faq.html

---
layout: default
title: pGina 
pageid: FAQ
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  <h4><span>Frequently Asked Questions</span></h4>
  <div class="contentarea">
  <ul>
   <li><a href="#versions">What platforms does pGina support?</a></li>
   <li><a href="#rewrite">Why a ground up re-write for 3.x?</a></li>
   <li><a href="#incplugins">What plugins are included with pGina?</a></li>
   <li><a href="#caniuse">Can I authenticate my users with ...?</a></li>
   <li><a href="#lsaauth">Do shared services and devices authenticate with pGina?</a></li>
  </ul>
  <div class="divider2"></div>
  <p id="versions"><strong>What platforms does pGina support?</strong> - Version 3.0 supports x86 and x64 versions of windows starting with Windows XP SP3 and continuing to the latest available version (Windows 8 Developer Preview as of this writing).</p>

  <p id="rewrite"><strong>Why a ground up re-write for 3.x?</strong> - The previous versions of pGina imposed
  some artificial limitations, suffered from an extended period of relative bit-rot, and were generally
  built upon an initial proof-of-concept codebase that highly reflected the early stages of an ongoing 
  education in software development.  Having the last 10 years of experience to draw on, the development team
  decided to re-imagine what pGina could do and how it could do it.  As part of this, nothing was off the
  table, including a complete re-write.  While the decision to undertake a re-write was not taken lightly
  (we generally disagree with this approach, as prevalent as it seems to be in software development these
  days), it became clear that this was our best bet to providing a truly exceptional version of pGina.
  A ground-up re-write allowed us to also completely re-work how pGina functions at a fundamental level.  The
  following detail some of the things we have accomplished as a result.
  </p>
  <p>
  <i>GINA vs CredentialProvider</i>: While 1.x and 2.x diverged in their supported platforms as a result of being tightly tied to their core
  implementation (1.x as a GINA and 2.x as a CredentialProvider), we decided that this was a 'leaky 
  abstraction' that users should not care about.  GINA, CredentialProvider, WidgetOfTheMonth, who cares? 
  Users just want to download the most current version, install it, and use it.  3.x includes both a GINA
  <strong>and</strong> a CredentialProvider.  The correct one for the system in use is automatically used.
  </p>
  <p>
  <i>x86 vs x64</i>: Similar to the supported platform issue, the original codebase pre-dates the
  availability of managed languages, x64 platforms, and other concepts that are considered standard today. 
  3.0 is implemented primarily in managed code (C#) which is built as a platform agnostic binary, allowing
  it to take advantage of and work in both x64 and x86 environments.  Any non-agnostic binaries are included
  in both x86 and x64 flavors, and the correct one is used accordingly.  Again, users should not care! They just download and install!
  </p>
  <p>
  <i>Plugin API</i>: The previous plugin API was severly limited.  Most features were implemented in 
  the core pGina codebase itself.  Only a single plugin could be loaded at a time, plugins had to be
  built in C/C++ and compiled as the same architecture as pGina and the Windows platform in use.  These
  were normal constraints in 2000, but are no longer acceptable.  3.0 provides a straightforward and 
  extendable API as a managed interface in C#.  Additional support assemblies are provided to make common
  plugin tasks (logging, environment examination, information sharing) straightforward.  Any number of 
  plugins can be loaded, can be platform agnostic, and are configurable from a single consolidated UI. 
  We firmly believe that the 3.0 approach provides the best developer AND user plugin experience possible.
  In fact, large portions of what used to be pGina core code features (local user account management) are themselves
  now implemented as plugins!
  </p>

  <p id="incplugins"><strong>What plugins are included with pGina?</strong> - As of this writing, the
  available plugins out-of-box are LDAP Authentication, MySQL Authentication, MySQL Logging, Single User,
  Local Machine (SAM), Session Limit.  We expect to add more as they become available or are provided
  by the community.</p>

  <p id="caniuse"><strong>Can I authenticate my users with ...?</strong> - Yes! Or at least, most likely!
  pGina's out-of-box plugins may or may not support your technology of choice.  However, most single-factor
  authentication backends can be supported pretty easily.  pGina's architecture is extremely flexible, and
  is plugin driven - so in all likelihood, a plugin could be created for your backend of choice.  If your
  backend isn't supported by an out-of-box plugin you're best bet is to create your own plugin (or have
  someone do so for you).  Plugins are written in managed code (generally C#) and are fairly trivial to
  create (aside from the backend specific logic you must implement).  See our documentation and email the 
  developer mailing list for more information.  Of course, if you implement a plugin that may be useful to
  others, we'd love to host it on the pGina site or even include it in future installer revisions!</p>
  </div>
  
  <p id="lsaauth"><strong>Do shared services and devices authenticate users via pGina?</strong> - No.  pGina
  is intended as a replacement for the *interactive* login process.  Access to network shared items like printers, 
  drives/folders, etc on another machine - do not use the portion of the OS that pGina provides replacements for.  That said,
  the 3.x architecture does allow for this kind of thing in the future, by moving much (arguably all) actual
  processing into a dedicated service, *any* part of the OS which can be augmented, could potentially
  validate credentials using the pGina framework.  For things like shared services, this would require an 
  LSA module.  This is outside the scope of the pGina project, but we've tried to make it flexible enough
  that experimentation in this area could be done!
  </p>