topic Using an external sso system for authentication in Nuxeo Forum

Using an external sso system for authentication

dlovat_ — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:46:30 GMT

I am brand new to Nuxeo. I would like to authenticate users logging onto Nuxeo identified by a username and password against an external SSO system accessed via our existing web service.

I have read much Nuxeo documentation and am pretty confused as to the steps required.

I thought that the first step would be to create and register my own LoginPlugin and register it in the LoginPluginRegistry. This did not work, as my java class (myLoginPlugin) fails to load (null pointer exception). But even if it did load, I'm not sure about how next to proceed.

I am also examining the PluggableAuthenticationService as a possible extension point.

Can someone provide a step-by-step list of extension points and components that I will have to configure/provide to make this work? I've studied a lot of documentation and am pretty confused. Perhaps there is a sample or a tutorial that does this?

Thank you

Re: Using an external sso system for authentication

Laurent_Doguin — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:51:05 GMT

Hi,

Have you looked at the different login plugins that already exists? Maybe you'll find one that suits you. If not, most of them also have a sample folder.

Re: Using an external sso system for authentication

Benjamin_Jalon1 — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 12:41:28 GMT

You can find all the documentation here.

So here are steps:

create you nuxeo plugin project (from IDE, it's easy)
create a new component to contribute your LoginPlugin (if the user identity validation is not default one - see the documentation above)
create a new component to contribute your authenticator (and refer your loginModule if required)
implement your authenticator class
Create your authentication chain
There is also the user management configuration. If you are using other thing that LDAP or SQL repository, you will have to define your user manager.

If you use a LDAP or a SQL table for user management, you will just have to:

declare directories. See this documentation.
and bind this directory into the default user management.

Re: Using an external sso system for authentication

Benjamin_Jalon1 — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:22:44 GMT

I add also a documentation about the User Manager, [here][1].

Re: Using an external sso system for authentication

dlovat_ — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:16:40 GMT

Thanks for providing the steps. Very useful. I have created both a NuxeoAuthenticationPlugin, and a LoginPlugin. Initially my Authenticator was not loading, but that was caused by some improper XML. I have fixed that, but now when presenting the login page, I get a NullPointerException from the NuxeoAuthenticationFilter class as follows...

Re: Using an external sso system for authentication

patrek — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:04:14 GMT

We use a similar configuration, with mod_proxy_sso, here is our config file. You'll notice 3 extensions. For Nuxeo 5.5. Hope this helps you figure it out.

    <component name="local.mod_sso">
	<require>org.nuxeo.ecm.platform.ui.web.auth.defaultConfig</require>
	<require>org.nuxeo.ecm.platform.ui.web.auth.WebEngineConfig</require>
	<require>org.nuxeo.ecm.automation.server.auth.config</require>
	<require>org.nuxeo.ecm.platform.login.Proxy</require>
	<extension
		target="org.nuxeo.ecm.platform.ui.web.auth.service.PluggableAuthenticationService"
		point="authenticators">
		<authenticationPlugin name="PROXY_AUTH">
			<loginModulePlugin>Trusting_LM</loginModulePlugin>
			<parameters>
				<parameter name="ssoHeaderName">REMOTE_USER</parameter>
			</parameters>
		</authenticationPlugin>
	</extension>
	<!-- Override Proxy Auth into authentication chain -->
	<extension
		target="org.nuxeo.ecm.platform.ui.web.auth.service.PluggableAuthenticationService"
		point="chain">
		<authenticationChain>
			<!-- Keep basic Auth at top of Auth chain to support RSS access via BasicAuth -->
			<plugins>
				<plugin>BASIC_AUTH</plugin>
				<plugin>FORM_AUTH</plugin>
				<plugin>WEBENGINE_FORM_AUTH</plugin>
				<plugin>ANONYMOUS_AUTH</plugin>
				<plugin>WEBSERVICES_AUTH</plugin>
				<plugin>PROXY_AUTH</plugin>
			</plugins>
		</authenticationChain>
	</extension>
	<extension
		target="org.nuxeo.ecm.platform.ui.web.auth.service.PluggableAuthenticationService"
		point="specificChains">
		<specificAuthenticationChain name="Automation">
			<urlPatterns>
				<url>(.*)/automation.*</url>
			</urlPatterns>
			<replacementChain>
				<plugin>AUTOMATION_BASIC_AUTH</plugin>
				<plugin>ANONYMOUS_AUTH</plugin>
				<plugin>PROXY_AUTH</plugin>
			</replacementChain>
		</specificAuthenticationChain>
	</extension>
</component>

Re: Using an external sso system for authentication

Benjamin_Jalon1 — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:38:26 GMT

Mmmh, the specificChains is used to enable a specific chain on a pattern of URL. I'm not sure this his need.

Re: Using an external sso system for authentication

patrek — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:02:31 GMT

Did not say I was sure either

Re: Using an external sso system for authentication

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:17:43 GMT

Hi Benjamin, I work with DLovat who posted this question.

In the document, http://doc.nuxeo.com/display/NXDOC/Authentication it mentions the following: "Additional Authentication Plugins Nuxeo provides a set of other authentication plugins that are not installed by default with the standard Nuxeo EP setup. These plugins can be downloaded and installed separately."

Could you please provide me some links where I can download these additional plugins? I would like to get their code so that I can step through them and understand how they work.

Re: Using an external sso system for authentication

patrek — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 01:35:48 GMT

Lots of it is available at https

Re: Using an external sso system for authentication

Benjamin_Jalon1 — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 12:15:39 GMT

First you don't need to have the implementation item as you don't register a new service. You only contribute to 2 extensions points. You can look what I mean by create a service, [here][1]. Read with attention the "Contribute to an Extension Point" section, if you want to understand, that.

Re: Using an external sso system for authentication

Benjamin_Jalon1 — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 06:57:26 GMT

I just wanted to not loose him with another notion that was not related with his problem.

Re: Using an external sso system for authentication

Benjamin_Jalon1 — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:52:08 GMT

What is the value of the plugin name? did you fetch it into the init method ?

Re: Using an external sso system for authentication

Manon_Lumeau — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 14:11:50 GMT

Hi,

All the documentation links mentioned above were archived and are no longer accessible. Equivalent links to the latest Nuxeo Platform version are:

You can use the toggle version to browse to previous versions or browse the PDF of archived versions.

Thanks,

Manon