14.2.11. Use A Third-Party Authentication System In Your Application

You can integrate third-party security systems with JBoss EAP 6. These types of systems are usually token-based. The external system performs the authentication and passes a token back to the Web application through the request headers. This is often referred to as perimeter authentication. To configure perimeter authentication in your application, add a custom authentication valve. If you have a valve from a third-party provider, be sure it is in your classpath and follow the examples below, along with the documentation for your third-party authentication module.

Note

The location for configuring valves has changed in JBoss EAP 6. There is no longer a context.xml deployment descriptor. Valves are configured directly in the jboss-web.xml descriptor instead. The context.xml is now ignored.

Example 14.2. Basic Authentication Valve

<jboss-web>
  <valve>
    <class-name>org.jboss.security.negotiation.NegotiationAuthenticator</class-name>
  </valve>
</jboss-web>

This valve is used for Kerberos-based SSO. It also shows the most simple pattern for specifying a third-party authenticator for your Web application.

Example 14.3. Custom Valve With Header Attributes Set

<jboss-web>
  <valve>
    <class-name>org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.GenericHeaderAuthenticator</class-name>
    <param>
      <param-name>httpHeaderForSSOAuth</param-name>
      <param-value>sm_ssoid,ct-remote-user,HTTP_OBLIX_UID</param-value>
    </param>
    <param>
      <param-name>sessionCookieForSSOAuth</param-name>
      <param-value>SMSESSION,CTSESSION,ObSSOCookie</param-value>
    </param>
  </valve>
</jboss-web>

This example shows how to set custom attributes on your valve. The authenticator checks for the presence of the header ID and the session key, and passes them into the JAAS framework which drives the security layer, as the username and password value. You need a custom JAAS login module which can process the username and password and populate the subject with the correct roles. If no header values match the configured values, regular form-based authentication semantics apply.
Writing a Custom Authenticator

Writing your own authenticator is out of scope of this document. However, the following Java code is provided as an example.

Example 14.4. GenericHeaderAuthenticator.java

/*
 * JBoss, Home of Professional Open Source.
 * Copyright 2006, Red Hat Middleware LLC, and individual contributors
 * as indicated by the @author tags. See the copyright.txt file in the
 * distribution for a full listing of individual contributors.
 *
 * This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
 * under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as
 * published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of
 * the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
 * Lesser General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
 * License along with this software; if not, write to the Free
 * Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
 * 02110-1301 USA, or see the FSF site: http://www.fsf.org.
 */
 
package org.jboss.web.tomcat.security;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.security.Principal;
import java.util.StringTokenizer;

import javax.management.JMException;
import javax.management.ObjectName;
import javax.servlet.http.Cookie;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import org.apache.catalina.Realm;
import org.apache.catalina.Session;
import org.apache.catalina.authenticator.Constants;
import org.apache.catalina.connector.Request;
import org.apache.catalina.connector.Response;
import org.apache.catalina.deploy.LoginConfig;
import org.jboss.logging.Logger;

import org.jboss.as.web.security.ExtendedFormAuthenticator;

/**
 * JBAS-2283: Provide custom header based authentication support
 * 
 * Header Authenticator that deals with userid from the request header Requires
 * two attributes configured on the Tomcat Service - one for the http header
 * denoting the authenticated identity and the other is the SESSION cookie
 * 
 * @author <a href="mailto:Anil.Saldhana@jboss.org">Anil Saldhana</a>
 * @author <a href="mailto:sguilhen@redhat.com">Stefan Guilhen</a>
 * @version $Revision$
 * @since Sep 11, 2006
 */
public class GenericHeaderAuthenticator extends ExtendedFormAuthenticator {
  protected static Logger log = Logger
      .getLogger(GenericHeaderAuthenticator.class);

  protected boolean trace = log.isTraceEnabled();

  // JBAS-4804: GenericHeaderAuthenticator injection of ssoid and
  // sessioncookie name.
  private String httpHeaderForSSOAuth = null;

  private String sessionCookieForSSOAuth = null;

  /**
   * <p>
   * Obtain the value of the <code>httpHeaderForSSOAuth</code> attribute. This
   * attribute is used to indicate the request header ids that have to be
   * checked in order to retrieve the SSO identity set by a third party
   * security system.
   * </p>
   * 
   * @return a <code>String</code> containing the value of the
   *         <code>httpHeaderForSSOAuth</code> attribute.
   */
  public String getHttpHeaderForSSOAuth() {
    return httpHeaderForSSOAuth;
  }

  /**
   * <p>
   * Set the value of the <code>httpHeaderForSSOAuth</code> attribute. This
   * attribute is used to indicate the request header ids that have to be
   * checked in order to retrieve the SSO identity set by a third party
   * security system.
   * </p>
   * 
   * @param httpHeaderForSSOAuth
   *            a <code>String</code> containing the value of the
   *            <code>httpHeaderForSSOAuth</code> attribute.
   */
  public void setHttpHeaderForSSOAuth(String httpHeaderForSSOAuth) {
    this.httpHeaderForSSOAuth = httpHeaderForSSOAuth;
  }

  /**
   * <p>
   * Obtain the value of the <code>sessionCookieForSSOAuth</code> attribute.
   * This attribute is used to indicate the names of the SSO cookies that may
   * be present in the request object.
   * </p>
   * 
   * @return a <code>String</code> containing the names (separated by a
   *         <code>','</code>) of the SSO cookies that may have been set by a
   *         third party security system in the request.
   */
  public String getSessionCookieForSSOAuth() {
    return sessionCookieForSSOAuth;
  }

