D4Science Portal HTTPS x509 Certificate Authentication

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How to configure Apache HTTP server and Apache Tomcat to handle X.509 certificates (full HTTPS)

The following setup shows how to configure Apache HTTP server in HTTPS so that X.509 client credentials can be forwarded to an internal Apache Tomcat instance.

Apache HTTP server

Two VirtualHost should be configured. The first one to handle HTTP requests on standard port 80, and redirect all of them to port 443 (HTTPS). 

<VirtualHost *:80>
	ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
	ServerName myportal.mydomain.com
	
	DocumentRoot /var/www/
	
	ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
	CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined


        ProxyPreserveHost on
        RewriteEngine on

        Redirect permanent / https://myportal.mydomain.com/
</VirtualHost>

The second virtual host is meant to handle HTTPS requests, asking clients to optionally authenticate with an X.509 certificates. 

<VirtualHost *:443>
	ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
	ServerName myportal.mydomain.com
	
	DocumentRoot /var/www/
	<Directory />
		Options FollowSymLinks
		AllowOverride None
	</Directory>
	<Directory /var/www/>
		Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
		AllowOverride None
		Order allow,deny
		allow from all
	</Directory>

	ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
	<Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
		AllowOverride None
		Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
		Order allow,deny
		Allow from all
	</Directory>

	ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log

	# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
	# alert, emerg.
	LogLevel warn

	CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
	ServerSignature On

    Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
    <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
        Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Order deny,allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
    </Directory>

    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile    /etc/apache2/ssl/containercert.pem
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/containerkey.pem

    SSLProxyEngine on

    SSLCACertificatePath /etc/grid-security/certificates/
    SSLVerifyClient optional
    SSLVerifyDepth 2

# this option is mandatory to force apache to forward the client cert data to tomcat
    SSLOptions +ExportCertData

    <Proxy *>
       AddDefaultCharset Off
       Order deny,allow
       Allow from all
    </Proxy>
 
    ProxyPass / ajp://localhost:8020/
    ProxyPassReverse / ajp://localhost:8020/

</VirtualHost>

The connection between Apache HTTP Server and Apache Tomcat is done via an AJP connector and Reverse Proxy directive. This means that the following modules need to be installed and loaded into Apache HTTP Server: 

* proxy
* proxy_http
* proxy_ajp

to install a new module into apache2 use the following command: 

a2enmod <module_name>

Apache Tomcat

An AJP connector needs to be declared in order to enable communication between Apache HTTP Server and Apache Tomcat, with a redirect to port 8443 to handle the HTTPS connection inside Tomcat. 

    <!-- Define an AJP 1.3 Connector on port 8020 -->
    <Connector port="8020" 
               enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443" protocol="AJP/1.3" URIEncoding="UTF-8" />

Eventually, a Connector needs to declared for port 8443 to handle the HTTPS connection in Tomcat. 

    <Connector port="8443" maxHttpHeaderSize="8192"
               maxThreads="150" minSpareThreads="25" maxSpareThreads="75"
               enableLookups="false" disableUploadTimeout="true"
               acceptCount="100" scheme="https" secure="true"
               clientAuth="want" sslProtocol="TLS" emptySessionPath="true" />

How to configure Apache HTTP server and Apache Tomcat to handle X.509 certificates (HTTPS only for login)

Apache HTTP server

NameVirtualHost *:80
NameVirtualHost *:443

<VirtualHost *:80>
	ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
	ServerName myportal.mydomain.com
	
	DocumentRoot /var/www/
	
	ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
	CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined


        ProxyPreserveHost on
	
	<Location />
            Allow From All
            ProxyPass http://myportal.mydomain.com:9090/
            ProxyPassReverse http://myportal.mydomain.com:9090/
        </Location>

        RewriteEngine on

	#forces everything under /web/guest/signup to secure if non-secure (https)
	RewriteRule ^(/web/guest.*)$ https://myportal.mydomain.com$1 [R,L]
	
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>
	ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
	ServerName myportal.mydomain.com
	
	DocumentRoot /var/www/
	<Directory />
		Options FollowSymLinks
		AllowOverride None
	</Directory>
	<Directory /var/www/>
		Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
		AllowOverride None
		Order allow,deny
		allow from all
	</Directory>

	ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
	<Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
		AllowOverride None
		Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
		Order allow,deny
		Allow from all
	</Directory>

	ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log

# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
	LogLevel warn

	CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
	ServerSignature On

    Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
    <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
        Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Order deny,allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
    </Directory>

    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile    /etc/apache2/ssl/containercert.pem
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/containerkey.pem

    SSLProxyEngine on

    SSLCACertificatePath /etc/grid-security/certificates/
    SSLVerifyClient optional
    SSLVerifyDepth 2

# this option is mandatory to force apache to forward the client cert data to tomcat
    SSLOptions +ExportCertData

   RewriteEngine on

   #forces everything not under /web/guest/signup to non-secure if secure (http)
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(web/guest.*)$
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(web/guest/change-of-details.*)$
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(c/portal/login.*)$
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(c/.*)$
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(html/.*)$
   RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%{SERVER_NAME}$1 [R,L]
 
