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Following its development trail, MuseKnowledge™ Proxy recently reached version 5.1 Build 02, version which is now available for download, trial and purchase/upgrade. The results of our work are briefly presented in this news item.

Source pages containing Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), instead of their ASCII can now be rewritten if the source profile contains a new configuration, TRY_IDN. So far MuseKnowledge Proxy was able to rewrite the ASCII equivalent (e.g. http://www.xn--romnia-yta.ro/) in a HTML page, but now it is possible to rewrite directly hrefs containing IDNs, for example <a href="http://www.românia.ro">.

In order to ease the management of SSL keys and certificates for proxies where SSL termination is not involved, we have created a new section, named Server KeyStores, in the MuseKnowledge Administrator Console.

A Library Card’s Barcode application authentication module is available using multiple pattern rules. NUM, NUMMOD10, CODE39 and CODE39MOD43 are the algorithms supported at this time for the barcode validation.

Continued the work on integration with LTI standard – starting with this version a MuseKnowledge Proxy system can be certified as being LTI Compliant as an external service tool consumer by IMS Global Learning Consortium. This version can pass all necessary certification tests for LTI 1.0 standard.

With the newer versions of web browsers implementing Intelligent Tracking Prevention (3rd party cookies) and this option being enabled by default more changes were performed in order to run in an iframe within the LMS systems (Canvas, for example).

For SAML authentication, the signing and digest method algorithms to be used in signing SAML messages and metadata can now be specified per tenant not just globally thus allowing both for the deprecated SHA1 and for the recommended SHA256 configuration to function in the same MuseKnowledge Proxy instance.

Type 1 URL’s originating from a MuseKnowledge Search application are signed with a HMAC signature. The MuseKnowledge Search application(s) that connects to this new version of Muse Knowledge Proxy must be updated to use modulesutil.jar version 1.2338 or higher.

This version is introducing the Usage Limits component in order to limit against automated process or abusive users. Though available, it is recommended to use this component only for isolated cases because the current de-facto standard of web applications implies dozens of requests and big JavaScript code just to reach, for example, a journal issue. If lower limits are set this may create the opposite effect.

The order of login modules can be visually changed in Administrator Console from Edit Authentication Groups within Manage Applications.

Custom Single Sign on Login integration (Remote Auth) is possible, starting with this release. It involves a Remote Authentication CGI script where proxy will redirect the request to validate credentials if a new session is necessary and then the script returns back to proxy via HMAC.

Some more advanced elements were introduced for sources and for authentication configuration to cover complex rewritten and authentication scenarios.

The detailed list of changes is available in MuseKnowledge™ Proxy Release Notes PDF Document. As usual, we offer a Free 30 Day Trial period to fully evaluate the new version of MuseKnowledge Proxy. You can request a Trial License Key by simply filling in the trial form.

A new version of MuseKnowledge™ Proxy was released on 21 June 2018. MuseKnowledge™ Proxy version 5.0 is now available for download, trial and purchase/upgrade. The highlights of the new version are presented below.

Starting with this version, MuseKnowledge™ Proxy supports relaying and filtering the WebSocket Protocol. According to the RFC 6455 the theoretic definition is: “The WebSocket Protocol enables two-way communication between a client running untrusted code in a controlled environment to a remote host that has opted-in to communications from that code”. To control WebSocket filtering and frame serialization mode the WEBSOCKET configuration element was introduced in the source profile.

A new proxy application template, MKPF, with a new look and feel is available. MuseProxyFoundation, the old one is still maintained and available with all the features up to date. On a fresh install Anonymous, MuseProxyFoundation and MKPF will all be installed and available, while on an update MKPF will be installed but not linked to in the Applications.xml file to avoid compatibility issues.

The Administrator Console is now based on a new theme and a new component is available to help the administrator of MuseKnowledge™ Proxy to manage and maintain the applications and their sources.
This section can be accessed from the Applications menu via the Manage Applications link as long as SERVLET_ENGINE_ENABLED is set on true. There are visual actions for the common elements and raw view/update actions, where directly the XML files behind are edited in a simple JavaScript editor ensuring XML well-formedness. An application can be edited, copied, exported, imported, backed up, restored, checked or deleted. A source can have its profile edited, backed up and restored, while the other attributes from the Sources.xml file related to a source, such as image, visibility, module, attributes and parameters can be also managed. Source grouping including defining new visual areas and categories is also possible. Authentication to an application can be managed, details for the login module set and their configuration files can be edited in a raw XML form. The Manage Applications tools work with the last MKPF and old-style MuseProxyFoundation provided with the current setup, while for the existent applications not all the functions will be active.

