Installing a Simple ORCID Authentication Node

These are the instructions for installing an ORCID¹ authentication node. We will be using the simple-orcid-auth-node² developed by the ORCID organization.

Assumptions

• An Ubuntu 16.04 server machine but works on 14.04x with some minor changes.
• A FQDN, let’s say orcid.example.com.
• Server IP is 10.2.2.2 in our case.
• Create an orcid user: sudo useradd -r -m -d /var/www/html/orcid orcid.
• For Ubuntu 14.04 it is better to use /var/www/orcid instead of /var/www/html/orcid.
• Also use service servicename restart on 14.04.x instead of systemctl restart service.

Installing simple-orcid-auth-node

• Install necessary packages (as a privileged user):

  $ sudo apt -y install nginx nodejs npm
  

  NOTE: If you are using Ubuntu 14.04.x do not install the node package. This package is completely unrelated with nodejs.__³

• Download and extract simple-orcid-auth-node (as the orcid user):

  sudo su - orcid
  wget https://github.com/rcpeters/simple-orcid-auth-node/archive/master.tar.gz
  tar xvzf master.tar.gz
  

• Install the application:

  $ cd simple-orcid-auth-node-master/
  $ npm install
  

• Test run the application (as the orcid user):

  $ nodejs client-app.js
  server started on 8000
  

  Looks OK. Now point your Hit CTRL^C and move on.

  NOTE: If you prefer using the legacy node client-app.js invocation, you need to install the nodejs-legacy package as well.

Setting ORCID as an autostart service

• Autostart using systemd⁴ (Ubuntu 16.04):

  • Create the /etc/systemd/system/orcid.service service definition (as the root user):

    $ cat > /etc/systemd/system/orcid.service < < EOF
    [Service]
    ExecStart=/usr/bin/nodejs /var/www/html/orcid/simple-orcid-auth-node-master/client-app.js
    WorkingDirectory=/var/www/html/orcid/simple-orcid-auth-node-master
    Restart=always
    StandardOutput=syslog
    StandardError=syslog
    SyslogIdentifier=orcid
    User=orcid
    Group=orcid
    Environment=NODE_ENV=production
    [Install]
    WantedBy=multi-user.target
    EOF
    

  • Reload systemd and start the service:

    $ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
    $ sudo systemctl start orcid.service
    

  • Verify that the service is started:

    $ sudo systemctl status orcid.service
    ● orcid.service
    Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/orcid.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
    Active: active (running) since Wed 2016-04-27 09:00:16 UTC; 37s ago
    Main PID: 11141 (nodejs)
    Tasks: 5 (limit: 512)
    Memory: 24.1M
    CPU: 268ms
    CGroup: /system.slice/orcid.service
       └─11141 /usr/bin/nodejs /var/www/html/orcid/simple-orcid-auth-node-master/client-app.js
    Apr 27 09:00:16 orcid systemd[1]: Started orcid.service.
    Apr 27 09:00:16 orcid orcid[11141]: server started on 8000
    

• Autostart using sysv-init (Ubuntu 14.04.x):
  • Prepare a sysv-init startup script or use mine for convinience:

    $ cd /etc/init.d
    $ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/theodotos/arena/master/orcid
    $ chmod +x orcid
    $ update-rc.d orcid enable
    $ update-rc.d orcid defaults
    

  Now orcid should be able to autostart after a reboot.

Setting up nginx

• Prepare this configuration:

  $ cat > /etc/nginx/sites-available/orcid < < EOF
  server {
      listen 80;
      listen [::]:80 ipv6only=on;
      server_name orcid.example.com;
      access_log  /var/log/nginx/orcid.access.log;
      error_log /var/log/nginx/orcid.error.log;
      location / {
          proxy_pass http://localhost:8000/;
          proxy_set_header Host \$host;
          proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For \$proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
      }
  }
  EOF
  

• Enable the orcid site:

  $ cd /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
  $ sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/orcid
  

• Uncomment the following line in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf⁵:

      server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
  

• Restart nginx:

  $ sudo systemctl restart nginx.service
  

• Verify nginx with sudo systemctl status nginx.service

Now you can visit the http://orcid.example.com site and test your setup

Going to production

The default simple-orcid-auth-node is using the sandbox ORCID service which is ideal for testing. This is how the configuration file (helpers/config.js) looks like:

module.exports = config = {
  // Config for OAuth2 
  CLIENT_ID: 'APP-O9TUKAPVLALU1SOJ',
  CLIENT_SECRET: '0eafb938-020e-45a6-a148-3c222171d9d8',
  AUTHORIZE_URI: 'https://sandbox.orcid.org/oauth/authorize',
  TOKEN_EXCHANGE_URI: 'https://api.sandbox.orcid.org/oauth/token',
  CODE_CALLBACK_URI: 'http://localhost:8000/authorization-code-callback',
  // General server config
  PORT: '8000',
  SERVER_IP: '127.0.0.1',
}
...

This setup will not work in production. You have to modify the CLIENT_ID and CLIENT_SECRET variables with your own credentials and change the AUTHORIZE_URI and TOKEN_EXCHANGE_URI to point to the production ORCID services:

module.exports = config = {
  // Config for OAuth2 
  CLIENT_ID: 'APP-HSGSHJS335353GSGSG',
  CLIENT_SECRET: '56d4eb21-6622-8483-3422-f53f3fs53sfs35f',
  AUTHORIZE_URI: 'https://orcid.org/oauth/authorize',
  TOKEN_EXCHANGE_URI: 'https://api.orcid.org/oauth/token',
  CODE_CALLBACK_URI: 'http://localhost:8000/authorization-code-callback',
  // General server config
  PORT: '8000',
  SERVER_IP: '127.0.0.1',
}
...

Restart nginx and orcid when done:

$ sudo systemctl restart nginx.service orcid.service

References