Globus Support
==============

Extensions have been added to the SOAPpy module to allow the use of the
Globus Toolkit v2 for secure transport of SOAP calls. These extensions are
possible by using the Globus Toolkit (http://www.globus.org) and the
pyGlobus software (http://www-itg.lbl.gov/gtg/projects/pyGlobus/), which
exposes the Globus Toolkit via a set of Python interfaces. This enables
bi-directional PKI authentication so that the server and client are both
guaranteed of the identity of the other. Using PKI this way also allows a
more robust authorization solution above the SOAP hosting layer, which
provides better application level authorization control. These tools are
used by the Access Grid Project (http://www.accessgrid.org) to build a
Grid-based, Web Services based, real-time collaboration environment.

In order to use the SOAPpy module with the Globus Toolkit, you must first
obtain and install the Globus Toolkit and pyGlobus software. Information on
how to do that is at the respective web sites listed below. In order to use
the Globus Toolkit it is necessary to have an x509 identity certificate.
Information on how to obtain one of those is available on the web as well. 

To use GSI with an authorization method, set the SOAPConfig.authMethod =
"methodname". You must have this method defined on any objects you register
with SOAPpy, and/or as a registered method. It should return 0 or 1 to
indicate if authorization is allowed or not.

Once the software is installed, you have obtained your certificate, and the
SOAPpy module is installed, the following code shows how to run a GSI
secured SOAP server (These snippets are directly from the echoServer.py and
echoClient.py in the test directory).

Server
------

    def _authorize(self, *args, **kw):
        return 1
    
    Config.authMethod = "_authorize"
    
    addr = ('localhost', 9900)
    from SOAPpy.GSIServer import GSISOAPServer
    server = GSISOAPServer(addr)
    
    server.registerFunction(_authorize)
    server.registerFunction(echo)
    
    Then you use the server like the SSL server or the standard server.
    
Client
------

    import pyGlobus
    
    # The httpg distinguishes this as a GSI TCP connection, so after 
    # this you can use the SOAP proxy as you would any other SOAP Proxy.
    
    server = SOAPProxy("httpg://localhost:9900/")
    print server.echo("moo")



Globus Toolkit http://www.globus.org
------------------------------------

    The Globus Toolkit is an open source software toolkit used for
    building grids. It is being developed by the Globus Alliance and
    many others all over the world. A growing number of projects and
    companies are using the Globus Toolkit to unlock the potential
    of grids for their cause.

PyGlobus http://www-itg.lbl.gov/gtg/projects/pyGlobus/
------------------------------------------------------

    The goal of this project is to allow the use of the entire
    Globus toolkit from Python, a high-level scripting
    language. SWIG is used to generate the necessary interface
    code. Currently a substantial subset of the 2.2.4 and 2.4
    versions of the Globus toolkit has been wrapped.

The Access Grid http://www.accessgrid.org/
------------------------------------------

    The Access GridT is an ensemble of resources including
    multimedia large-format displays, presentation and interactive
    environments, and interfaces to Grid middleware and to
    visualization environments. These resources are used to support
    group-to-group interactions across the Grid. For example, the
    Access Grid (AG) is used for large-scale distributed meetings,
    collaborative work sessions, seminars, lectures, tutorials, and
    training.  The Access Grid thus differs from desktop-to-desktop
    tools that focus on individual communication.
 
- Submitted 2004-01-08 by Ivan R. Judson <mailto:judson@mcs.anl.gov>


$Id: GlobusSupport.txt,v 1.3 2005/02/21 20:09:32 warnes Exp $