We are planning to have multiple client views/UIs (E.g. Customer facing UI and Internal UI) on one (same) set of web services which perform end-to-end operation needed for both views/UIs including login. I am assuming this is possible with minor modifications to the out of the box code generated by Jhipster. Mainly around ..
- enabling CSRF
- changing WebConfigurator, ???
- decoupling web services from UI into separate wars/apps
- pointing to the new web services url in the client side
- ???
I would like to know experts opinion on achieving the same, and kind of changes and effort involved.
CSRF will work with JHipster 2, be careful as currently Spring Security and AngularJS don't use the same CSRF cookie (and thus, don't work!)
I would limit the URL access, maybe by IP adress, either in the Spring Security configuration or per endpoint (by adding security annotations per endpoint)
Related
I am building a service-oriented system for personal use (plus few friends may have limited access as well) - the aim is to have a dashboard for controlling my apps running on various machines such as Raspberry Pis (and potentially to be expanded to a VPS or few in future).
The architecture itself is pretty simple. For authentication I want to use AWS Cognito. Services would communicate with WebAPI (and potentially with eachother) using gRPC within a VPN, and dashboard would be served by Blazor server-side (may move to Blazor WASM Hosted model if I find a need for it). Each of the processes may or may not be on the same machine as any other (depending on the purpose). Blazor server may or may not run within VPN (I might want to move it to a separate web hosting later).
I created a simple diagram to visualize it:
The problem comes with authentication. I want to have Blazor server-side and API as a separate processes (for now they're going to run on the same machine, but I may want to move it elsewhere eventually). Ideally authentication should be handled by API, so authentication is client-agnostic, and the API can use it to verify if the logged in user can perform an action - which by itself is simple.
However, I want Blazor server to use and validate that token as well in order to determine what to display to the user. I want to do with the least amount of calls possible - ideally avoiding querying API for every 'should I display it or not?' choice.
I could easily do it by sacrificing possibility to move API elsewhere, and just merge Blazor Server and API Gateway into one project. For my current purpose it would be enough, but it's not an ideal solution, so first I want to look into how could I achieve my original vision.
How could I achieve this (with minimal amount of Blazor server to API queries)?
I was googling for solution a lot, but so far only found either examples of using Blazor server and API as one project, or using client-side calls to API directly.
Thank you good folks in advance.
I am using Cometd 3.0.1 with jetty 9.2.3 using JSR 356 based websocket implementation (and not jetty's own websocket implementation).
I have added some auth filters which basically ask for authentication headers from request. But as websocket upgrade happen as a part of websocketupgrade filter, is there a way to make authentication work here?
Authenticating via a Filter is the wrong way to accomplish authentication.
Correct Solution:
The servlet spec expects you to setup and configure the the authentication and authorization layers of your application using the servlet techniques of both the container and the application metadata (WEB-INF/web.xml)
This means you setup a the container side security, either using the Jetty container specific LoginService, or using a JAAS spec configuration. Then you reference your security realms in your WEB-INF/web.xml and use them. If you have something custom, then you can hook into the LoginService of your choice (even a custom one) and manage it accordingly.
JAAS and LoginService Authentication and Authorization is applied before all filters and servlets.
In this scenario, you'll have access to the authentication information during the upgrade process, in particular during the ServerEndpointConfig.Configurator.modifyHandshake()
Ugly Hack Solution:
Add the org.eclipse.jetty.websocket.server.WebSocketUpgradeFilter to your WEB-INF/web.xml manually.
This then leaves it up to you to attempt to get your authentication filter to exist before this WebSocketUpgradeFilter in 100% of use cases.
Caution: filter execution ordering is not part of the servlet spec. Be careful with this, as it might seem to be working on your dev machine and then suddenly not work in QA or production. Simply because the Set of filters in the metadata will have a different order in it.
Notes:
Path Spec must be /*
Async Supported must be true
Dispatcher Types must be REQUEST only.
Do not set the contextAttributeKey for that filter
All other WebSocketUpgradeFilter init-params are invalid for JSR-356 use (they are overridden by the various JSR-356 endpoint configurations)
I need some help with securing a single page multi-tenant saas application.
