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Revision of NIC Registration

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1 Initial Problem

The NIC ID has been introduced and is used to identify ILIAS installations worldwide. The registration takes part during the Setup and sends data about the installation to the NIC server of the ILIAS open source e-Learning e.V. At the time being, the NIC ID is used as export ID to identify the source of an exported and imported ressource and to allow to reconstruct links between separately exported ressources.

Example: an ILIAS learning module uses glossary terms. This learning module is exported and imported on another installation. Later, the glossary is exported and imported as well. The target installation can identify the relation between both ressources and rebuild the former connections between glossary terms and learning module.

Unfortunately, not all ILIAS installations are using this option to register at the NIC server and could not benefit from this concept. Reasons for not registering are:

  1. Installation administrators do not know exactly which data is transfered when an installation is registered.
  2. They cannot decide which data is transfered.
  3. They do not see the advantage of a registration because it is not explained on the Setup screen.
  4. They might not register because their installation is just running in an intranet.

2 Conceptual Summary

The existing concept of a NIC ID is kept as well as the already existing IDs but the procedure of applying for an ID and for kind of stored data is changed.

New NIC Registration

The new NIC registration takes into consideration that administrators want to have full control upon the data they are providing with their registration.

  • All data entered in the registration form is optional. It is even possible to apply for a NIC ID without giving any additional information to the NIC server. In this case the NIC servers stores only the NIC ID and key and the date of creating or updating the entry in the NIC server.
    • Nevertheless, such an installation gets its unique ID that is used in Metadata and when exporting content.
  • Unlike today, NIC data can be added or removed even after first registration. A related "Update" button is offered for saving form after first registration has took place.
    • This fixes an existing problem of the current NIC concept where provided data at registration is never been updated - neither manual nor automatically. This produces a lot of outdated data sets in the NIC server (the current docu installation is still located at University Cologne according to NIC data).
  • A new NIC entry "Shut down" is offered to indicate that a running system will be stopped soon. Data is generated when the related checkbox "Indicate end of service / shutdown installation" in NIC form is checked and saved.
    • This allows to mark an installation that will no longer be available. Exported content from such an installation has still a unique ID but possible future service for exchanging information between source installation and content re-using installations won't be supported when installation is shut down.

Existing and Supported Data Fields

Title

Comment

Entered

Required

Needed?

id

NIC ID of installation

auto-increment by NIC server

yes

yes

ctime

date of registration

automatically

yes

yes

itime

(unclear, currently = ctime)

automatically

?

?

update

NEW - date of last update

automatically

yes

yes

shutdown

NEW - date of end of service

automatically upon request

yes

yes

hostname

name of host

automatically

no

yes

ipadr

(currently not provided)

automatically

no

yes

server_port

(currently not provided)

automatically

no

no

server_software

(currently not provided)

automatically

no

yes

inst_name

name of installation

manually by admin

no

yes

inst_info

additional info

manually by admin

no

yes

institution

institution running ILIAS

manually by admin

no

yes

http_path

URL of installation

automatically

no

yes

contact_lastname

<--dito

manually by admin

no

yes

contact_firstname

<--dito

manually by admin

no

yes

contact_title

<--dito

manually by admin

no

no

contact_position

<--dito

manually by admin

no

no

contact_street

<--dito

manually by admin

no

no

contact_pcode

<--dito

manually by admin

no

no

contact_city

<--dito

manually by admin

no

yes

contact_country

<--dito

manually by admin

no

yes

contact_phone

<--dito

manually by admin

no

no

contact_email

<--dito

manually by admin

no

yes

nic_key

?

automatically by NIC server

yes

yes

Info about advantages of NIC

A short info text about the purpose and the advantages of the NIC registration should be added to the NIC registration screen. More information can be provided via link on the ILIAS website.

If ILIAS is used in an intranet without connection to the WWW, the usual NIC registration won't work. To get a NIC ID anyway, a manual apply for a NIC ID and the manual entry of this ID in the setup should be supported.

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

{Please list all views (screens) of ILIAS that should be modified, newly introduced or removed.}

3.2 User Interface Details

{For each of these views please list all user interface elements that should be modified, added or removed. Please provide the textual appearance of the UI elements and their interactive behaviour.}

3.3 New User Interface Concepts

{If the proposal introduces any completely new user interface elements, please provide a link to separate feature wiki entries for each of them according to the kitchen sink template.}

4 Technical Information

{The maintainer has to provide necessary technical information, e.g. dependencies on other ILIAS components, necessary modifications in general services/architecture, potential security or performance issues.}

5 Contact

6 Funding

If you are interest in funding this feature, please add your name and institution to this list.

  • ...

7 Discussion

Kiegel, Colin [kiegel] 2019-02-13 IMO this proposal is very valuable. Here are some suggestions to make it even more valuable ;-)

  • 1. Include the ILIAS version as new data field
  • 2. Update the registered data "once in a while" to keep it fresh - e.g. as part of the cronjob once in a week, or with every setup login.
Reasoning
  • I think it would be extremely interesting to have meaningful statistics about the distribution of ILIAS versions available.
    • How many installations use outdated vs. current ILIAS versions?
    • Whats the average update rate?
    • How long does it take until a minor or security update hits x% of the distribution of ILIAS installations?
    • How many ILIAS installations don't get updates at all?
  • The data needs to be fresh
    • What's the use in outdated data? ... (rethorical question :-))
    • Didn't get any updates from NIC X in, say, a year? --> consider it dead and move it from "current" to "historic" installations.
Also super-nice-to-have mini-feature in order to improve update-rate and security for the whole ILIAS ecosystem:
  • 3. Include a checkbox (or button) "register for ILIAS admin newsletter" (or maybe just hint to this list with some independent info-text and hyperlink)
Depending on how this registration is implemented, this last idea #3 could be part of this revision (or not).

Hesse, Joel [Joel_Hesse] 03.02.2020: It would be perfect, if the NIC registration could include a form and agreement to list the installation in the "known installations" list, to make it easier to get in contact with new ILIAS Users.

8 Implementation

{The maintainer has to give a description of the final implementation and add screenshots if possible.}

Test Cases

Test cases completed at {date} by {user}

  • {Test case number linked to Testrail} : {test case title}

Approval

Approved at {date} by {user}.

Last edited: 3. Feb 2020, 17:28, Hesse, Joel [Joel_Hesse]