This was because I've removed the preliminary authentication integration (we were trouble-shooting why manual tasks newly created in Jenkow workflows don't show up in AE.)
I think for the time being I'll go the federated route (where the authentication in AE needs to be set up separately but Jenkins will provide SSO) instead of taking over AE identity service. AE wants a lot of ability (such as being able to search an user, presumably so that you can assign tasks to them) that Jenkins doesn't provide in its abstraction. 2012/12/8 Max Spring <m2spr...@springdot.org> > Done with merging the activiti-explorer branch to master. > With the now separate Activiti Explorer plugin, I'm unable to login to AE. > Even turned on security (Jenkins' own user database), AE doesn't let me in > using same username/password as on the Jenkins side. > -Max > > > > On 12/08/2012 05:49 PM, Max Spring wrote: > >> I'm merging the activiti-explorer branch to master. >> These two artifactItems should not actually be in the POM any more, right? >> https://github.com/jenkinsci/**jenkow-plugin/blob/activiti-** >> explorer/jenkow-plugin/pom.**xml#L206<https://github.com/jenkinsci/jenkow-plugin/blob/activiti-explorer/jenkow-plugin/pom.xml#L206> >> Thanks! >> -Max >> >> >> On 12/07/2012 07:02 PM, Kohsuke Kawaguchi wrote: >> >>> >>> As we discussed in IRC, I moved the activiti explorer part to a separate >>> plugin and the activiti-explorer branch in the jenkow-plugin repository is >>> now ready to be merged to the trunk. >>> >>> The merge is virtually conflict free, so I'll let you pick the timing to >>> merge this back into the trunk. >>> >>> On 11/28/2012 12:01 PM, Kohsuke Kawaguchi wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> This is mainly to Max, >>>> >>>> Over the Thanksgiving break, I hacked more on the Jenkow plugin (in the >>>> activiti-explorer branch.) >>>> >>>> I successfully embedded Activiti Explorer (AE) inside the plugin. You >>>> load the plugin, you hit >>>> http://localhost:8080/**activiti-explorer/<http://localhost:8080/activiti-explorer/>and >>>> you'll see AE embedded within. >>>> >>>> I've also created database-plugin [1,2] that defines a common >>>> abstraction for connecting database (more about this in a separate >>>> post.) I've used that in this branch to let the administrator configure >>>> the backend database for Activiti. >>>> >>>> Both the embedded AE and the activiti engine that the Jenkow plugin uses >>>> honor this configuration. >>>> >>>> I've also took a stub at integrating authentication between Jenkins and >>>> AE --- if you run AE stand-alone, you'll see that it asks you to login >>>> to the app. But in the embedded code, I alter the way AE wires the >>>> components to inject our own code that relies on Jenkins to do the >>>> authentication. So in effect it creates a single sign-on. >>>> >>>> The good thing about AE is that it has a contract interface for the >>>> identity/authentication service separated from its default >>>> implementation, and this is how I was able to swap in Jenkins auth as >>>> the backend. >>>> >>>> However, the bad thing about AE is that the assumption that AE makes >>>> about the identity/authentication service is so strict that even if I go >>>> all the way of implementing this contract (with Jenkins SecurityRealm as >>>> the real backend), we won't be able to avoid some clunkiness --- for >>>> example, it has methods like changePassword. >>>> >>>> So another conceivable approach is to do federation --- we have >>>> administrators define uses and groups in AE as it is today, then we let >>>> Jenkins users to be linked with AE users, so that once you login to >>>> Jenkins, you automatically login as the corresponding linked user in AE. >>>> >>>> >>>> Also, now that I've done it, I think it might make more sense for the >>>> embedded AE to be in a separate plugin from Jenkow. Or maybe not, given >>>> that presumably it doesn't prevent other AE instances to run elsewhere >>>> that connects to the same database. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> This act of embedding a real web application inside another web >>>> application was an interesting work that I really had fun with. >>>> >>>> Your thoughts would be appreciated. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> [1] >>>> https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/**display/JENKINS/Database+**Plugin<https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Database+Plugin> >>>> [2] >>>> https://github.com/jenkinsci/**database-plugin<https://github.com/jenkinsci/database-plugin> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >> >> > -- Kohsuke Kawaguchi