[LON-CAPA-admin] Invalid Authentication Type

[Stuart Raeburn]

Lee,

> Authentication type mismatch for <USERID> - 'localauth' in system,   
> '' based on information in classlist or default for this course.

This message in autoenroll.log means that neither a default  
authentication type for the course is set, nor are entries included in  
the XML roster file for <authtype></authtype> for each student. (If  
those entries are absent from the XML, auto-enrollment uses the  
default authentication type for the course).

If courses in your domain are created individually by a Domain  
Coordinator using /adm/createcourse (i.e., via the web GUI), then one  
of the radio buttons in the "Authentication mechanism" row needs to be  
checked, when the course is created. Which mechanisms are advertised  
depends on which authentication types have been set as assignable in  
the "Creating users when a Domain Coordinator" context (see: Main Menu  
 > Set domain configuration > Display (User creation checkbox checked).

If no default authentication mechanism was set when the course was  
created, a Domain Coordinator can use:

Main Menu > View or modify a course or community > Select course >  
View/Modify course owner, institutional code, default authentication,  
credits, and self-enrollment

to set the "Default Authentication method".


Stuart Raeburn
LON-CAPA Academic Consortium


Quoting "Bynum, Lee Hamilton" <leebynum at illinois.edu>:

> Hello,
>
> I am seeing some odd errors in autoenroll.log associated with   
> students that weren't added to courses they are supposed to be   
> enrolled in:
>
> An invalid authentication type was provided for the new user -   
> <USERID>, so the user was not enrolled in the course.
> An error occurred adding the new user <USERID> because the authcheck  
>  failed for authtype  and parameter . The authcheck response was   
> invalid.
>
>
> The problem resolves itself when the students are manually enrolled.  
>   Afterwards, the following is placed in the autoenroll.log file:
>
> Authentication type mismatch for <USERID> - 'localauth' in system,   
> '' based on information in classlist or default for this course.
> User information updated for user: <USERID>prior to enrollment.
> Existing user <USERID> detected in institutional classlist -   
> switched from 'manual' to 'auto' enrollment in section <SECTIONNUM>.  
>  Access starts: immediately, ends: Sat May 14 05:00:00 pm 2016 (CDT).
> Existing uiuc user <USERID> enrolled successfully.
>
>
> It seems to me as though something has changed regarding   
> authentication of new students.  Specifically, I am failing to get   
> an authtype or parameter associated with the user.  We recently   
> updated some things regarding Shibboleth, which may be the culprit.   
>  Before I get too far down the murky path of authentication   
> protocols, I wanted to see if those log entries ring any bells for   
> the rest of you.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Lee