    <Proxy *>
       AddDefaultCharset Off
       Order deny,allow
       Allow from all
    </Proxy>
 
    ProxyPass / ajp://myportal.mydomain.com:8020/
    ProxyPassReverse / ajp://myportal.mydomain.com:8020/

</VirtualHost>

Apache Tomcat

Refer to the configuration described in the full HTTPS section

Liferay Portal Properties

Make sure that the following lines are appended to the portal-ext.properties file 

company.security.auth.requires.https=true
session.enable.phishing.protection=false

D4Science Portal HTTPS x509 Certificate Authentication

This is a custom Auto login hook that provides customised authentication for X509 certificate users.
Set the dev/deploy environment

  1. Unzip the file [1] onto your "plugin-sdk/hooks" folder.
  2. Copy the AutoLoginCustom.java(please find below) source to the src folder
  3. Add the following line to portal.properties file which is present in the /skeleton-hook/docroot/WEB-INF/src/ folder :
    auto.login.hooks=com.liferay.portal.security.auth.BasicAuthHeaderAutoLogin,com.liferay.portal.security.auth.AutoLoginCustom
  4. Edit the plugins-sdk/build.properties so that app.server.dir=/path/to/your/liferay/tomcat
  5. Run "ant war" - The war file will be created in the plugins-sdk/dist folder.
  6. Copy the war file to Liferay_home/deploy
  7. Copy portal-impl.jar in webapps/skeleton-hook/WEB-INF/lib/ (if not already there)
  8. Restart liferay instance

Auto Login hook is now ready to be tested and used.

Configuration needed at liferay Web UI:

  1. Create a custom attribute for users with key "dn" and type java.lang.String
  2. Make sure that in the Custom Attribute Permissions, Guest has View permission checked
  3. The X509 User should have the custom attribute "dn" configured to the X509 certificate DN


The code for AutoLoginCustom.java:

package com.liferay.portal.security.auth;

import com.liferay.portal.SystemException;
import com.liferay.portal.model.User;
import com.liferay.portal.service.UserLocalServiceUtil;

import java.io.Serializable;
import java.security.cert.X509Certificate;

import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.List;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;


public class AutoLoginCustom implements AutoLogin{


	private static Log logger = LogFactory.getLog(AutoLoginCustom.class);

	public String[] login(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp)
	throws AutoLoginException {
		// TODO Auto-generated method stub
		List<User> users = null;
		User loginUser = null;
		long userId = 0;
		String userDN;
		String userDNreverse;
		String[] credentials = new String[3];;
		String requestDN = this.getUserDN(req);
		if (requestDN != null){
			try {

				users = UserLocalServiceUtil.getUsers(0, UserLocalServiceUtil.getUsersCount());
			} catch (SystemException e) {
				// TODO Auto-generated catch block
				e.printStackTrace();
			}
			Iterator<User> userIter = users.iterator();

			while (userIter.hasNext()){
				credentials = new String[3];
				User user = (User)userIter.next();
				if(user.getExpandoBridge().hasAttribute("dn")){
					Serializable dn = user.getExpandoBridge().getAttribute("dn");
					if(dn!=null){
						if(dn.toString().length()!=0){
							// check the slash format for dn
							userDN = dn.toString();
							if(userDN.contains("/")){
								userDN = userDN.substring(1);
							}
							userDN = userDN.replaceAll("/", ",");

							userDNreverse="";
							String[] dnParts = userDN.split(",");

							int dnPartsNo = dnParts.length;
							while(dnPartsNo>0){
								dnPartsNo--;
								userDNreverse += dnParts[dnPartsNo];
								if(dnPartsNo!=0){
									userDNreverse += ",";
								}

							}
							if (userDN.equals(requestDN) || userDNreverse.equals(requestDN)){
								loginUser = user;
								logger.info("X509 certificate user logs in: " + loginUser.getFirstName());
								System.out.println("X509 certificate user logs in: " + loginUser.getFirstName());
								break;
							}
						}
					}
				}

			}

		}

		if (loginUser!=null){
			userId = loginUser.getUserId();
			credentials[0]=String.valueOf(userId);
			credentials[1] = loginUser.getPassword();
			credentials[2] = Boolean.FALSE.toString();
			loginUser=null;
		}

		return credentials;
	}
	private X509Certificate[] getCerts(HttpServletRequest req) {
		return (X509Certificate[]) req.getAttribute("javax.servlet.request.X509Certificate");
	}

	private String getUserDN(HttpServletRequest req) {
		X509Certificate certs[] = this.getCerts(req);
		if (certs != null && certs.length > 0) {
			String DN = certs[0].getSubjectDN().getName();
			String parsedDN = DN.replace(", ", ",");
			return parsedDN;
		}
		else {
			return null;
		}
	}
}


Reference

  1. http://www.liferay.com/community/wiki/-/wiki/Main/Hook+Plugin+Template
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