> is that how it is supposed to work?

Yes.

CAS is an authenticated session broker, not a session management system.

It is intended for use as the trusted intermediary whereby you at your
browser bootstrap an authentication to some untrustworthy application on the
web.  (The application may or may not be reputable, but the point is that
you don't have to trust them because you both trust CAS.)

On receipt of that first valid service ticket, the application should use
its own session management mechanism to recognize this authenticated session
on future requests.  This typically involves issuing a session cookie.  The
application should be vended over https:// and so the cookie should be
secure if the application actually cares about security.  If it doesn't mind
your session being hijacked, then it's not clear why it's using CAS in the
first place since no amount of CAS can actually make the application secure
at that point, but at least end user passwords aren't being sent in the
clear.

If you're using a CAS client library, it typically automates accomplishing
this session bootstrapping in some platform appropriate way.  See e.g. the
Yale CAS Filter, which fairly succinctly sums up what a CAS client must do.
It detects tickets and when it sees ticket parameters attempts to validate
them establishing an authenticated session.  When there's no ticket, it
checks that the session is already authenticated.  When there's no ticket
and no session, it redirects to CAS so that a ticket can be acquired which
will then lead it to create an authenticated session.


> I just to make sure that CAS is actually acting 
> as an intermediary to every request of a protected 
> page and that all my pages are indeed protected....

While in theory you could do this it is not recommended.  This creates
needless load on your CAS server.  It also typically fails to support form
posting, since most (all?) CAS clients today will remember and honor URL
query parameters (GET) but will not remember form POSTS on return from CAS.

Andrew Petro
Academus Development Lead
Unicon, Inc.

________________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of tedzo
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 1:33 PM
To: Yale CAS mailing list
Subject: Only 1 ticket per login?

Ok, this is probably a dumb question-
The first time I try to access one of the CAS protected JSPs, I am asked to
login to CAS and I get back a ticket. However, subsequent access to other
CAS protected pages take me directly to the page (as expected) but no ticket
is being returned. My question is- is that how it is supposed to work? The
ticket is returned only the first time and not afterwards? I just to make
sure that CAS is actually acting as an intermediary to every request of a
protected page and that all my pages are indeed protected....

 
Thanks,
 
Ray.
  
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