Which software is right?

[Peter Schober]

* Constance   Morris <cmorris at daltonstate.edu> [2013-04-08 14:56]:
> We currently use Active Directory (AD) over our LDAP for
> authentication. However, we need for our clients to be able to SSO
> into our portal and be able to access all resources within from that
> initial login authentication. I've been considered CAS, but came
> across Shibboleth.net and thought I would give it a try.

Those clients will then need to have a SAML IdP available, your
portal would be the SAML SP.

Note that if "portal" implies an n-tier architecture (the portal is a
client to other backend services which in turn require authentication)
there's a simple way to do that (the portal impersonating the user to
the backend services) and the "delegation" way (which is rather
complicated but does not rely on impersonation by a priviledged
service).

Depending on your scenario you might also get away with Kerberos
cross-realm trust. No idea (and not a topic for this list).

> I'm a little confused on which component of Shibboleth I may need,
> or if I need all 3 of them (IdP, SP and/or DS) to do what I am
> needing?

Does this help?
http://shibboleth.net/about/basic.html

> I may have overlooked it, but I did not see information on where
> Shibboleth has worked in conjunction with AD before?
> 
> Also, which is the preferred OS to use....Linux or Windows (we have
> both)?

Whatever you have experience in.
-peter