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Authentication Failure Overseas Student

Authentication Failure Overseas Student

by Tim Alderson -
Number of replies: 2

We are using WW 2.13 with D2L Brightspace LTI. 
A student accessing from Ghana seems to be able to login through D2L but upon entering an answer or navigating to another problem gets the message

"Your authentication failed. Please try again. Please speak with your instructor if you need help.
Math1003_Fall_2020 uses an external authentication system.
You've authenticated through that system, but aren't allowed to log in to this course." 

They say that they cannot log in again after that.

Below is a snip from login.log (I have replaced the username with "AB" and trimmed/slightly altered  ip addresses for privacy).

So far no other reports of issues from 110 others in the class including students in places such as China and India.

I suggested a different browser, different machine, and to try cellular data instead of local wifi...To no avail.

I have suggested using the University supplied VPN to see if that helps. Have not heard back yet.

Any other ideas welcome!


[Tue Sep 29 14:41:49 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=25697 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:81.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/81.0
[Tue Sep 29 14:45:49 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=25956 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 14:46:28 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=25963 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 15:25:29 2020] LOGIN FAILED authentication failed user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=params host=154.160.5.9 port=26440 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 15:25:46 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=26443 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:81.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/81.0
[Tue Sep 29 15:26:20 2020] LOGIN FAILED AB - authentication failed: 0 user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=26454 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:81.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/81.0
[Tue Sep 29 15:26:45 2020] AUTH WWDB: user has no password record user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=params host=154.160.5.9 port=26453 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 15:26:45 2020] LOGIN FAILED authentication failed user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=params host=154.160.5.9 port=26453 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 15:27:09 2020] AUTH WWDB: user has no password record user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=params host=154.160.5.9 port=26468 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 15:27:09 2020] LOGIN FAILED authentication failed user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=params host=154.160.5.9 port=26468 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 15:27:42 2020] AUTH WWDB: user has no password record user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=params host=154.160.5.9 port=26472 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 15:27:42 2020] LOGIN FAILED authentication failed user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=params host=154.160.5.9 port=26472 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 15:28:51 2020] LOGIN FAILED AB - authentication failed: 0 user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=26663 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 15:29:05 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=26664 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 15:31:12 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=26667 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 15:35:26 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=26681 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:81.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/81.0
[Tue Sep 29 15:39:02 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=26699 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:81.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/81.0
[Tue Sep 29 15:45:49 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=26715 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:81.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/81.0
[Tue Sep 29 15:48:21 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=26913 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 15:58:38 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=26934 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:81.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/81.0
[Tue Sep 29 16:01:41 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=26951 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 16:16:58 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.1.13 port=61131 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 16:18:09 2020] LOGIN FAILED AB - authentication failed: 0 user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.1.13 port=61133 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 16:20:53 2020] LOGIN FAILED AB - authentication failed: 0 user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.1.13 port=61321 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 16:21:25 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.1.13 port=61322 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G977N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.99 Mobile Safari/537.36
[Tue Sep 29 16:32:35 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=27196 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 14_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/14.0 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1
[Tue Sep 29 16:41:53 2020] LOGIN FAILED AB- authentication failed: 0 user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=27432 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 14_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/14.0 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1
[Tue Sep 29 16:42:47 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=27436 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 14_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/14.0 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1
[Tue Sep 29 16:44:35 2020] LOGIN OK user_id=AB login_type=normal credential_source=LTIAdvanced host=154.160.5.9 port=27439 UA=Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 14_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/14.0 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1

In reply to Tim Alderson

Re: Authentication Failure Overseas Student

by Tim Alderson -

As a follow up: I noticed that the student was listed as "Active" on the class list throughout the process.

Re-booted the server over night and the student was able to access WW this morning.

Will report back if problem reoccurs.

Does anyone know if a stale connection may have caused this type of issue? 

  

In reply to Tim Alderson

Re: Authentication Failure Overseas Student

by Danny Glin -

Based on your initial description my first thought was that the student had cookies disabled, which would prevent the browser from maintaining a session when moving between WeBWorK pages, but the fact that this happens with different browsers makes me doubt that.

In terms of the student showing as "Active", all that means is that the student has a valid WeBWorK session.  After logging in, WeBWorK writes session information to the database which is kept for an hour, so as soon as the student logs in they will show as "Active" for an hour.

I'm a little surprised that rebooting the server fixed this.  It sounds from your description like the student's computer was doing something weird, but the fact that it happened for multiple browsers is hard to explain.  Each time the student logs in it creates a new session, so I would expect the second login to clean up any corrupted/stale session.