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LLC Name Available

I received back paperwork from the Secretary of State indicating that the names I had inquired about for my LLC were available. (Apparently you can do three name checks on a single form.)

It took 11 calendar days (8 work days) for the letter to go from SLO to Sacramento, be processed, and then come back to me. Not too bad, I guess.

Now that I know the name I wanted is available, I have two option: I can reserve the name ($10) if I’m not going to register the LLC right away. But since I am going to register right away, I didn’t bother and I just sent in my Articles of Organization instead.

LLC – Filing Articles of Organization

The form to organize a California LLC is surprisingly simple – one page long, no complicated questions. Do read up about which management structure you’ll be using though – one manager, more than one manager, or all LLC members – since that will make a difference in how you file for an EIN and such.

They say they’ll authorize two copies of the form at no charge – I wasn’t sure if that was two copies total (one they keep) or two copies in addition to the one they keep. In any event, I sent in three copies of the Articles anyway, in case they do process both additional copies. (Can’t hurt, right?) They finish filling out these forms, sign with the state seal or something, and send back to me to use as proof to banks or other entities that the LLC is real.

Current filing fee for California is $70. I mailed them on Saturday the 15th – we’ll see how long it takes to process.

Next Steps

Once I have an official LLC, I know I’ll have to

• Request an EIN from the Franchise Tax Board .I don’t need one if I have no employees, but often times banks will request it anyway before letting you open a business account. (Should be free.)
• decide which bank I want to use to host my business account (local credit union? Chase-formerly-WaMu?)
• send in form llc-12, Statement of Information, within 90 days (costs $20)

Technical post here, but this one stumped me for a long time. This is another one of those “I’ll post it and hope it saves somebody else some time” write ups.

Problem

I’m running Apache web servers on Windows – because it’s an intranet environment, everybody uses IE (well: I use Firefox) and I know their Windows login thanks to mod_auth_sspi.

Then I wanted to setup an Apache server on Linux reached via the Windows server acting as a reverse-proxy front-end /and/ I wanted the Linux server to also know their Windows login.

First Try: Kerberos

Hooking up Linux to authenticate with a keytab file to our AD server via Kerberos: complicated, but it works. (I was pleasantly surprised!)

Navigating to the Linux box directly, it would properly pick up my AD username from any browser that knew to send it along. (Only Firefox with manual configuration, and IE, at this time.)

Through the reverse-proxy, however, I would send my AD credentials to the Windows box via SSPI, but then nothing was sent to the Linux box, and any auth attempts failed.

No combination of proxy-pass-auth, SSPI on or off, and Kerberos on or off got me what I needed.

Solution: Just pass the remote_user header

Instead, I decided to turn off Kerberos entirely on the Linux box (yeah… all that work for nothing), let the front-end box handle all the auth via SSPI, and used mod_rewrite to send the headers that it needed.

Here’s the related Apache config

<Location /test_auth/>
ProxyPass http://srv-apache-a02/webapps/
ProxyPassReverse http://srv-apache-a02/webapps/

# (this line probably not needed any more)
SetEnv Proxy-Chain-Auth On

RewriteEngine On
# (This RewriteRule doesn't actually rewrite anything URL-wise.)
RewriteCond %{LA-U:REMOTE_USER} (.+)
RewriteRule .* - [E=RU:%1]

# Put the username into a request header:
RequestHeader set X_REMOTE_USER %{RU}e
</Location>

Now, in PHP I can use $_SERVER['HTTP_X_REMOTE_USER'] to get what would normally be the $_SERVER['REMOTE_USER'] value.

Of course, I’ll lock down the Linux box so it only responds to requests from the Windows box – otherwise, its contents are browsable by anyone and not auth takes place.

So, the time for talk and planning is done. I’m just going to do, at long last. I’ve decided I may as well document my journey, too, so that others can learn from my mistakes.

Starting my contract work anew, this time to see how far it’ll take me.

I’ve decided to form an LLC instead of just doing a sole proprietorship. (Yeah… read elsewhere for the pros and cons of each.)

I considered paying these folks to set it up for me, but as honest as they seem I want to understand all the processes myself. I’ll trade my time for money and understanding, this round.

First Step

First step: checking to see if my LLC name is available. No web or e-mail form exists to do this: I must send a physical paper with a SASE to Sacramento and they’ll get back to me… at their leisure?

Next Steps

Then I’ll file the LLC paperwork (assuming the name is clear), get my EIN, and then registering for my business license in San Luis Obispo…

Feels like the beginning of a nice adventure…