On Feb 12, 2007, at 4:52 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Trying to use JACC and JAAS configuration for ClearTrust (Access
Manager) 5.5 in Geronimo 1.1 - looks like it should work; but not
sure where to start.
Is anyone already using ClearTrust (aka RSA Access Manager)? I'm
hoping that someone has already accomplished configuring Geronimo
to use ClearTrust using just config.xml - or if someone could
advise whether there is new code I need to implement, and what the
correct way is to deploy it (surely not in my application archive).
Having successfully implemented a web application using a
properties realm, the time has come for us to deploy to a secured
production environment. In preparation for this, our ClearTrust
administrator has provisioned our IDs and we have groups set up
that match the roles we need. Since the principals are named as
the application uses, no role mapping should be required (I think).
After perusing the general JAAS and JACC documentation, as well as
that which is specific to Geronimo on the wiki (and the little bit
of JAAS info provided for ClearTrust) - it is not clear how to
configure the GeronimoLoginConfiguration GBean for the
GeronimoSecurityRealm with JaasLoginService (or
JaasLoginCoordinator) to replace what we were doing with the
properties realm.
From what I understand, there is no login.conf in Geronimo because
the configurations are identified in the GBean; but the details of
the deployment plan are unclear. For example, where do I tell the
configuration which ClearTrust JAAS class is the LoginModule? Do I
use LoginModuleGBean (or JaasLoginModuleUse) to do that? Do I
configure parameters such as the ClearTrust host name and port in
the options attribute? Is this all declarative or do I implement
the ConfigurationEntryFactory interface in a jar to be deployed
apart from the application? Can or should the <login-config> be
used instead?
Chapter 15 of the Wrox book "Professional Apache Geronimo" gives
rather thorough coverage of JAAS and JACC and discusses the theory
of gbean configuation as it applies to JAAS, but it doesn't give
specifics that are similar enough to my needs for me to make the
mental connection. Having "just enough" information I'm naively
tempted to write some code; but it seems like its an administration
component that someone coulda/shoulda done by now and that could
keep us from complicating the deployment by adding custom code
where it is not required. Further, it seems to me that I could
waste a lot of time if I try to write a JACC adapter for the
ClearTrust JAAS implementation without asking the Geronimo
community if this is the right thing to do. If someone has already
done this - great, I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to
see your responses in the mail archives. If not... cool, I get to
write some code!
Although the primary and urgent need is for basic web security of
our application, it would be great to extend this to Geronimo's web
console admin access too.
If it matters in this context, our deployment stack is Win2003/IBM
Java 5/WAS CE 1.1.0.1/web app 2.4
I'm not familiar with ClearTrust, but from your description it sounds
like it provides one or more login modules where the result of using
them is that you get a Subject populated with principals each of
whose name represents a role ClearTrust knows about.
If this is the case you should not need to write any code, just
configuration.
Lets assume you only need one login module, of class
com.ct.LoginModule, and the principals are of class
com.ct.RolePrincipal. Lets further assume that the possible options
for the login module are host and port.
To set up a security realm that uses ClearTrust you'd include
something like this to an appropriate geronimo plan, either a web app
plan if you use only one web app, or a separate security module if
you plan to use this for more than one application (as it appears you
do from the comment about the admin console):
<gbean name="cleartrust-realm"
class="org.apache.geronimo.security.realm.GenericSecurityRealm">
<attribute name="realmName">cleartrust-realm</attribute>
<xml-reference name="LoginModuleConfiguration">
<lc:login-config xmlns:lc="http://geronimo.apache.org/
xml/ns/loginconfig-1.1">
<lc:login-module control-flag="REQUIRED" server-
side="true">
<lc:login-domain-name>cleartrust-domain</
lc:login-domain-name>
<lc:login-module-class>com.ct.LoginModule</
lc:login-module-class>
<lc:option name="host">localhost</lc:option>
<lc:option name="port">9999</lc:option>
</lc:login-module>
</lc:login-config>
</xml-reference>
<reference name="ServerInfo">
<name>ServerInfo</name>
</reference>
<reference name="LoginService">
<name>JaasLoginService</name>
</reference>
</gbean>
At the moment in geronimo you always have to supply a principal-role
mapping, even when it is trivial and obvious such as the principals
directly representing the roles. So, in the geronimo plan for your
application, you need a <security..> element which will look
something like this, assuming there are roles USER and ADMIN
<security xmlns="http://geronimo.apache.org/xml/ns/security-1.1";>
<default-principal realm-name="cleartrust-realm">
<principal class="com.ct.RolePrincipal" name="USER"/>
</default-principal>
<role-mappings>
<role role-name="ADMIN">
<realm realm-name="cleartrust-realm">
<principal class="com.ct.RolePrincipal" name="ADMIN"/>
</realm>
</role>
<role role-name="USER">
<realm realm-name="cleartrust-realm">
<principal class="com.ct.RolePrincipal" name="USER"/>
</realm>
</role>
</role-mappings>
</security>
The <realm....> elements are not necessary but they provide an extra
measure of security that the principals are coming from the specified
realm and not some other login module that happens to produce
ClearTrust principals.
You will also need to get the ClearTrust classes available to the
login module configuration. I advise installing the appropriate
ClearTrust jars into the geronimo repository and using a dependency
from your new login configuration module to those jars. You can also
put the jars in the shared/lib directory and make that a parent
configuration of your login configuration.
From your description it sounds like cleartrust provides role
information rather than permission information. In this case there's
no need to implement a jacc provider. If ClearTrust does provide
finer grained permission information you might want to implement
JACC, but you would have to use at least geronimo 2.0 (not yet
released) for truly pluggable jacc. (1.2 might also work if you
don't use any run-as or default roles).
When you get this working would you consider contributing working
sample plans? It might also be great to have a plugin for this at
geronimoplugins.com, the non-apache geronimo plugin site I know about.
thanks
david jencks
- Lee
