I have 3 applications
old JSP based java app
Spring Boot webapp
SPA
5 java micro services REST API built using Spring Boot
I need to secure all of them at the same time. I have picked keycloak as it seemed like a good idea. As we are using Apache for reverse proxy. We have picked mod_auth_openidc to limit access to services at reverse proxy level.
We have built Extensions for Spring Webapp and old JSP app to use headers provided by mod_auth_openidc to handle active users and aithentication.
At this point now we have run into the issue that the we also secured the APIs using mod_auth_openidc headers. Although this has a serious drawback as APIs can not talk to each other just using JWT tokens as the reverse proxy needs them to be authenticated.
Should we secure the APIs using JWT only instead ?
Any mod_auth_openidc guru knows the best approach to this scenario?
I need the REST API to be able to talk to each other without any user interaction. E.g. only using tokens.
Our webapps ( JSP and SPA ) are always fully secured e.g. the user has to be logged in to access any part of it.
I would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks
Related
I'm building a microservice based REST API and a native SPA Web Frontend for an application.
The API should be protected using OAuth2.0 to allow for other clients in the future. It should use the Authorization Code Flow ideally with Proof Key for Code Exchange (PKCE)
As I understand it I need to run my own OAuth Auth Server that's managing the API Clients and generating access tokens, etc.
Also I need my own Authentication/IAM service with it's own fronted for user login and client authorization granting. This service is the place the users login credentials are ultimately checked against a backend. That last part should be flexible and the backend might be an LDAP server in some private cloud deployment.
These components (Auth Server and IAM servicve) are outside of the OAuth scope but appear, correct me if I'm wrong, to be required if I'm running my own API for my own users.
However creating these services myself appears to be more work than I appreciate besides the obvious security risks involved.
I read about auth0 and okta but I'm not sure if they are suited for my use case with the application potentially deployed in private cloud.
I also thought about running Hydra (OAuth Server) and Kratos (IAM) by ory but I'm not sure if this is adding too many dependencys to my project.
Isn't there an easy way to secure an API with OAuth that deals with the Auth Server and the IAM that's good for small projects?!
I have two Spring Boot web applications. Both applications have different databases and different sets of users. Also, both applications use Spring Security for authentication and authorisation which works properly.
At any given point I will have one instance of the first application running and multiple instances of the 2nd web application running.
I want to expose REST APIs from 1st web application (one instance running) and be able to use that REST APIs from 2nd web application (multiple instances running).
How do I make sure that REST APIs can be accessed securely with proper authentication and by instances of the 2nd applications only.
If you could change your security, I would recommend you to use OAUTH2. Basically it generates a token that is used in your APP2 instances to make the API calls.
You can see more here.
https://spring.io/guides/tutorials/spring-boot-oauth2/
http://websystique.com/spring-security/secure-spring-rest-api-using-oauth2/
But if you can't change your APP's security, you can continue using your current schema. In the APP1 you can create an user for the API calls, this user only has access to the API services. In your APP2 you need to store the credentials to access the APP1. Finally you do login into APP1 and invoke the API using HTTP client, you can use Spring RestTemplate or Apache HttpComponents Client.
SSL based authentication could be an option, if you seriously thinking about the security aspects.
Assume that you REST api exposed by App 1 is over HTTPs, then you can configure the App 1 to ask the client to give their SSL/TLS certificate when they try to access this REST API (exposed by App 1).
This will help us identify that the client is indeed a client from app 2.
Two More Cents:
In case if your App 1 REST API calls needs load balancing, NGINX should be your chose. The SSL client certificate based authentication can be offloaded to NGINX and Your Spring boot app no more worry about the SSL related configurations.
The solution we went with was to secure both using an OAuth2 client_credentials workflow. That is the OAuth2 flow where clients request a token on behalf of themselves, not a calling User.
Check out Spring Cloud Security
1) Secure your services using #EnableResourceServer
#SpringBootApplication
#EnableResourceServer
public class Application ...
2) Make calls from one service to another using an OAuth2RestTemplate
Check out Resource Server Token Relay in http://cloud.spring.io/spring-cloud-security/spring-cloud-security.html which will specify how to configure an Oauth2RestTemplate to forward on security context details (token) from one service to another.
3) Service A and Service B should be able to communicate using these techniques if they are configured using the same Oauth2 Client and Secret. This will be configured in the applications' application.properties file, hopefully injected by the environment. Oauth2 Scopes can be used as role identifiers. You could therefore say that only a Client with Scopes (api-read, api-write) should have access to Endpoint A in Service A. This is configurable using Spring Security's Authorization configuration as well as #EnableGlobalMethodSecurity
Friends,
Recently I have created one web-services application using spring-boot and now its having few unsecured entry points. (This is a pure rest based application having only rest entry points doesn't have any UI components).
Now I would like to add CAS client with this application for securing the rest entry points.
My CAS server is ready and its up and running. And I have configured CAS Rest protocol as well in my cas server to access TGT/ST through rest call and I'm in the planning of using only the rest call rather than using login pages.
So, when an user tries to access my rest application, I'm going to call CAS rest entry points internally (by using restTemplate) to validate user credentials and generating TGT and ST.
