XF 2.2 Requirements for Access level subforums & DB integration?

[DevOops]

We are trying to integrate XF with several websites such that the user's status in our databases will give them access to different subforums in XF. I would have assumed this has been done before, but perhaps it has not. Are there any addons or threads you recommend trying out for this? I've not found anything relevant so far. Here is the functionality I want from XF:
-- XF publicly accessible forums
-- Some subforums are only accessible to some users
-- User's access permissions to these subforums are retrieved from our database, preferably via API

Questions:
-- Is SSO ideal for this?
-- Should we develop an addon?
-- Is there an existing addon that is relevant to the above functionality?

Thanks!

 

[Jarvis]

XF publicly accessible forums

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Forums can be accessible without an account - do you mean 'non-users' being able to reply?

Some subforums are only accessible to some users

That's just the permission setup for user-groups

User's access permissions to these subforums are retrieved from our database, preferably via API

Are you expecting the external DB to change often then? I.e. does another system manage the Perms?

---

Is SSO ideal for this?

No, not really - if the answer to the above question is yes then you want federated auth - not SSO. SSO just provides the user identifier (email etc) to identify the user, and you then reach out to the external provider for the access token return.

Federated auth, is passing on the auth/permissions requirements to another system. I don't think Xenforo is setup at all for federated auth, and I don't know if I've seen an addon that can handle this. You'd be having to over-rule the built in permission system.