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

[Bill Burke]

I don't think the SAML token includes role information.  Also, I don't 
believe the Picketlink SAML stuff is integrated with the app server, 
correct?  meaning you can't get integrated Java EE security.

On 6/27/2013 11:15 AM, Anil Saldhana wrote:
> 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
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-- 
Bill Burke
JBoss, a division of Red Hat
http://bill.burkecentral.com