to create him in the alfresco system as an "admin" or a "guest", depending on a field's value on my own database.

The POST method in /api/people API describe a way to add the new user to alfresco groups , so i tried to send a JSON array in my post request :
"groups":["ALFRESCO_ADMINISTRATORS"]

but it doesn't work , even if i try to do the same with a custom group of my own. Furthermore, i couldn't find any other API for such purpose.
Does anyone would have some information about this ?

I would be very grateful.

Thanks,

JCO.

[jco]

To answer to myself,

the way i was doing things was good, i just didnt know that Alfresco group's ids are name like "GROUP_XXX" with XXX the actual group name. So a line like :
"groups":["GROUP_ALFRESCO_ADMINISTRATORS"]

in my json file do the job well.


JCO.

[karthik_develop]

Hi to all,

      In my Project,i have to access alfresco repository from external java application for creating user login information and their roles.
    
      After creating user information,it shoild be stored in alfresco mysql db but i need it should also reflected in my own db for external java application role mapping.

      How to achieve this?

      Thanks and any help appreciate to all,