  /**
   * <p>
   * Set the value of the <code>sessionCookieForSSOAuth</code> attribute. This
   * attribute is used to indicate the names of the SSO cookies that may be
   * present in the request object.
   * </p>
   * 
   * @param sessionCookieForSSOAuth
   *            a <code>String</code> containing the names (separated by a
   *            <code>','</code>) of the SSO cookies that may have been set by
   *            a third party security system in the request.
   */
  public void setSessionCookieForSSOAuth(String sessionCookieForSSOAuth) {
    this.sessionCookieForSSOAuth = sessionCookieForSSOAuth;
  }

  /**
   * <p>
   * Creates an instance of <code>GenericHeaderAuthenticator</code>.
   * </p>
   */
  public GenericHeaderAuthenticator() {
    super();
  }

  public boolean authenticate(Request request, HttpServletResponse response,
      LoginConfig config) throws IOException {
    log.trace("Authenticating user");

    Principal principal = request.getUserPrincipal();
    if (principal != null) {
      if (trace)
        log.trace("Already authenticated '" + principal.getName() + "'");
      return true;
    }

    Realm realm = context.getRealm();
    Session session = request.getSessionInternal(true);

    String username = getUserId(request);
    String password = getSessionCookie(request);

    // Check if there is sso id as well as sessionkey
    if (username == null || password == null) {
      log.trace("Username is null or password(sessionkey) is null:fallback to form auth");
      return super.authenticate(request, response, config);
    }
    principal = realm.authenticate(username, password);

    if (principal == null) {
      forwardToErrorPage(request, response, config);
      return false;
    }

    session.setNote(Constants.SESS_USERNAME_NOTE, username);
    session.setNote(Constants.SESS_PASSWORD_NOTE, password);
    request.setUserPrincipal(principal);

    register(request, response, principal, HttpServletRequest.FORM_AUTH,
        username, password);
    return true;
  }

  /**
   * Get the username from the request header
   * 
   * @param request
   * @return
   */
  protected String getUserId(Request request) {
    String ssoid = null;
    // We can have a comma-separated ids
    String ids = "";
    try {
      ids = this.getIdentityHeaderId();
    } catch (JMException e) {
      if (trace)
        log.trace("getUserId exception", e);
    }
    if (ids == null || ids.length() == 0)
      throw new IllegalStateException(
          "Http headers configuration in tomcat service missing");

    StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(ids, ",");
    while (st.hasMoreTokens()) {
      ssoid = request.getHeader(st.nextToken());
      if (ssoid != null)
        break;
    }
    if (trace)
      log.trace("SSOID-" + ssoid);
    return ssoid;
  }

  /**
   * Obtain the session cookie from the request
   * 
   * @param request
   * @return
   */
  protected String getSessionCookie(Request request) {
    Cookie[] cookies = request.getCookies();
    log.trace("Cookies:" + cookies);
    int numCookies = cookies != null ? cookies.length : 0;

    // We can have comma-separated ids
    String ids = "";
    try {
      ids = this.getSessionCookieId();
      log.trace("Session Cookie Ids=" + ids);
    } catch (JMException e) {
      if (trace)
        log.trace("checkSessionCookie exception", e);
    }
    if (ids == null || ids.length() == 0)
      throw new IllegalStateException(
          "Session cookies configuration in tomcat service missing");

    StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(ids, ",");
    while (st.hasMoreTokens()) {
      String cookieToken = st.nextToken();
      String val = getCookieValue(cookies, numCookies, cookieToken);
      if (val != null)
        return val;
    }
    if (trace)
      log.trace("Session Cookie not found");
    return null;
  }

  /**
   * Get the configured header identity id in the tomcat service
   * 
   * @return
   * @throws JMException
   */
  protected String getIdentityHeaderId() throws JMException {
    if (this.httpHeaderForSSOAuth != null)
      return this.httpHeaderForSSOAuth;
    return (String) mserver.getAttribute(new ObjectName(
        "jboss.web:service=WebServer"), "HttpHeaderForSSOAuth");
  }

  /**
   * Get the configured session cookie id in the tomcat service
   * 
   * @return
   * @throws JMException
   */
  protected String getSessionCookieId() throws JMException {
    if (this.sessionCookieForSSOAuth != null)
      return this.sessionCookieForSSOAuth;
    return (String) mserver.getAttribute(new ObjectName(
        "jboss.web:service=WebServer"), "SessionCookieForSSOAuth");
  }

  /**
   * Get the value of a cookie if the name matches the token
   * 
   * @param cookies
   *            array of cookies
   * @param numCookies
   *            number of cookies in the array
   * @param token
   *            Key
   * @return value of cookie
   */
  protected String getCookieValue(Cookie[] cookies, int numCookies,
      String token) {
    for (int i = 0; i < numCookies; i++) {
      Cookie cookie = cookies[i];
      log.trace("Matching cookieToken:" + token + " with cookie name="
          + cookie.getName());
      if (token.equals(cookie.getName())) {
        if (trace)
          log.trace("Cookie-" + token + " value=" + cookie.getValue());
        return cookie.getValue();
      }
    }
    return null;
  }
}