Product Knowledge Base

Space shortcuts

Page tree

You are viewing an old version of this page. View the current version.

Compare with Current View Page History

« Previous Version 13 Next »

Introduction

LDAP authentication for the JOC Cockpit relies on a connection between the the JOC Cockpit web services and the LDAP server. It is desirable that this connection is secured as it would otherwise be vulnerable to, for example, man-in-the-middle attacks.

The web services - LDAP server connection can be secured using two commonly available protocols "LDAP over TLS" (STARTTLS) and "LDAP over SSL" (LDAPS).

Connection Content Encryption with StartTLS

StartTLS in an extension to the LDAP protocol which uses the TLS protocol to encrypt communication. It works by establishing a normal - i.e. unsecured - connection with the LDAP server before a handshake negotiation between the server and the web services is carried out. Here, the server sends its certificate to prove its identity before the secure connection is established. If negotiation for a secure connection is unsuccessful then a standard LDAP connection may be opened. Whether or not this occurs depends on the LDAP server and its configuration.

Connection Encryption with LDAPS

LDAPS is the non-standardized "LDAP over SSL" protocol that in contrast with StartTLS only allows communication over a secure port such as 636. It establishes the secure connection before there is any communication with the LDAP server. However, as LDAPS is not part of the LDAP standard, there is no guarantee that LDAPS client libraries actually verify the host name against the name provided in the security certificate. See here for more information.

Scope

  • The current article describes the configuration of StartTLS for use with the JOC Cockpit web services and Web Service Truststore, as well as providing a code example for calling LDAPS from the shiro.ini file. Users wishing to configure their server to use LDAPS should refer their LDAP server administrator.

Configuration for LDAP over TLS

  • The Java Keytools is installed with your Java JRE.
  • Your LDAP server is configured to use STARTTLS.

  • When using starttls your LDAP realm configuration in the shiro.ini configuration file should contain ldapRealm.useStartTls=true as shown in the following code example

    ldapRealm = com.sos.auth.shiro.SOSLdapAuthorizingRealm
ldapRealm.contextFactory.url = ldap://myHost:389 
ldapRealm.useStartTls=true
 
securityManager.realms = $ldapRealm

Set up a secure connection to your LDAP Server 

In the following the placeholders JOC_HOME, JETTY_HOME and JETTY_BASE are used which locate three directories. If you install Jetty with the JOC installer then

  • JOC_HOME is the installation path which is specified during the JOC Cockpit installation:
    • C:\Program Files\sos-berlin.com\joc (default on Windows)
    • /opt/sos-berlin.com/joc (default on Linux)
  • JETTY_HOME = JOC_HOME/jetty
  • JETTY_BASE is Jetty's base directory which is specified during the JOC Cockpit installation:
    • C:\ProgramData\sos-berlin.com\joc (default on Windows)
    • /home/<setup-user>/sos-berlin.com/joc (default on Linux)

Create a JOC Cockpit Web Service Truststore and import your certificate to the Truststore

The following steps are performed on the server that hosts the JOC Cockpit.

You can use the Java Keystore that will be created with the private key for the HTTPS support in Jetty.  Note that you will probably have to create the JETTY_BASE/etc directory.

    • Example

      Sample for import master certificate
      keytool -importcert -noprompt -file "my_LDAP_Certificate.pem" -alias "my_alias" -keystore "JETTY_BASE/etc/joc.jks" -storepass secret_store -trustcacerts
  • The -keystore option specifies the location of your Truststore file.
  • The -storepass option specifies the password for access to your Truststore file.
  • The file my_LDAP_Certificate.pem has been created on the LDAP server. Transfer this file to the local machine.

    • certutil -S -n "SOS_LDAP" -s "cn=myCn" -c "SOS_LDAP CA certificate" -t "u,u,u" -m 1001 -v 120 -d . -k rsa

    • certutil -L -d . -n "SOS_LDAP CA certificate" -a > my_LDAP_Certificate.pem

Configure Jetty

  • Edit the following entries in the JETTY_BASE/resources/joc/joc.properties configuration file corresponding to the Java Keystore:

    truststore_path = ../../etc/joc.jks


    Explanations

    • Specify the location of the Truststore with the truststore_path setting. A location relative to the JETTY_BASE directory can be specified.

Configuration for LDAP over SSL

The LDAP server must be configured to use SSL.

In the shiro.ini configuration file the LDAPS URL must be fully qualified as shown in the following example.

ldapRealm = com.sos.auth.shiro.SOSLdapAuthorizingRealm
ldapRealm.contextFactory.url = ldaps://ldap.myHost.com:636

contextFactory.environment[java.naming.security.protocol] = ssl
 
securityManager.realms = $ldapRealm

.

  • No labels