[rt-users] WebExternalAuth performance

[darren chamberlain]

* Neil Bingham <neil.bingham at pace.co.uk> [2002-08-19 12:28]:
> We are using an external authentication program for all our Apache
> authentication by using mod_auth_external.  What I have noticed is
> that since switching RT to using WebExternalAuth my external auth
> program is called every time a URL is requested from RT.  This is
> posing a serious performance overhead as the auth lookup takes several
> seconds.

This is the correct behavior; because the web is stateless, every
transaction (i.e., every page load) has to be authenticated.  RT's
regular auth mechanism is fast; it's just a db lookup, many of which
happen for each request using cached database connections.

If the speed of the external lookups is a problem, you will need to
create a small app that sits between the server that needs the
authentication (the one running RT) and the piece doing the
authenticating, that can do credentials-caching.

This might be one of those problems that can be solved by throwing
hardware at it, though.

(darren)

-- 
Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.
    -- Woody Allen