A MuseKnowledge™ Proxy source can be integrated with OLSA API to create the user dynamically and perform the signon. This is based on SOAP requests which are made transparently when the configured source with this integration is accessed by a MuseKnowledge™ Proxy user. If all the configurations related to the organization are done, with this new feature a user of MuseKnowledge™ Proxy application can jump into the Skillsoft Skillport 8i platform as an authenticated user of this platform without the need for continuous content proxy rewriting.

The integration within a Learning Management System (LMS) was extended and starting with this version, a MuseKnowledge™ Proxy application can be integrated as Rich Content Editor in a Canvas LMS. Note that only the latest MuseProxyFoundation and MKPF applications can be integrated.

Starting with this version the ProxyLoginModuleLDAP can be configured with a script to take final decisions based on attributes and membership of user which log in. Also in this module, the referral configuration for LDAP authentication is possible via the new REFERRAL element with either ignore, follow or stop values. Two new attributes have been added, startTls="false/true" and sslTrustAll="false/true", ensuring a wider integration of MuseKnowledge™ Proxy with LDAP servers. More details can be found in the comments from ProxyLoginModuleLDAP.xml and in the manuals.

In addition to the ECMA script processing via the Oracle Nashorn engine, the reference process in a source profile can now be done via BeanShell scripting engine.

A new CLASSPATH structure to create ClassLoaders was added in the MuseProxy.xml configuration file in order to reliably support third party libraries for various platform integrations in MuseKnowledge™ Proxy.

A new pattern option, named excludeLocal, was added in order to exclude from main source(Link Out) but rewrite with others if matching. This option can be used within include and exclude pattern options from REWRITTING_PATTERNS configuration entry from the source profile.

A new element EXPIRY_ERROR inside the Applications.xml file was added in order to specify a response status for an expired application and if the specific error message will be displayed or not based on flag value of this configuration.

A new attribute method was added for URL configuration entry from the source profile to specify which HTTP method to be used for the request done – each URL part of an extract and navigate scenario can have its own method attribute (if empty GET or POST is assumed).

The HEADER element is a new configuration item in the source profile aiming to set HTTP headers for each preliminary request.

An option to refresh java policy files was added in Administrator Console and can be found under Advanced menu – Operations page. Java Policy Files which will be refreshed by this action are ${MUSE_HOME}/java.policy and ${MUSE_HOME}/jaas.policy.

In the Administrator Console was added support to refresh SAML and SSO configurations without restarting the entire Servlet Engine.

For source profiling a new boolean flag, DYN_HOST_MAPPING is available. It indicates that host mapping to a shorter generated value will be used on the fly if the https version of the host label exceeds 63 characters.

The detailed list of changes is available in MuseKnowledge™ Proxy Release Notes PDF Document and the new features are described in the manuals that are part of the distribution. As usual, we offer a Free 30 Day Trial period to fully evaluate the new version of MuseKnowledge Proxy. You can request a Trial License Key by simply filling in the trial form.

The last four months of development work for MuseKnowledge™ Proxy has summed up in the new 4.5 release available for download, trial and purchase/upgrade since October 5th, 2017. The outcome of listening to our partners and innovating work can be shortly described as below.

Learning Tools Interoperability® (LTI®) integration with MuseKnowledge Proxy is available – a MuseKnowledge Proxy application or a proxified source can be used as an External Tool within a Learning Management System (LMS) using the LTI® launch requests standard. For helping with LTI configuration, a new button
named “LTI Guidlines” was added into the MuseKnowledge™ Proxy Administrator Console, Configuration – SSO Authentication page. It contains detailed guidelines to configure LTI for a MuseKnowledge™ Proxy Application.

HTTP headers from requests and responses can be processed using one or more HEADER elements within a new or existent FILTER. Optionally, dynamic processing via scripting is possible.

A better experience can be achieved for serving static resources within MuseKnowledge Proxy application interfaces by using the new authenticationFlow FILE_SET TYPE.

