My web application is currently configured to connect to LDAP for user validation without relying on application server settings. In other words, my applications utilizes naming params to connect to LDAP hence its agnostic to application server ie. JBoss or Websphere.
Naming params used are as follows:
ldapURL
ldapPrincipal (bind user)
ldapCredentials (bind user's password)
ldapAuthentication
ldapSearchBase
The requirement now is to allow encrypted password in the ldapCredentials naming param. I have a way out of this situation is using custom SecurityLoginModule to encrypt password and supply it to application using naming param. My application would then decrypt it and then proceed with LDAP user validation. However, this results into additional application installation step.
So I was wondering if there is a way to use application server security domain (or some other way) to store the user credentials in secured fashion on application server and later application would pick it up at the time of user validation with LDAP without writing server specific code in my application. I know that we can use security domain to perform data source connection without writing server specific code. But if I do this for LDAP then I make server talk to LDAP which is not what am looking. Basically may still continue to use Federated users instead of LDAP.
Any decent application server (including JBoss and WebSphere) have server provided LDAP registry, which you can configure and use without any application specific code, and I'd strongly suggest to utilize that instead of writing your own ldap connection code.
Regarding encryption:
for WebSphere traditional, you can plug in your own class into server infrastructure to encrypt passwords see - Plug point for custom password encryption
for WebSphere Liberty - you have out of the box support for aes and hash.
for JBoss first link in Google showed me this How do I encrypt the bindCredential password in Wildfly, but maybe JBoss experts will guide you to something different.
Related
We have a client/server based application that is developed internally. Clients and server communicate over a TCP/IP connection with an application-specific protocol. The clients run on Windows and the server runs on Linux. All machines are in the same Active Directory/Kerberos domain/realm.
Currently, the user enters a username and password when they start the application. The server checks the username and password (authentication). Based on the username, the server also determines access to resources (authorization).
We want to add Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities to the application. That is, we do not want the user to enter a username and password but we want to automatically logon as the current Windows user.
Of course, determining the current Windows user has to be done securely.
I have come up with the following setup:
I use SSPI (Negotiate) on Windows and GSSAPI on Linux.
When the client connects to the server, it uses AcquireCredentialsHandle (Negotiate) to get the credentials of the current Windows user.
The client uses InitializeSecurityContext (Negotiate) to generate a token based on these credentials.
The client sends the token to the server.
The server uses gss_acquire_cred() to get the credentials of the service. These are stored in a .keytab file.
The server receives the token from the client.
The server uses gss_accept_sec_context() to process the token. This call also returns the "source name", that is the current Windows user of the client.
The server uses the "source name" as the username: the server performs no additional authentication. The server still performs authorization.
This works but I do have some questions:
Is this secure? It should not be possible for the client to specify any other username than the Windows user of the client process. If a user has the credentials to create a process as another user (either legally or illegally) than this is allowed.
Should I perform additional checks to verify the username?
Are there alternative ways to achieve SSO in this setup? What are their pros and cons?
What you've described here is the correct way to authenticate the user. You should not have to worry about the user specifying a different name; that's what Kerberos takes care of for you.
If the client is able to obtain a service ticket, then they must have been able to authenticate against the KDC (Active Directory). The KDC creates a service ticket that includes the user's name, and encrypts it with the service's secret key.
The client would not be able to create a ticket for the server with a fake name, because it doesn't have the necessary key to encrypt the ticket.
Of course, this all assumes that you've set everything up correctly; the client should not have access to the service's keytab file for example, and the service should not have any principals in its key tab except its own.
There's a pretty detailed explanation of how it works here.
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).
single sign-on (SSO) for web applications (used through a browser) is well-documented and established. Establishing SSO for Rich Clients is harder, and is usually suggested on the basis of Kerberos tickets, in particular using a Windows login towards an ActiveDirectory in a domain.
