MRBS (Meeting Room Booking System) - simple setup for external authentication (Raven)

If you need a simple room/equipment/stuff booking system then MRBS is pretty good.

Example Booking System

This system was setup for booking micropscopes, computers and rooms. You will need a University of Cambridge Raven login to look at it:
BSS room booking system

What you Need to install MRBS (Pre-Requisites)

• a webserver (apache on linux is good)
• php
• mysql database (or you can use PostGreSQL)
• external authentication configured (mod_ucam_webauth for Raven authentication with Apache)

Rough Guide to Setting up MRBS

As a non-root user:

1. download MRBS source code
2. follow the instructions in the INSTALL file that is part of the mrbs source code you've downloaded and extracted:
   1. put files in place web server can find them
   2. create a few database tables and other objects
   3. make sure php.ini allows php to run in the directory in which you have put MRBS
   4. create an administrator password, in config.inc.php:

      # Format: $auth["user"]["name"] = "password";
      $auth["user"]["administrator"] = "asecret";
      

3. make sure basic MRBS works with a web browser
4. Setup Raven authentication to MRBS with a slight hack of MRBS code:

   session_php.inc in the function "getUserName":
   
   //        if (isset($HTTP_SESSION_VARS["UserName"]) && ($HTTP_SESSION_VARS["UserName"] != ""))
   //            return $HTTP_SESSION_VARS["UserName"];
          if (isset($_SERVER['REMOTE_USER']) && ($_SERVER['REMOTE_USER'] != ""))
              return $_SERVER['REMOTE_USER'];
   

   and this bit of configuration in config.inc.php :

   $auth["session"] = "php";
   $auth["type"] = "none";
   

5. Setup Raven authentication for the MRBS directory. This was done using a .htaccess file for the Apache directives:

   for all Raven accounts:
   
   
   order deny,allow
   deny from all
   AuthType Ucam-WebAuth
   Require valid-user
   Satisfy any
   
   
   for a list that you specify:
   
   
   order deny,allow
   deny from all
   AuthType Ucam-WebAuth
   Require group bss
   AuthGroupFile /etc/webgroup_bss
   Satisfy all
   
   
   The format of the /etc/webgroup_bss file is:
   bss: mr349 CRSID CRSID CRSID etc.
   
   

6. test it
7. define other administrator users in config.inc.php:

   $auth["admin"][] = "mr349";
   

Misc Notes

MRBS is not configured to send email in this example.

A little feature-ette is that when logged in as a Raven user with admin rights you sometimes get asked to login, again, as an admin user and only a local admin user will do.