On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 04:40:10PM +1000, Fraser Tweedale wrote: > > Just an update on my investigations of doing SPNEGO authn to > Dogtag/Tomcat and a summary of what I think I'll need to do to get > it going. > > Even for a trivial app configuring Tomcat to do SPNEGO is pretty > awful. I made some notes[1] on this and I'll turn that into a blog > post later, once I have a Realm story to go with it (I'm thinking > mod_lookup_identity for Tomcat; more on that below). > > [1] https://github.com/frasertweedale/notes-redhat/blob/master/tomcat.rst > > > The unfortunate case is that the `Authenticator' interface does not > chain, hence we already have our own `SSLAuthenticatorWithFallback' > authenticator valve implementation which we use to fall back to > Basic authentication when there is no client certificate. > > I see two general approaches to the "multiple authentication > options" problem. > > a) a "parallel deployment" in a separate <Context> where we host the > app in parallel at '/<subsystem>/spnego/...' or > '/spnego/<subsystem>/...' and use the `SpnegoAuthenticator' valve. > This is a pretty "heavyweight" approach and I believe sessions from > one do not flow to the other, and a whole separate CMS application > is running. So it does not seem viable. > > b) `SSLAuthenticatorWithFallback' becomes "SSL or SPNEGO or Basic" > valve. The problem here is that protocol-wise there is no > indication on initial request whether client can do SPNEGO or not, > so it is not clear how server should respond. An example of how > this could be resolved is the client providing a '?spnego=1' query > param; ugly but it should work, and w.r.t. REST API the client need > only do it on /rest/account/login and use their session cookie > thereafter, so I don't think it is too onerous. > > So it looks like (b) but if someone can suggest another approach I'm > listening! > > > As for the Realm, the current implementation is a bit unorthodox - > we use our own ProxyRealm class and "inject" a PKIRealm into it. > I'm not sure why this approach is needed becaues PKIRealm does not > need any configuration either on instantiation or afterwards. > > I think the best approach here would be to use CombinedRealm[2] and > add PKIRealm as well as whatever other Realms are needed. For IPA > usage I am leaning toward the mod_lookup_identity approach; given > principal name look up roles (groups) via D-Bus. > > [2] https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/config/realm.html#Combined_Realm... > > Jan: does this approach make sense to you and do you know of any > projects to do this with Tomcat already? I'm a bit confused. Do you try to do the authentication in tomcat or do you try to front-end tomcat with Apache? If you do it in tomcat itself (like the investigation seems to suggest), what is the role of mod_lookup_identity here?

On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 07:46:25PM +1000, Fraser Tweedale wrote: > On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 08:34:11AM +0100, Jan Pazdziora wrote: > > > > I'm a bit confused. Do you try to do the authentication in tomcat > > or do you try to front-end tomcat with Apache? If you do it in tomcat > > itself (like the investigation seems to suggest), what is the role > > of mod_lookup_identity here? > > No Apache, no mod_lookup_identity. But a Tomcat Realm > implementation that does a lookup of principal info via SSSD via > D-Bus, like what mod_lookup_identity does for Apache. In general, that is what we tell people not to do. The goal is to use external authenticatication and identity operations in frontend server (Apache) and applications / frameworks consuming the results. The benefit of this approach is that you don't have to reimplement things when you say want to support additional protocol -- hopefully, the platform will do it for you in the form of Apache modules. The mod_auth_openidc is a prime example -- ideally, any application that consumes results of external authentication (which was initially done for example to support Kerberos) gets OpenId Connect for free, just by reconfiguring the frontend Apache HTTP Server.

-- Jan Pazdziora | adelton at #ipa*, #brno Senior Principal Software Engineer, Identity Management Engineering, Red Hat

Hi all, Just an update on my investigations of doing SPNEGO authn to Dogtag/Tomcat and a summary of what I think I'll need to do to get it going. Even for a trivial app configuring Tomcat to do SPNEGO is pretty awful. I made some notes[1] on this and I'll turn that into a blog post later, once I have a Realm story to go with it (I'm thinking mod_lookup_identity for Tomcat; more on that below). [1] https://github.com/frasertweedale/notes-redhat/blob/master/tomcat.rst The unfortunate case is that the `Authenticator' interface does not chain, hence we already have our own `SSLAuthenticatorWithFallback' authenticator valve implementation which we use to fall back to Basic authentication when there is no client certificate. I see two general approaches to the "multiple authentication options" problem. a) a "parallel deployment" in a separate <Context> where we host the app in parallel at '/<subsystem>/spnego/...' or '/spnego/<subsystem>/...' and use the `SpnegoAuthenticator' valve. This is a pretty "heavyweight" approach and I believe sessions from one do not flow to the other, and a whole separate CMS application is running. So it does not seem viable.

b) `SSLAuthenticatorWithFallback' becomes "SSL or SPNEGO or Basic" valve. The problem here is that protocol-wise there is no indication on initial request whether client can do SPNEGO or not, so it is not clear how server should respond. An example of how this could be resolved is the client providing a '?spnego=1' query param; ugly but it should work, and w.r.t. REST API the client need only do it on /rest/account/login and use their session cookie thereafter, so I don't think it is too onerous. So it looks like (b) but if someone can suggest another approach I'm listening!

As for the Realm, the current implementation is a bit unorthodox - we use our own ProxyRealm class and "inject" a PKIRealm into it. I'm not sure why this approach is needed becaues PKIRealm does not need any configuration either on instantiation or afterwards.

I think the best approach here would be to use CombinedRealm[2] and add PKIRealm as well as whatever other Realms are needed. For IPA usage I am leaning toward the mod_lookup_identity approach; given principal name look up roles (groups) via D-Bus.

[2] https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/config/realm.html#Combined_Realm... Jan: does this approach make sense to you and do you know of any projects to do this with Tomcat already? Ade: what sort of behaviour do you need in the Realm for the Barbian use case? Any and all feedback welcome. Thanks, Fraser