Questions:
1) What is the best way to implement it? I am trying the build the application using angularjs, spring mvc and REST.
2) Can this be done using Spring Security? Any example with creating login page and securing REST, calls will be helpful?
I have found a sample for implementing spring security with Spring JPA (http://krams915.blogspot.com/2012/01/spring-security-31-implement_3065.html) but it is not for SPA and SaaS.
I understand this a very broad question but i am new to SPA, REST and SaaS so any pointers will be helpful.
Thanks...
I have already participated in two projects with SPA and security aspects. Last of them was GWT + Spring Security. I am sure that you can use successfully Angular and Spring Security together.
Unfortunately there is no built-in config parameter 'we are in SPA mode' in Spring Security AFAIK. So some tweaking / conf from Spring Security side will be necessary. Example:
imagine that during login you call built-in into Spring Security login controller. In a case of successfull authentication by default user will be redirected to index page, where in a case of failure it will be redirected to corresponding error page. It is a normal behavior for standard web applications that will be not so useful for SPA web applications. In a case of SPA you need to detect AJAX call and print JSON with username / roles for successfull cases or send 401 code for failures (then detect 401 in JS and show corresponding error). You can use corresponding extention points from Spring Security to do so: AuthenticationSuccessHandler and AuthenticationFailureHandler.
Some another thing to tweak: by default after session expiration user will be redirected to login page (and SPA app receive login page as a response to the next AJAX call).
Looking into my personal exprience general guide will be like so: after login load list of roles into JS. Use it to show / hide corresponding components on UI side. Apply the same list of restrictions on server side too. To make sure that user do not edit JS in browser (although in a case of minified JS of some medium size app it will very complex task). On the server side you must choose between:
Secure URLs of AJAX calls
Secure some Java methods.
I prefer second one (secure business methods on services). I think it is more convinient because normally we want secure business operations, not some endpoints. As adwantage you will be able expose your business logic via some other protocol, and security will be there already. From other side I can imagine some business requirement to have different permissions for different endpoints / protocols. So it depends more on your actual situation.
Lage size JS applications must be splitted into modules. To decrease direct dependencies it may be better to use events insted of direct calls to cummunicate between modules. There are interesting thoughts of Addy Osmany about how to do security in these coditions. I did not found good link to it, maybe this or this will be helpfull (search "permission").
Feel free to post any questions. Good luck.
I have a C# .net application which servers both company's internal users and external customers. I need to do fine-grained authorization like who accesses what resource. So I need something like resource-based or attribute-based rather than a role-based authorization.
What comes to my mind is to either:
Implement my own authorization mechanism and sql tables for my .net application
Use/implement a standard mechanism, like a software that has implemented XACML (for instance Axiomatics)
The problem with the first method is that it is not centralized nor standard so other systems cannot use it for authorization.
The problem with the second approach is that it is potentially slower (due to extra calls needed for each resource). Also I am not sure how widely a standard authorization like XACML is supported by applications in the market to make future integrations easier.
So, in general what are the good practices for fine-grained authorization for web applications that are supposed to serve both internal users and external customers?
I would definitely go for externalized authorization. It doesn't mean it will be slower. It means you have cleanly separated access control from the business logic.
Overview
XACML is a good way to go. The TC is very active and companies such as Boeing, EMC, the Veterans Administration, Oracle, and Axiomatics are all active members.
The XACML architecture guarantees you can get the performance you want. Since the enforcement (PEP) and the decision engine (PDP) are loosely coupled you can choose how they communicate, what protocol they use, whether to use multiple decisions, etc... This means you have the choice to go for the integration which fits your performance needs.
There is also a standard PDP interface defined in the SAML profile for XACML. That guarantees you 'future-proof' access control where you are not locked into any particular vendor solution.
Access control for webapps
You can simply drop in a PEP for .Net webapps by using HTTP Filters in ISAPI and ASP.NET. Axiomatics has got one off-the-shelf for that.
Current implementations
If you check Axiomatics's customers page, you'll see they have Paypal, Bell Helicopter, and more. So XACML is indeed a reality and it can tackle very large deployments (hundreds of millions of users).
