I would like to use an LDAP server (probably Apache directory) to manage logins and credentials for an application. From time to time the application needs to work offline (on a laptop) without a connection to the LDAP server.
What is the best way to replicate the credentials localy?
I have already thought about:
Using Mitosis to replicate the LDAP server on the laptop.
But it would be a quite "heavy" and complicated solution. Moreover Mitosis seems not be be finished yet.
Exporting the credentials as LDIF file that could be stored on the laptop.
But I would need a way to check that the LDIF file actually comes from the LDAP server (The file should include a kind of signature). Moreover I would like to reject LDIF files that haven't be updated for more than a week. It would be nice if I could avoid implementing signing and age check myself.
Any other ideas or tools that could help me?
Edited Edit: I had a look at Kerberos because the documentation of the Java-Kerberos-API seems to say that it is possible to use a cached ticket in a local cache and I thought this might be a solution for me. Moreover Kerberos can be added as plugin to Apache Directory.
But the Kerberos cache stores decrypted tickets (aiming at sharing them with other applications). I would need the crypted version of the ticket to be able to check the user password during an offline session. Conclusion: Kerberos doesn't offer a simple solution to my problem.
Knowing that it will be probably ok if the user have to log on once online before being able to log on offline, consider the following algorithm:
user provides your application with a (username + password)
application attempts to contact LDAP for authentication
working online? (e.g. connection successful)
application authenticates against LDAP using (username + password)
authentication succesful?
application stores or updates hash(password) as (cached_credentials) for (username) into local secure storage
application proceeds as authenticated [[STOP]]
authentication failed?
application proceeds as non-authenticated (incorrect credentials) [[STOP]]
working offline? (e.g. network error)
application attempts retrieve (cached_credentials) for (username) from local secure storage
(cached_credentials) exists AND more recent than (1 week)?
application compares (cached_credentials) against hash(password)
match?
application proceeds as authenticated [[STOP]]
no match?
application proceeds as non-authenticated (incorrect credentials) [[STOP]]
(cached_credentials) does not exist OR less recent than (1 week)?
application proceeds as non-authenticated (network error) [[STOP]]
This is (or was, IIRC), by the way, the same model employed by Windows NT+ for user authentication against domain controllers. Upon login an attempt is made to authenticate against the domain controller and create or update the local (cached) version of the user profile. If the domain controller is not available, the user is prompted to proceed with authentication against the credentials captured in the local (cached) profile (if one exists.)
EDIT
Yes, this is, in spirit, the same solution as copying an ldif file locally, except that you do not have to parse ldif when you're offline. :)
It is understood that you can store any additional attributes (permissions, etc.) in your cache
It is also understood that 'secure storage' is at least signed. :) You can do this easily enough with a SHA-1 hash and a secret, or you can use full-fledged cryptographic providers available on your platform (or in Java, if using Java.) You do not need to crypt it as long as no secret information is stored inside.
Here is the solution I decided to use (I have already described it in an edit to my question, but I would like to able to accept an answer to "close" the question):
As I have not found another solution, I decided to use an LDIF export, add a timestamp as comment at the beginning of the file and then sign the file. To sign the file I calculate an hash value (SHA-1) of the file + a secret key. The signature is added as comment at the beginning of the file. To check the signature I remove the first line of the signed file and recalculate the hash value.
Related
I am a hardware guy first and software second so GitHub is not my forte.
I had Altium Designer setup with my GitHub server for version control. When GitHub forced 2FA recently it broke the link to Altium which, unfortunately doesn't have stellar GitHub integration.
There are 6 fields I am allowed to enter in Altium to point it to my (GitHub) server:
1.) Method (HTTP, HTTPS, file, svn)
2.) Server (URL)
3.) Port
4.) Repo Subfolder
5.) username
6.) Password
Again, nothing changed except moving to 2FA. Now, when I attempt to login it obviously says it could not connect to the server because Altium has no provisions to provide a token during the login process.
I read the article at GitHub here: https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team#latest/github/authenticating-to-github/using-ssh-over-the-https-port
But I have no idea if that will do anything for me. Is there a way to route my Altium server connection to use my SSH key outside of the Altium environment? Or perhaps another way to "whitelist" my desktop in GitHub for SSO?
