[Eril-l] Question about EBSCO and SSO authentication

[Electronic Resources in Libraries discussion list]

Hi Kara

This is where I am confused.  I was led to believe that if a user authenticated via IP, that the SSO cannot kick in for their account sign in as SSO only works at the point of entry.  So, it sounds like that is not your experience.  Could you confirm?

For those that do IP, SSO authtype, did you make that decision so the user experience basically remained the same – meaning, no need to login to just view an article or book chapter?

Laura Vogler
Associate Library Director

Wabash College Lilly Library<https://library.wabash.edu/> | 301 W Wabash Ave | Crawfordsville IN 47933 | P: 765.361.6215

From: Eril-l <eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org> On Behalf Of Electronic Resources in Libraries discussion list via Eril-l
Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2024 9:25 AM
To: Electronic Resources in Libraries discussion list <eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>
Subject: Re: [Eril-l] Question about EBSCO and SSO authentication

Hi Laura,
Once you set up SSO, you don't want to mix and match with EZProxy (if this is what you meant by proxy).  Part of the URL for linking to EBSCOhost contains directions "&authtype=ip,sso" that will dictate how EBSCO looks to authenticate.  There are a bunch of different choices based on your available options and the order is how it works through them.  You can only have 2.   We use ip,sso, it will look at the user's IP first and if in range it will not prompt the user for authentication to search and will NOT link them to their EBSCO account.  If out of range (off-campus) then it will fail IP and will move to SSO and prompt for authentication.

If unauthenticated within the IP range, if the user wants to login to their EBSCO account they click sign in and it will prompt for the SSO login.

If you were to use EZproxy, if you add the proxy prefix to the URL and go through EZproxy, your users will get an error message when trying to login to their EBSCO account, because it's essentially double authenticating and our (DUO) SSO throws errors.

~~~~~ Kara S. Hart
Systems Librarian - Library & Technology Services
-
Wellesley College


On Tue, Jul 16, 2024 at 8:49 AM Electronic Resources in Libraries discussion list via Eril-l <eril-l at lists.eril-l.org<mailto:eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>> wrote:
Hello

We are in the process of setting up SSO authentication for our EBSCO databases.  If you have done this, I have a couple of questions.

Current Situation (without SSO):  A patron accesses a database via IP or proxy authentication.  Once in EBSCO, patrons can view articles and book chapters without further having to authenticate.  However, if they want to save a search, create an alert or download a whole eBook, they have to create an EBSCO account and sign in.

Our hope was that with SSO, the only change in this scenario would be the patron logs in with their campus credentials.

We are being told that if a patron accesses via IP or proxy, they will not be able to use their campus credentials for their EBSCO account.  From what I understand, the SSO authentication would have to happen at the point they enter an EBSCO and at that point they are already logged into their EBSCO account.  Is this your experience on your campus?  This seems to create an extra layer of friction in that the majority of our users do not utilize a personal account on EBSCO.  Most are just viewing articles or book chapters.

I would appreciate hearing how SSO access works on your campus.

Thank you,


Laura Vogler
Associate Library Director

Wabash College Lilly Library<https://library.wabash.edu/> | 301 W Wabash Ave | Crawfordsville IN 47933 | P: 765.361.6215

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