Zorp can authenticate every connection: it is a single sign-on (SSO) authentication point for network connections. During authentication, Zorp communicates with the Zorp Authentication Agent (ZAA) application that runs on the client computers.

However, Zorp does not have database access for authentication information such as usernames, passwords and access rights. It operates indirectly with the help of authentication backends through an authentication middleware, the Zorp Authentication Server (ZAS). To authenticate a connection, Zorp connects to ZAS, and ZAS retrieves the necessary information from a user database. ZAS notifies Zorp about the results of the authentication, together with some additional data about the user that can be used for authorization.

Figure 2.3. The operation of ZAS

ZAS supports the following user database backends:

ZAS supports the following authentication methods: