How to create a personalized OpenID

A common annoyance on the Internet is having to enter the same account information over and over again. If you want to post a comment on a blog, or join a discussion group, or simply register an account at any given web site, you have to type the same basic details each time: a user name, a password (twice!), probably an email address, and maybe additional information such as your time zone or date of birth. And usually, whenever you return to the site, you have enter your account credentials again and hope that you’ve remembered the right password.

This digital identity problem is not new, and many software utilities have been written with the aim of solving it—or at least simplifying it. 1Password is a typical example. It automates the process of filling out forms and can manage your online accounts, so you never have to re-enter a user name or password.

Still, I’ve got 275 logins stored in 1Password. That means I’ve had to create 275 different accounts on 275 different web sites. Wouldn’t it be better to unify these accounts under a single web-wide identity that I can manage myself?

I’m certainly not the first to pose this question, and in fact, a solution is already here. It’s called OpenID. It replaces your usual registration and login details with a single URL. For example, if you have an account on Yahoo!, you can enable your Yahoo! account for OpenID access. Then, if you ever need to register or sign in at a web site, you simply enter your Yahoo! credentials and you’re done—assuming, of course, that the web site supports OpenID. You don’t have to create a new account or keep track of yet another user name and password pair.

In addition to Yahoo!, a variety of OpenID providers is available. If you have an account with one of them, then you already have an OpenID. Simply choose the provider you like best and use their URL wherever OpenID is supported.

There’s only one drawback. If you’re going to have a permanent, universal ID, wouldn’t you want it to be bit more personal? Why use some company’s ID, like myspace.com/username or username.blogspot.com, when you could have your very own username.com? You can easily convert a domain that you’ve registered for yourself into an OpenID. Here’s how.

First, assume that your name is Joe Random, and you’ve registered a domain called randomdomain.com. Let’s also assume that you’ve set up a server for the domain through a web hosting provider. The server will need to support PHP and allow .htaccess configuration. Any decent hosting provider includes these bells and whistles by default, so you shouldn’t need to do anything special.

1. Decide on a user name and password. They can be anything you like, such as joerandom and randompassword.
2. Decide on a name for the realm. The realm is simply an identity for your OpenID domain. It can be anything you like, such as “Joe’s OpenID” or “My Very Own OpenID Provider”.

3. Create an MD5 hash of the user name, password, and realm. If you use Mac OS X, Linux, or another UNIX-based operating system, open a terminal and type:

   echo -n 'username:realm:password' | openssl md5

   Replace username, realm, and password with the values you have chosen. Windows users should download John Walker’s utility and run:

   md5.exe -d"username:realm:password"

   The output should be a long string of hexadecimal characters, something like:

   66999343281b2624585fd58cc9d36dfc

   Save this string; you will need to copy and paste it in a subsequent step.

4. Download phpMyID and extract the files to a local directory.
5. Locate the MyID.config.php file and open it in a text editor.
6. Change the auth_username field to the user name you have chosen.
7. Change the auth_password field to the MD5 hash that you generated in the previous step.
8. Change the auth_realm field to the realm you have chosen. Don’t forget to remove the # to uncomment the line.
9. This step is optional but recommended. In the same MyID.config.php file, there is an array of registration information, such as your email address, postal code, and so on. These details will be sent along with your OpenID when registering a new account at a web site. For example, if you live in Madrid, you would enter ES as your two-letter country code and Europe/Madrid as your time zone. Again, don’t forget to remove the # to uncomment each line.
10. Locate the htaccess file, which you extracted from the phpMyID distribution, and open it in a text editor.
11. Uncomment all of the lines for Option 1 by removing the #.
12. Rename the htaccess file to .htaccess
13. On the server that hosts randomdomain.com, create a directory called OpenID at the root of the domain. You should be able to access it by visiting randomdomain.com/OpenID.
14. Upload the .htaccess, MyID.php, and MyID.config.php files to this directory.
15. Verify that phpMyID is working correctly by visiting http://randomdomain.com/OpenID/MyID.config.php. You should see the realm that you have chosen and a Login link. Follow the link and you should be prompted for the user name and password you have chosen. Enter them, and you should see a message saying that you are logged in. If so, all is well; if not, follow the troubleshooting steps in the phpMyID README file.
16. Decide on the exact URL you want for your OpenID. This will be the actual ID that you provide to a web site when logging in. It can be anything on the domain, but you should probably keep it simple, like randomdomain.com/joe or simply randomdomain.com. If you ever want to allow an additional OpenID, such as randomdomain.com/jane, the former is obviously the better choice.

17. Specify an OpenID server and delegate by creating an index.html file (or modify an existing one) at the URL you have chosen. You will need to add <link> elements that point to your phpMyID installation. For example, your HTML file will look something like this:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
    	"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
    
    <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
    <head>
      <title>Joe Random</title>
      <link rel="openid.server"
        href="http://randomdomain.com/OpenID/MyID.config.php">
      <link rel="openid.delegate"
        href="http://randomdomain.com/OpenID/MyID.config.php">
    </head>
    
    <body>
    </body>
    </html>

You now have a shiny new OpenID! Test it by creating an account at one of the many sites that support OpenID. Or, if you already have an account at one of these sites, you can link it to your new OpenID. Simply follow the instructions provided at the site.

Though this may look like a complicated procedure, the individual steps are all pretty simple. phpMyID handles most of the real work for you. And of course you can customize many of the steps to suit your needs. For instance, you don’t have to upload phpMyID to a directory called OpenID; you can upload it anywhere you like. But if you choose a different location, then you will need to change the links in the HTML file accordingly.