GitHub has not forced 2FA on for users. That wouldn't be useful, because people could just not set up a second factor. It's possible your organization has required this, though.
However, GitHub is deprecating the use of a plain password when using Git over HTTPS in favor of a token. Using a plain password was already forbidden for users who use 2FA, since there's no place to send a 2FA code (and for automated systems, doing that would be very inconvenient).
In this case, it's easy to keep using HTTPS: just generate a personal access token (in the developer settings) with the repo scope and paste it into the password field. Git doesn't know the difference between a password and a token; they're both the same to it. This also has a bunch of other benefits:
If you change your password, the token isn't automatically cleaned up, so you don't have to change Altium Designer.
If you decide you want to revoke that token, you can do so independently of changing your password.
If you're using SSO, you need to enable that token for SSO using the drop-down before it can be used to access protected resources.
I need to implement authkey module in geoserver to enable clients to send authenticated requests. I followed the official article, and read through the Q&A from here and there, etc. These articles and answers are helpful to part of my work.
As a beginner in geoserver, it took me long time to figure out the complete answer. So I present my solution down in the case that someone has a similar work may benefit from it. In my solution, I used User property as the key provider.
It is welcome that if you have better solution, and are willing to share below.
Before implementing authkey module, I secured the layers by assigning workspaces to different users, give read/write authority to them and also set the Catalog Mode as "HIDE".
The procedure of implementing the authkey is as follows:
Download the plugin from http://geoserver.org/download/, choose your GeoServer version, and download the extension.
Extract archive to /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/geoserver/WEB-INF/lib (This is the directory for a Linux system).
Restart tomcat7
Partly follow official article using User property as the key provider:
1). In geoserver Security => Authentication => Authentication Filters, create authkey filter. Set the "Authentication key to user mapper" as "User property". Select corresponding group. Click "Synchronize user/group service" button.
2). Modify default filter chain. Remove both basic and anonymous authentication from the chain, attach and keep authkey authentication alone. (This is the reference)
Get the UUID from Users/Groups. Now you are able to request from the client with the authkey of the respective user.
thank you for your explanation, but small problem could be fixed authkey value sent from client to server (always same value), so anyone could mimic it?
next better step would be use WebService as 'authentication key to user mapper':
application generates key and adds it to request, application api end point is already fixed in geoserver, and when geoserver communicate with that api to verify, geoserver sends that key back to api and if it is generated by application (valid) then api responds with true geoserver user.
That part of communication would be hidden (secured).
I opened a demo xsp page and a window popped up asking me to input the name and password to login to the domino server. Then I entered my own id and password created in domino, but it didn't work. Only the Administrator name and its password worked. Anybody knows what's the problem? I already edited the corresponding ACL entries.
Thanks!
In order to use a database in a browser (no matter if classic notes web development or Xpages) one needs to meet several requirements.
First of all you need access to all NSF files that are used in the process.
As mentioned by Richard you either need to be mentioned in the ACL (namely or by group membership, or by setting -Default- and/or Anonymous to a level greater than No access).
AND the ACL has to allow Web- Access by not setting the Maximum Internet Name and Password to No Access
But this is not enough.
To be able to do authentication you do not have an ID- file in the browser.
You need a username and password. This password is NOT the password of your ID- file unless the admins choose to synchronize them using a policy.
It is the password stored in your person document in the names.nsf on the server.
But still these points are not enough yet: If you have access to the server with your username and internet password (can be tested by just trying to login to http://yourServer/names.nsf?open&login), then you might still not be able to access the application if -as umeli pointed out in the comment- the signer of the Xpage- application does not have enough rights to sign the XPages (Server document - security).
You see: There is a lot stuff to check. But if all of these points are OK, then access to the database will not be a problem anymore.
I omitted one reason for not beeing able to login because of your error description: If the Session Authentication on your server is configured for Multiple Servers (SSO) then you need to use the fully qualified internet host name of the server in the URL (or at least a hostname, that contains the SSO- domain), otherwise you will be redirected to the loginpage over and over again, even after supplying the right username / password. But as you wrote about a "Window popping up" I am quite sure, that Session authentication on that server is set to "Disabled"
You could be being rejected because of the
ACL of the NSF file not having the level of access required for operations performed in the code on the Xpage. I know you said you edited the ACL, but bear in mind that access also depends on the 'Maximum Internet Name and Password' setting for the NSF.
