Setting up your own OpenID Server

May 3, 2007 in OpenID by Carsten Pötter | Comments

There are some people who consider OpenID providers a risk to privacy because providers are able to monitor all the sites users log in with their OpenID; they could sell the precious data for advertising and whatnot.

So what can you do to minimize that risk? Well, first start reading the Terms of Service and Privacy Statements of your OpenID provider. There are some differences between the various providers, so find out which one fits your (security) needs the best.

You’re still not happy? Fear not! Go and set up your own OpenID server. That’s right and if you are really bored you can jot down your very own privacy statement, too.

How to set it up?

Things have become easier recently and even I (read: ignorant to all things tech) have managed to successfully install it. So it shouldn’t be much of a problem for you anyway. Ben Dodson has created phpMyOpenID which is a simple installer based on phpMyID.

So before you start downloading you should make sure that you can provide these things: a PHP powered website or blog, a FTP client, your favourite tool to extract ZIP files, and of course some basic knowledge how to use them. :D

No problem? Great! Now just follow these simple steps and you’re done:

  • download phpMyOpenID
  • extract the folder and upload it to the root directory of your website or blog
  • change permission of the phpmyopenid folder to CHMOD 777 (see help file of your FTP client)
  • run the installation script from this URL:

    http://yourwebsite.com/phpmyopenid/install.php

  • provide a user name and password (and remember it!)
  • follow the instructions and copy the two lines of HTML to the header of your site (look for the <head> tag)
  • try to log in to any OpenID enabled website, then delete install.php and change the permission of the phpmyopenid folder to CHMOD 775
  • be happy :)

Troubleshooting

Those instructions should work for most people. However I got this error message: Missing expected authorization header.
If you get that one try Mike West’s solution. It worked. If you doubt all things work properly, you can try the server tests on openidenabled.com; just make sure you run them in the correct order.

As you have seen it’s pretty easy to run your own OpenID server. If you’re curious and a little bit geeky, give it a try. Nevertheless I have delegated my OpenID to another provider again because I think I can’t provide all security measures a real provider is able to. But that’s up to you, of course.

Tags: Ben Dodson, favourite tool, HTML, Mike West, PHP

  • If you drop me an email about the "Missing expected authorization header" error and the steps you took to get to it, then I'll try and find out where the problem is coming from and fix it in a future release!
  • Carsten Pötter
    I have sent an email. :)
  • I.X.
    hi i have successfully installed phpMyOpenID server by following your instructions. But im not getting how the users on my site will get registered with this server. Is there some registration process required. If yes how to tell users about the regisration process.

    thanks in advance.

    I.X.
  • Hi I.X.

    phpMyOpenID is currently only a server for a single user (so it's really just for you to set up your own account). I will be creating a new release shortly which will allow for multi-user registration so I'll let you know when this happens!

    Ben
  • Carsten Pötter
    Ah sorry, I'm late on this but luckily Ben has answered the question already. And there's no one who knows better. :)
  • Hey Ben Dodson's site is down. Can you mirror PHPOpenID?
  • Hello,

    Sorry, I recently upgraded my server and my site is regenerating (as seen by the rather geeky Dr Who tribute on my homepage!) - I'll get it back up and running this afternoon for you.

    Ben
  • Thanks Ben. But its still not up :(
  • Carsten Pötter
    Well, I still have the index.php and install.php files on my hard disk. Though I don't know if those are the current ones. If Ben doesn't mind I can send them to you by email. Well, that will be in about 19 hrs or so because I have to sleep and work before. ;)
  • Hey guys - Site is back up now at http://labs.bendodson.com/phpmyopenid/

    This will be changing shortly as I'm completely rebuilding my site but I'll let you know here when I do it. There might be a new release of phpMyOpenID as well....
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