Available CAS entry points are (from jasig reference docs),
POST /cas/v1/tickets HTTP/1.0
username=battags&password=password&additionalParam1=paramvalue
POST /cas/v1/tickets/{TGT id} HTTP/1.0
service={form encoded parameter for the service url}
DELETE /cas/v1/tickets/TGT-fdsjfsdfjkalfewrihfdhfaie HTTP/1.0
I think, I'm little clear on this part. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
And now my query here is, what should I do to add a ST ticket validator in my spring boot application? Do I need to add any filters using spring-security? Or do I need to call any other rest api for validating the ST? Please guide me to proceed further.
You can use existing Spring boot cas starter:
cas security spring boot starter
cas client autoconfig support
That will configure for you and magically your spring boot app with CAS authentication (and thus your application will be able to read ST or PT without effort).
I'm author of cas security spring boot starter, so I won't influence your choice but main difference from that project and cas client autoconfig support developed by Unicon is about Spring security integration.
Indeed cas security spring boot starter is fully compliant with spring security, thus you will be able to use any feature you know from spring security. Whereas cas client autoconfig support will instantiate and configure Apereo (Jasig) filters that is not designed to work out of box with Spring security.
You don't need a service ticket unless you want to call another service from your web service. Validating the received credentials via the CAS REST API is enough.
If you are looking for a security library to protect your web service via the CAS REST API, you should give a try to: https://github.com/pac4j/spring-webmvc-pac4j and especially this configuration: https://github.com/pac4j/spring-webmvc-pac4j-demo/blob/master/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/demo-servlet.xml#L74
We are implementing RESTful service and the entire backend application using Vert.x. These API's are consumed by a hybrid mobile app (developed using Ionic / angularjs). We are using Keycloak for user management and also authentication and authorization on the app.
My question is, how can I use Keycloak to also protect (authenticate and authorize for the same set of users) my RESTful service access which is implemented using Vert.x. Any example implementation would be very useful.
We wrote a custom Vert.x auth provider using the Keycloak core library to solve this exact problem (the Vert.x JWT library doesn't work with the Keycloak JWT tokens - arguably we should have improved the Vert.x library instead). I'll see if I can get permission to open source the library.
So, if i understand correctly, you need one authentication entry point for user in mobile app and in REST service. If i am right, you can use JWT. When user will authenticate with Keycloak he will receive jwt with roles and user information. This token you can put into request for REST service and your Service will know who is the user and what roles he have. Please see https://jwt.io/
We are designing security for a green field project with a UI web module (Spring MVC) - the client, and a RESTful services web module (CXF) - the server, to be deployed as separate war files in the same Websphere app server. The system should be secured with Spring Security, authenticating against LDAP and authorizing against a database. We have been looking for the best solution to share the security context between the 2 apps, so a user can authenticate in the web UI and invoke its AJAX calls to the secured RESTful services. Options found:
OAuth: seems overkill for our requirements, introduces a fairly complex authentication process, and reportedly some enterprise integration issues
CAS: would amount to setting up an enterprise SSO solution, something beyond the scope of our engagement
Container-based (Websphere) security, although not recommended by Spring Security, and we're not clear if this could provide a solution to our specific needs
We're looking for a simpler solution. How can we propagate the Security Context between the 2 apps? Should we implement authentication in the UI web app, then persist sessions in the DB, for the RESTful services to lookup? Can CXF provide a solution? We read many threads about generating a 'security token' that can be passed around, but how can this be done exactly with Spring Security, and is it safe enough?
Looking forward to any thoughts or advice.
You want to be able to perform the REST web services on the server on behalf the user authenticated in UI web module.
The requirements you described called SingleSignOn.
The simplest way to do it is passing the HTTP header with the user name during REST WS calls.
(I hope your REST client allows to do it).
To do it in secure way use one of the following:
Encrypt the user name in REST client and decrypt it in REST server
Ensure that the header is sent from the local host (since your application deployed on the same container)
Therefore, protect both application using SpringSecurity authenticate against LDAP.
In the first application (Rest Client) use regular Form Authentication
In the second application (Rest Server) add the your own PreAuthenticatedProcessingFilter:
http://static.springsource.org/spring-security/site/docs/3.1.x/reference/springsecurity-single.html#d0e6167
Edited
The “Authentication” is the process of verifying of a principal’s identity.
In our case both REST Client (Spring MVC application) and REST server (CXF application) verify an identity against LDAP. LDAP “says” OK or Not. LDAP is a user repository. It stateless and does not remember the previous states. It should be kept in applications.
According to my understanding, a user will not access directly to REST server – the user always access REST Client. Therefore, when the user access REST Client he/ she provides a user name and a password and REST Client authenticate against LDAP. So, if REST Client access REST server the user is authenticated and REST Client knows his name.
So, if request come to REST server with a user header name - REST server for sure knows that the user was authenticated and it should not authenticate it again against LDAP.
(The header should be passed in the secured way as described above).
Rest Server should take the user name, to access to LDAP and to collect related user information without providing of the user password (since the user already authenticated).