[security-dev] PicketLink Usecase: SAML/GWT/REST Authentication

[Anil Saldhana]

Eric,  semantics is close to the SAML OAuth2 Bearer Token Profile.
http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-oauth-saml2-bearer-16.txt

Maybe in the future there may be opportunities to replace SAML SSO in GWT UI
by lightweight JSON based SSO probably involving JSON Web Token (JWT).

On 06/27/2013 06:59 AM, Eric Wittmann wrote:
> Right - I think OAuth2 is likely the proper way to go about solving
> this.  The only reason I didn't go down that road was that I wanted to
> align with the version of picketlink included in EAP.  In a future
> version of Overlord (next product cycle) I'm guessing we'll switch from
> SAML to OAuth2.  Assuming the proper functionality is available out of
> the box in whatever version of EAP is available at that time.
>
> -Eric
>
> On 06/26/2013 04:42 PM, Bill Burke wrote:
>> Resteasy has already implemented something like this, but not SAML based:
>>
>> http://docs.jboss.org/resteasy/docs/3.0.1.Final/userguide/html/oauth2.html
>>
>> On 6/26/2013 2:45 PM, Eric Wittmann wrote:
>>> Everyone,
>>>
>>> I'll just add a few more details to (hopefully) help add context.
>>>
>>> We have multiple UI applications in the Overlord world, and we wanted
>>> them all to be secured using SSO.  PicketLink/SAML worked very well to
>>> accomplish this, and it was trivial to get all of the UI WARs protected.
>>>
>>> Once the GWT apps themselves are protected, the browser can make RPC
>>> calls to the originating context for free, and the servlets being
>>> invoked will have a JAAS authenticated user.
>>>
>>> The last piece is then making REST calls to some *other* web context on
>>> behalf of the JAAS user.  The REST services might be hosted in some
>>> other context on the same server or even on some other server.
>>>
>>> So the approach is to issue a SAML token that contains the principal and
>>> all its roles, then pass that in an HTTP header when invoking the remote
>>> REST services.  The REST services are protected by two login modules - a
>>> standard BASIC auth login module and another one that can consume a SAML
>>> token.
>>>
>>> There is a vital piece still missing, which is to actually sign the SAML
>>> token when sending, and verifying the signature when consuming.  If
>>> anyone would like to help with that it'd be super helpful!  :)
>>>
>>> Lastly - I'm certainly not a security expert, and am happy to be shown a
>>> better way to solve this use case going forward (note: we needed to use
>>> the version of picketlink that comes with EAP 6.1 - fwiw).
>>>
>>> -Eric
>>>
>>>
>>> On 06/26/2013 02:18 PM, Anil Saldhana wrote:
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>        this is a use case solved by Eric Wittman of Project Overlord using
>>>> PicketLink.
>>>>
>>>> Final Solution in Eric's words:
>>>> Use-case is:  GWT UI app is protected by SAML SSO.  The UI makes GWT RPC
>>>> calls back to itself.  The UI RPC servlets (server-side) then make REST
>>>> calls to a set of REST services hosted in another web application, using
>>>> SAML tokens for authentication.
>>>>
>>>> JIRA: https://issues.jboss.org/browse/DTGOV-11
>>>>
>>>> Background:
>>>> Eric had gotten his GWT UI App to use SAML SSO using PicketLink. He was
>>>> looking for ways to now make calls from the GWT app to REST services on
>>>> RESTEasy without re-authentication.He needed to get this usecase working
>>>> with PicketLink and RESTEasy bundled in EAP6. During discussions and
>>>> future plan, it was decided to use OAuth for REST services and look at
>>>> SAML Bearer Token Profile for guidance.
>>>>
>>>> Solution:
>>>> Since RESTEasy authentication can use JAAS authentication,  Eric wrote a
>>>> login module for SAML bearer tokens.
>>>> https://github.com/Governance/overlord-commons/blob/master/overlord-commons-auth/src/main/java/org/overlord/commons/auth/jboss7/SAMLBearerTokenLoginModule.java
>>>>
>>>> I created a JIRA issue in PicketLink to migrate this login module:
>>>> https://issues.jboss.org/browse/PLINK-165
>>>>
>>>> This login module will be available in PicketLink v2.5.0
>>>> https://github.com/anilsaldhana/picketlink-bindings/blob/0808a9916093af6095430447e6899172fe19e86a/picketlink-jbas-common/src/main/java/org/picketlink/trust/jbossws/jaas/SAMLBearerTokenLoginModule.java
>>>>
>>>> I wanted to open a thread for discussion on this. I am unsure if other
>>>> projects have similar needs but this use case is pretty awesome to share
>>>> here.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Anil