Also, Datev eG, a leading financial services provider is using Axiomatics's .Net PDP implementation for its services / apps. Since the .Net PDP is embedded in that case, performance is optimal.
Otherwise, you can always choose from off-the-shelf PEPs for .Net that integration with any PDP - for instance a SOAP-based XACML authorization service.
High levels of performance with XACML
Last July at the Gartner "Catalyst" conference, Axiomatics announced the release of their latest product, the Axiomatics Reverse Query which helps you tackle the 'billion record challenge'. It targets access control for data sources as well as RIA. It uses a pure XACML solution so that it remains interoperable with other solutions.
As a matter of fact, Kuppinger Cole will host a webinar on the topic very soon: http://www.kuppingercole.com/events/n10058
Check out the Axiomatics ARQ press release too here: http://www.axiomatics.com/latest-news/216-axiomatics-releases-new-reverse-query-authorization-product-a-breakthrough-innovation-for-authorization-services.html
Definitely look for a drop-in authorization module for your ASP.NET application. I'm not just saying that because I implement drop-in auth systems at BiTKOO, but because I have had to work with home-grown auth implementations in the past. Building your own authorization system for a single application really is not a good use of your time or resources unless you intend to make a career out of implementing security systems.
Externalizing the authorization decision from your app is a good idea from an architectural standpoint. Externalizing the authz decision gives you an enormous amount of flexibility to change your access criteria on the fly without having to shut down your web service or reconfigure the web server itself. Decoupling the web front-end from the authz engine allows you to scale each independently according to the load and traffic patterns of your application, and allows you to share the authz engine across multiple apps.
Yes, adding a network call to your web app will add some overhead to your web response compared to having no authorization at all or using a local database on the web server. That shouldn't be a reason not to consider external authorization. Any serious authorization product you consider will provide some sort of caching capability to minimize the number of network calls required per web request or even per user session across multiple web requests.
In BiTKOO's Keystone system, for example, the user attributes can be cached on the web server per user-session, so there's really only one back-end network request involved on the first page request as part of establishing a user login. Subsequent page requests (within the lifetime of the cached credentials, usually 5 minutes or so) can be handled by the web server without needing to hit the authz service again. This scales well in cloud web farms, and is built on XACML standards.
I need to do fine-grained authorization like who accesses what resource. So I need something like resource-based or attribute-based rather than a role-based authorization.
Check out this: https://zanzibar.academy/. Zanzibar is a project made at Google to solve fine-grained authorization at scale.
Use/implement a standard mechanism, like a software that has implemented XACML (for instance Axiomatics). The problem with the second approach is that it is potentially slower (due to extra calls needed for each resource).
Auth0 is working on a solution called FGA (https://fga.dev) that will be optimized for low latency. It's built upon the Zanzibar paper.
Disclaimer: I am employed at Auth0.
I'm having a hard time getting my head around this, and Google just isn't being helpful.
I'm looking at converting some legacy code to use the following technologies: ASP.NET, WCF, jQuery.
The ASP.NET conversion isn't an issue, nor is accessing the WCF service for data, on the server-side.
However, what I'm having an issue with is potentially being able to secure the service so that I can return JSON-formatted data, requested via jQuery on the client-side, but lock it down to prevent external access.
For this particular implementation, it's not that big of a deal, since the ... quasi-Ajax-like functionality has been in place for quite a while, and there hasn't been abuse.
But, once this project is complete, I'd like to take what I've learned and convert another form, which is often abused, and allow for a slicker display.
If I want to do client-side calls to a Web service, am I stuck making my Web service open to anonymous access?
Short of securing the Web interface down to a specific subset of users (I see no issue with securing the added functionality to logged in users), are there any other strategies on securing a Web service in this scenario? Am I just overlooking something obvious?
Require an authenticated session for both the server-side page and its caller via ajax, with both behind HTTPS.
Another strategy is to use a token that is bound to the session during the last page load to confirm that the session itself has not been high-jacked. This is done when the client loads the page. The server tracks what the next token must be to confirm a valid request.