### Authentication plugin

Here you can choose how users in this institution will authenticate to the site. Institutions should have at least one method of authentication tied to them.

The internal authentication plugin checks the site database for usernames/paswords. Users have to have an account for this to work, which can be done by allowing registration via the registration form, or using the Add User or Add Users by CSV screens.

The none authentication method allows anyone in. Users can pick any username and password. This should only be used for testing!

The other authentication methods generally authenticate against an external source, such as an LDAP server or remote application. They have their own settings, which you can configure in a popup window when you add them.

One setting they normally share is whether accounts can be automatically created in Mahara when a user signs in for the first time (as opposed to accounts being created previously by the admin user, which users can then log in to).