Moonshot
A single, unifying technology that enables you to effectively manage and control access to a wide range of web and non-web services and applications.
Archived
This project was archived on
The Moonshot wiki provides information at an introductory and in-depth, technical level, along with FAQs and instructions for deploying and working with Moonshot and trust router technology.
7 years and 5 months
Ended
Expected outcome:
Service development
Development complete, with ongoing updates.
This initial open source development project was completed in March 2015.
Services that can use Moonshot include cloud infrastructures, high performance computing, grid computing and commonly deployed services such as email, file store, remote access and instant messaging.
Moonshot is a technology, based on the IETFs Application Bridging for Federated Access Beyond web (abfab) open standards that aims to enable federated access to virtually any application or service.
Moonshot builds on deployed, proven technology, including:
- Authentication as used by eduroam (EAP/RADIUS)
- Authorisation as used by many national federations (SAML)
- Service/application integration as used by many major applications (operating system security APIs).
What we've done so far
In April 2013 we began a pilot project to implement Moonshot technology with participating pilot sites. This has helped us to gather and understand requirements, at both a technical and usability level. This engagement has shaped and driven the continued development of the code to a stable level, now deployed and utilised by an increasing number of pilot sites.
In March 2015 we established and made available a trust router, which pilot sites have started connecting to. The trust router is a scalable mechanism which enables organisations who are running Moonshot to communicate with one another. Trust routers are an important part of our infrastructure that can help different groups of users (communities of interest) to gain access to resources at a level of security that they are happy with.
What we're continuing to do
Work has not stopped. Since the launch of Assent, we're continuing to:
- Gather requirements and feedback, improving the core software in response with new features
- Engage with the research and educational communities to find use cases and promote the use of Moonshot as a solution
- Add to the supported OS platforms where requested by the communities