Poortwachter is a browser extension for Firefox and Chrome / Edge that keeps you signed in with the Open Universiteit for as long as your browser is active.
- Click here to install the latest release.
- After installation, click on the Poortwachter icon and press Geef toegang to grant the necessary permissions.
- Click here to install the latest release from the Chrome Web Store.
- After installation, click on the Poortwachter icon and press Geef toegang to grant the necessary permissions.
Poortwachter extends the lifetime of your OU Single Sign On (SSO) session.
When you sign in to the Open Universiteit, the OU login server installs a cookie in your browser that lets you use any OU application without needing to sign in again.
By default, the login session associated with this cookie becomes invalid after only 50 minutes of inactivity. Poortwachter prevents this by periodically asking the OU login server to keep your session alive.
The OU uses OpenAM for access management. OpenAM provides a specific REST endpoint for refreshing server-side sessions. Poortwachter simply calls this endpoint periodically with the SSO cookie value as tokenId. See the ForgeRock AM documentation for a full explanation.
Poortwachter processes your OU Single Sign On cookie. Information in this cookie is periodically sent to https://login.ou.nl to refresh the cookie. No other information is collected, and neither the Poortwachter developers nor any other third party will receive any information about you.
Your use of Poortwachter is entirely at your own risk. The developers accept no responsibility or liability. Poortwachter is not made by or endorsed in any way by the Open Universiteit.