Welcome to DRAMA

DRAMA (Digital Repository Authorization Middleware Architecture) is a sub-project within RAMP that aims to develop a web front-end for Fedora repository and to re-factor Fedora authentication and authorization into pluggable middleware components.

On this page the DRAMA team will provide updates on our progress and releases of software. Please post any bugs or feature requests using our ticketing system above.

News

Solr Plugin For Fedora

June 23 2008
The DRAMA team would like to announce the release of a Solr plugin for Fedora. The code was written by Cuong Hoang, a DRAMA developer, and it's based on the GSearch code. It was originally intended for use by Muradora, but we think that it might be of interest to the wider Fedora community. The code is released under the Apache 2 license. The implementation consists a Solr requestHandler for Fedora FOXML files that is bundled with the Solr package, and a SolrDOManager.

More information about our Solr plugin and how to obtain the code can be found here

We would be happy to have any feedbacks you might have.



Muradora Demonstration Server

May 3 2008
Muradora demo server is now up and running. More information on how to use it can be found here



Muradora 1.3 Release

May 2 2008

The DRAMA team at Macquarie University would like to announce the 1.3 release of Muradora, available for download at:

http://www.muradora.org/software

Muradora is a web-based GUI for the popular Fedora repository, built using enterprise Java Spring and Struts 2 frameworks. Amongst the common features found in a typical repository such as search, browse, self-submission, and versioning supports, Muradora enables flexible access control for end users (based on the XACML standard), inter-domain authentication and federated identity (using Shibboleth implementation of the SAML standard), and multiple metadata schema management (via W3C XForms standard).

Notable features in 1.3 release:

  • Faceted Search: By incorporating GSearch 2.0 with Solr support, users can perform faceted searches, i.e. one can now narrow down search results based on other categories.
  • All-in-one installation: There is now an installation script for Unix/Linux systems which will install all the necessary components for Muradora. The complete package is called "muradora-allinone".
  • RSS/Atom Feeds: Users can subscribe to collections (even non-public collections) and get notifications of new objects added to those collections.
  • Thumbnail preview and gallery view: Thumbnails are now generated automatically for images. Thanks to the work by the MediaShelf team, one can browse and search using either the traditional listing view or with the gallery view.

We would appreciate any feedbacks from users of the software.



Muradora 1.2.1 Release

February 14 2008

Muradora 1.2.1 release is now available for download

A major emphasis of this release was bug fixes. However there are some new features in this release:

  • Better support for new XForms scripts for different metadata standards.
  • Preliminary support of Open Journal System (OJS) dissemination styles.
  • Support for IMS learning objects
  • Automatic thumbnail generation for images
  • New administration panel for administrators to assign access control to the repository
  • Statistical view of accesses to resources.

A running demo of Muradora can be found here

Note: There is a Live DVD containing the complete installation of Muradora and its related components. The Live DVD can be run directly from it without having to install Muradora on the hard disk. This DVD image is available from the download page We would appreciate any feedbacks from users of the software.

Muradora (v1.0): A Web-based Repository Supporting Federated Identity And Flexible Access Control

Oct 11 2007

Muradora is an easy to use repository application that supports federated identity (via Shibboleth authentication) and flexible

authorization (using XACML). Muradora leverages the modularity, flexibility and scalability of the well-known Fedora repository.

Muradora's unique vision is one where Fedora forms the core back-end repository, while different front-end applications (such as portlets or standalone web interfaces) can all talk to the same instance of Fedora, and yet maintain a consistent approach to access control.

The DRAMA team is happy to announce the V1.0 release of Muradora. Its key features are:

  • "Out-of-the-box" or customized deployment options
  • Intuitive access control editor allows end-users to specify their own access control criteria without editing any XML.
  • Hierarchical enforcement of access control policies. Access control can be set at the collection level, object level or datastream level.
  • Metadata input and validation for any well-formed metadata schema using XForms (a W3C standard). New metadata schemas can be supported via XForms scripts (no Muradora code modification required).
  • Flexible and extensible architecture based on the well known Java Spring enterprise framework.
  • Multiple deployments of Muradora (each customized for their own specific purpose) can talk to the one instance of Fedora.
  • Freely available as open source software (Apache 2 license). All dependent software is also open source.

Muradora utilises the new Digital Repository Authorization Middleware Architecture (DRAMA Auth/Z Suite). It consists of the following components:

  • Extended XACML support with a native XML database (DB XML) for efficient storing and querying of XACML policies. There is also a new hierarchical policy combination algorithm to support hierarchical enforcement while still allowing for fine-grained access control. These extended XACML features can be used by any XACML-aware application, especially those requiring better management of their policies.
  • Pluggable and extensible authorization infrastructure for Fedora. This new architecture utilizes an interceptor pattern to remove embedded authorization logic inside Fedora and allows new authorization requirements to be added to the system without modifying any code inside Fedora.
  • Support for federated identity with Shibboleth. The actual Shibboleth authentication is done on the Fedora server itself. This is different to the common approach of having the web interface handle Shibboleth authentication which would prevent multiple web interfaces talking to the same Fedora instance. Again this module is pluggable and can be deployed on top of Fedora without any code modification. It can also be used in conjunction with existing Fedora authentication modules.

Muradora and DRAMA Auth/Z suite can be downloaded separately and installed together by following the deployment guide.

However, due to configuration flexibility and the large number of components, this installation method should be attempted only by experienced Fedora administrators.

For other users, we recommend our Live DVD which integrates allnecessary components for an "out-of-the-box" repository. The Live DVD can be used to try Muradora by booting the system from the DVD and running the pre-installed system directly from the DVD (no changes are made to the host computer's hard disk). Alternatively, the Live DVD can install Muradora on a server following an easy installation procedure that is based on Ubuntu Linux Distribution. Muradora Live DVD can be downloaded from here.

Software download: http://www.muradora.org/software

Acknowledgement: DRAMA (Digital Repository Authorization Middleware Architecture) is part of the RAMP project (http://www.ramp.org.au) based at MELCOE, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia (http://www.melcoe.mq.edu.au). RAMP is funded by DEST under Backing Australia's Ability.


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