The Authentication Options screen can be selected using System Admin | Preferences | Authentication Options. This screen can be used to integrate XOOPS with an Enterprise authentication system. In other words, if you already have a username and password database that can be accessed using LDAP, then XOOPS can be set to use that database for users trying to log into XOOPS. Only users that exist in this LDAP database can then log into XOOPS. In order for this to work, the web-host firewall must also allow access out on port 389 to connect to the LDAP server.
By default, XOOPS uses its own built-in database to store usernames and passwords for users that are registered to use the XOOPS website. So unless you need to tie your installation of XOOPS into an existing authentication system, you can leave the data on this screen as it is.
We will discuss this further in Chapter 7 when we perform an intranet portal case study.