However, I'm looking for a more generic solution for the following: I need to establish "real" SSO (one identity for all applications, i.e. not just a password synchronization across applications), where on client's side (unmanaged computers, incl. non-Windows), the "end clients" are a Java application and a GTK+ application. Both communicate with their server counterparts using a HTTP-based protocol (say, WebServices over HTTPS). The clients and the server do not necessarily sit in the same LAN/Intranet, but the client can access the servers from the extranet. The server-side of all the applications sit in the same network area, and the SSO component can access the identity provider via LDAP.
My question is basically "how can I do that"? More specifically,
a) is there an agreed-upon mechanism for secure, protected client-side "sso session storage", as it is the case with SSO cookies for browser-accessed applications? Possibly something like emulating Kerberos (TGT?) or even directly re-using it even where no ActiveDirectory authentication has been performed on the client side?
b) are there any protocols/APIs/frameworks for the communication between rich clients and the other participants of SSO (as it is the case for cookies)?
c) are there any APIs/frameworks for pushing kerberos-like TGTs and session tickets over the network?
d) are there any example implementations / tutorials available which demonstrate how to perform rich-client SSO?
I understand that there are "fill-out" agents which learn to enter the credentials into the application dialogues on the client side. I'd rather not use such a "helper" if possible.
Also, if possible, I would like to use CAS, Shibboleth and other open-source components where possible.
Thanks for comments, suggestions and answers!
MiKu
Going with AD account IS the generic solution. Kerberos is ubiquitous. This is the only mechanism which will ask you for your credentials once and just once at logon time.
This is all feasable, you need:
A KDC
Correct DNS entries
KDC accounts
Correct SPN entries
Client computers configured to talk to the KDC
Java app using JAAS with JGSS to obtain service tickets
GSS-API with your GTK+ app to obtain service tickets
What did you figure out yourself yet?
Agreed with Michael that GSSAPI/Kerberos is what you want to use. I'll add that there’s a snag with Java, however: by default, JGSS uses its own GSSAPI and Kerberos implementations, written in Java in the JDK, and not the platform’s libraries. Thus, it doesn’t obey your existing configuration and doesn’t work like anything else (e.g. on Unix it doesn’t respect KRB5CCNAME or other environment variables you’re used to, can’t use the DNS to locate KDCs, has a different set of supported ciphers, etc.). It is also buggy and limited; it can’t follow referrals, for example.
On Unix platforms, you can tell JGSS to bypass the JDK code and use an external GSSAPI library by starting the JVM with:
-Dsun.security.jgss.native=true -Dsun.security.jgss.lib=/path/to/libgssapi_krb5.so
There is no analogous option on Windows to use SSPI, however. This looks promising:
http://dblock.github.com/waffle/
... but I haven’t gotten to addressing this issue yet.
I have a service with usernames and passwords already set up that I want to add a Jabber service to.
Is there any open source XMPP servers that I can customise to use my existing usernames and passwords in a Postgres DB?
You can do this with Openfire. You can either write your own extension to support a custom authentication mechanism, or you might be able to manage it with some simple configuration (check the section on Authentication Integration).
I am looking for a single sign on approach for an ODBC connection to a Postgres database.
The plan is to login to a web application and then use a a single sign on scheme such as oauth or CAS to automatically login to a client application.
The client application does not verify the credentials itself, but uses them via ODBC to connect to the Postgres database server. Unlike web applications we cannot use a single databaes user here, but need individual database accounts for security reasons.
In theory Postgres does support PAM and PAM supports both CAS and oauth. But I was not able to find any documentation on that. Especially the part of how to specify the token in ODBC is unclear to me.
With PAM auth, keep in mind that this is a broad field and books could be written about it. I do something similar to what you do though and can answer the part about ODBC. The following provides a walkthrough for a related service you may find helpful:
http://www.wikidsystems.com/support/wikid-support-center/how-to/how-to-secure-postgresql-using-two-factor-authentication-from-wikid
The big thing to remember is that with PAM the password provided is passed on to the PAM module, so you have to pass in the username and password. This gets sent to PAM as if the user was logging on to the system. Beyond that it's up to you to configure PAM appropriately for your service.