Special variables (such as the user ID that is also logged, the application URL) can be referred by using the new element PARAMETER/REF. These can further be used in JavaScript functions defined in the DEF section for dynamically obtaining a token or a full URL from a service via an API, which will then be used as a starting point for the current navigation, either dropping the proxy or by further rewriting.

Support for dynamic ClassPath for bridging external Java code from the DEF source section without having to add library jar files to the system ClassLoader, as well as, support for Nashorn scripting mode allowing to call external processes through Unix shell like back quote strings was added, for now experimentally, to further explore more integration possibilities.

Type1 Links generated by MuseKnowledge search connectors can now point to a MuseKnowledge Proxy application root to cover cases where a higher level of rewriting configuration is necessary.

A new option, SERVER_TOKENS, is available for configuring the Server header field for the content served directly by MuseKnowledge™ Proxy.

The detailed list of changes is available in MuseKnowledge™ Proxy Release Notes PDF Document and the new features are described in the manuals that are part of the distribution. As usual, we offer a Free 30 Day Trial period to fully evaluate the new version of MuseKnowledge Proxy. You can request a Trial License Key by simply filling in the trial form.

MuseKnowledge™ Application 6.0 is our latest web interface that replaces the older and well known MuseSearch Application series, used for more than a decade to search thousands of e-resources on the Internet.

Built on a whole new concept with a brand new look, the new interface keeps all the traditional features of MuseSearch plus a long list of new ones. The Muse Core API was extended and lightened to deliver a faster and more responsive web interface which is now a Single Page Application that uses the latest web technologies like AngulaJS, Boostrap, and Font Awesome. This delivers a thoroughly updated and more responsive user experience.

The new MuseKnowledge™ Application is suitable to be used for any device, phone, tablet or PC. It is integration-ready, and playing it inside a parent site is now easier, be it a simple container or a more complex one like a Liferay Portal. It is embedded in both iOS and Android native code, allowing users ultimate flexibility to access more MuseKnowledge™ Applications from their mobile devices.

Last but not least, the Muse Console for Application Administration has many improvements in sync with the new MuseKnowledge™ features and makes administering any older MuseSearch Applications much easier.

As usual we offer a Free 30 Day Trial period to fully evaluate the new version of MuseKnowledge™ Application. You can request a Trial License Key by simply filling in the trial form.

A new version of MuseKnowledge™ Proxy, 4.4, is now ready and available for download, trial and purchase/upgrade. Some of the new features, improvements and bug fixes are mentioned below.

Multi-tenant environments using the same DNS host name for all tenants, but individual IPs for each one are now more efficiently handled as a chaining request to proxy itself on the different IP is minimized for the first source request only. The follow-up rewritten requests are not chained. The outbound IP is set directly to the one assigned for the tenant. This scenario is minimizing the cost for SSL certificates which are now more often required.

Starting with version 4.4 Muse Proxy creates access log files in the same configurable format as that used by standard web servers such as Apache HTTP Server, format which can be set via a % style pattern – an extension to the Common Logging format.

Central Authentication Service (CAS) and Microsoft Azure AD OpenID Connect authentication are now added to the possible Single Sign-on integration scenarios. The Administrator Console is offering guidelines for treating the special case of Azure AD where a different callback type is needed.

The direct authentication SQL module now supports SQL statements to cover more complex scenarios – the old approach of using a single table is still working.

In case of HMAC and IP login modules there’s no end user ID to check against a database and hence nothing to be written in the log file, however, in case of various integrations a special parameter could be received in the request for tracking purposes and it is now possible to configure it.

This new version is introducing redirection to remote Sources depending on the end-user IP (non-proxied links) and on the source ID.

Informal ranges of IPs for authentication to a MuseKnowledge™ Proxy application and for source redirection rules are now supported. All types of rules can be mixed for ALLOW/DENY: CIDR, patterns, exact IP and ranges.

After a mnm.jar update, the existing navigation sessions continue to work with the FIND/REPLACE filters.

The necessary upgrades steps to be done are listed at the end of the MuseKnowledge™ Proxy Setup in case an upgrade is performed over an existing isntallation.

The detailed list of changes is available in MuseKnowledge™ Proxy Release Notes PDF Document and the new features are described in the manuals that are part of the distribution. As usual we offer a Free 30 Day Trial period to fully evaluate the new version of MuseKnowledge Proxy. You can request a Trial License Key by simply filling in the trial form.