ACL in other NSF files that are accessed in the code of the Xpage not having the level of access required for operations performed on it by the code. This also includes the 'Maximum Internet Name and Password' setting.
I am trying to use hashing for a test case in tomcat-users.xml. (I plan on implementing a subclass of one of the Realm classes to do the real authentication with auditing, logging, etc.) I ran the command
$TOMCAT_HOME/bin/digest.sh -a sha secret
and got the result 'secret:e5e9fa1ba31ecd1ae84f75caaa474f3a663f05f4'. I pasted this into the
<user password="e5e9fa1ba31ecd1ae84f75caaa474f3a663f05f4" roles="test" username="tester"/>
line. I added the appropriate magic words to my web.xml to use DIGEST authentication for the servlet (role = test), but when I try logging in, I get a 401 error.
I "watched" the transactions with wireshark, and it seems the browser is sending all of the right responses.
Am I doing this right? It seems to me that the digest authentication will send back MD5("username:realm:password"), so there is no way for tomcat to compare the value stored in the tomcat-users.xml file with the value sent by the browser, since it would require either "unhashing" the password value from tomcat-users.xml or "username:realm:password".
Should I be storing the hash of "username:realm:password" instead?
Boy, that was a DUE (dumb user error)!
I should have read the tomcat docs more carefully:
If using digested passwords with DIGEST authentication, the cleartext used to generate the digest is different. In the examples above {cleartext-password} must be replaced with {username}:{realm}:{cleartext-password}. For example, in a development environment this might take the form testUser:localhost:8080:testPassword.
Exactly the last part of my own question :-).
We have our own web server hosting our website that is open to the public outside of our network.
I have a request to make our "Internal Postings" link on our Careers page to authenticate the user against our network's Active Directory list.
I currently have it setup so the link hits a page inside the directory structure of the website, and this page's folder is set to "Integrated Windows Authentication". Anonymous access is turned off for this page. If the user is authenticated (ie: logged into our network or supplies proper credentials) it passes them on to an external careers website which hosts our job postings. If they fail to authenticate, it displays a custom 401 error page.
This works fine, but there is a problem with it. Using IE, people cannot just enter their username. They (of course) are required to enter the domain name as well. Unfortunately the default 'domain' is set to the URL of our website (www.xyz.com/username). I would like it to automatically choose the name of our internal domain (aaa/username) but am unsure of how to do this.
Another option would be to use LDAP and a little ASP scripting to authenticate the user. I have this code already, but am unsure of the security consequences of doing so. Basically, the page will be setup for anonymous authentication, and if the user isn't logged into our network, they will be prompted for a username/password using standard textboxes. This is then passed to an ASP script that does an LDAP lookup against our Active Directory. Is there any security issues with this method?
Which method would you choose to do?
Thanks.
EDIT: It seems I cannot authenticate to ActiveD via LDAP using a username/password combo. So forget about that option.
My question now is, how can I change the default 'domain' that IWA uses? Is that at all possible? IE seems to default to 'www.xyz.com\username' (my website) rather than 'aaa\username' (my domain name). Of course, www.xyz.com\username fails because that is not where our ActiveD resides... Is this possible? I want to make it as simple as possible for our employees.
You cannot authenticate an user with a script that looks up the user in LDAP. You need to know that the user is who it claims it is, and the only way to do that is to let NTLM/Kerberos authenticate the user (ie. establish proof that the user knows a secret stored in the AD, the password).
The URL of the web site to the set of sites considered be in the local intranet zone for IE browsers running on the internal network. By default sites consider to local intranet will be sent the current logged on users credentials when challanged with NTLM/Kerberos. Hence your internal users shouldn't even see a network logon box.
I hate to dredge up an old thread, but the answers are a bit misleading, if I understand the question. The thread Remus refers to is about authenticating via LDAP with a username only. As he points out, that isn't possible. But it looks like what Kolten has in mind is authenticating via LDAP with a username and password both. That's a standard practice called binding.