Alfresco SHARE NTLM + SSO is not working for 3.2r2

[iseyfi]

I recently downloaded the most recent version of Alfresco. I set it up with passthru and ldap. I then enabled ntml sso. Alfresco browser is correctly working. It authenticates users with out a problem. However Alfresco share is throwing the following exception every time I visit it.

java.lang.NullPointerException
   org.alfresco.web.framework.RemoteStoreModelObjectPersister.getCache(RemoteStoreModelObjectPersister.java:107)
   org.alfresco.web.framework.StoreModelObjectPersister.cacheGet(StoreModelObjectPersister.java:532)
   org.alfresco.web.framework.StoreModelObjectPersister.getObjectByPath(StoreModelObjectPersister.java:127)
   org.alfresco.web.framework.StoreModelObjectPersister.getObject(StoreModelObjectPersister.java:108)
   org.alfresco.web.framework.MultiModelObjectPersister.getObject(MultiModelObjectPersister.java:106)
   org.alfresco.web.framework.ModelObjectManager.getObject(ModelObjectManager.java:136)
   org.alfresco.web.site.Model.getObject(Model.java:513)
   org.alfresco.web.site.Model.getPage(Model.java:165)
   org.alfresco.web.site.SlingshotPageMapper.executeMapper(SlingshotPageMapper.java:188)
   org.alfresco.web.site.AbstractPageMapper.execute(AbstractPageMapper.java:62)
   org.alfresco.web.site.DefaultRequestContextFactory.newInstance(DefaultRequestContextFactory.java:109)
   org.alfresco.web.site.FrameworkHelper.initRequestContext(FrameworkHelper.java:202)
   org.alfresco.web.site.servlet.NTLMAuthenticationFilter.doFilter(NTLMAuthenticationFilter.java:147)


I followed the wiki to set this up. All I did was to uncomment the filter in web.xml and edit the \tomcat\shared\classes\alfresco\web-extension\webscript-framework-config-custom.xml as stated in the wiki.

I do not see any error when the share application is deployed.

I have been searching the forums and found out that https://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/ALFCOM-2579. There was a similar issue opened while back which is now closed. I am trying to figure out if Share 3.2r2 is suffering from the same issue. I tried to locate the RemoteStoreModelObjectPersister.java file in the public SVN repo but I could not. I cannot find a project called web-framework under projects directory.

thanks in advance.

[mikeh]

I don't have the answer to NTLM + SSO, but I can say that there's no way 3.2r2 config will work on 3.3dev (current SVN HEAD) due to the huge changes involved in moving the web script and web framework projects to Spring - that's the cause of the "class not found" exception a couple of posts up.

Mike

[slagou]

Update, I actually got this to work by using version 3.2.

Unfortunately Share is completely broken in this version, any site created cannot be loaded by another user, or the creator once the user had logged out or the server restarted.

This is a real shame that the current release basically cannot work with an Active Directory Server.  I have setup a 3.2r2 system without any AD authentication for my client to evaluate, but now we both have a real lack of confidence in the software, and its community support.  It is very likely that we will be moving to a sharepoint system as a result of these problems.

EDIT:  Fixed version typo

[xana_cloete]

Hi

Will there be any problems with this in the Enterprise edition.
I am willing to purchase the enterprise edition but only if this would work.
I have decided to download it anyway. I wil give it a try. Some of the features in the EE are realy appealing.

The only reason I realy need a system like alfresco is to give my users a way to create work spaces in Office and OpenOffice.
The Share feature is also realy great and will work well in our enviroment.

Thanks.

[mikeh]

Update, I actually got this to work by using version 2.3.

Unfortunately Share is completely broken in this version, any site created cannot be loaded by another user, or the creator once the user had logged out or the server restarted.

This is a real shame that the current release basically cannot work with an Active Directory Server.  I have setup a 3.2r2 system without any AD authentication for my client to evaluate, but now we both have a real lack of confidence in the software, and its community support.  It is very likely that we will be moving to a sharepoint system as a result of these problems.

Version 2.3?

Mike

[slagou]

Version 2.3?

Mike

Sorry Typo.. I meant version 3.2

[jforde]

Hi, I'm new to Alfresco as well and am having the exact same problem.

Dward,
Can you give detailed instructions on how to correctly patch this issue? It is holding up further testing of Alfresco at my firm.
Thanks!

[dangruhn]

I don't have the answer to NTLM + SSO, but I can say that there's no way 3.2r2 config will work on 3.3dev (current SVN HEAD) due to the huge changes involved in moving the web script and web framework projects to Spring - that's the cause of the "class not found" exception a couple of posts up.

Okay, I can understand that.  The question then becomes where are the files that 3.3dev is looking for?  In particular:

webscript-framework-application-context.xml
web-framework-application-context.xml
web-framework-model-context.xml

I'm not much on Java, but I did download the current SVN HEAD.  I don't see how to extract these files from what I now have locally.

[kevinr]

Hi

Will there be any problems with this in the Enterprise edition.
I am willing to purchase the enterprise edition but only if this would work.
I have decided to download it anyway. I wil give it a try. Some of the features in the EE are realy appealing.

The only reason I realy need a system like alfresco is to give my users a way to create work spaces in Office and OpenOffice.
The Share feature is also realy great and will work well in our enviroment.

Thanks.

Features such as NTLM, LDAP etc. are fully tested and certified on various stacks for all Enterprise editions - sometimes bugs like this one do sneak into the Community editions, but that is to be expected as less testing is done before the community releases, after all, testing costs money.

As this user noted:

Hi DanGruhn.

No, the fix is not in 3.2r2. The build number for 3.2r2 is 17458. The build numbers can be found in the release notes for each release. You can get the fix a couple of different ways. One would be to grab a nightly build from http://dev.alfresco.com/downloads/nightly/dist/ or grab the code from the svn repository and build yourself. Or lastly, wait for 3.3. All depends on your comfort and skill levels.

Ben

So unfortunately there was a problem with NTLM + Share in 3.2r2. This can be fixed, either by pulling the latest version from SVN (it is currently working fine in latest 3.3 - I have tested it myself). I will look at providing a simple patch file for 3.2r2 today.

Thanks,

Kev

[dward]

I have cloned this issue to a community JIRA to make sure it gets proper attention from QA

https://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/ALFCOM-3801

I have attached a patch with the 3.2r2 fix to the bug.

Have you tried just checking out and building revision 17464 from SVN?

[kevinr]

I have made the patched .class file for 3.2r2 as a download available on the JIRA item: https://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/ALFCOM-3801

Download the zip, unpack it - with the folder structure - to:
$TOMCAT_HOME$/shared/classes

obviously ensure to place it under the Share tomcat instance if you are using a separate web-tier tomcat. This will fix the bug in 3.2r2 - you will still need to follow the wiki instructions as usual. I have tested this, if you follow the instructions for setting up NTLM correctly then it works.

Cheers,

Kev