authenticationjakarta-eewebsphere-libertyf5

Websphere Liberty authentication with iv-user from F5


Actual situation:

I have a Liberty Server where my JEE - Application is running. If you enter the application liberty runs a Login Form where you can enter your userid and password, which will be checked by Ldap-Registry and eventually you´ll be authenticated and liberty create a Session with your credentials. Now you can see the App and the app can use the SessionContext and knows - who you are...

As my company now has changed its security philosophy, we gotta use a F5 APM. So far: on entering the Application you´ll be redirected to the F5 APM which will redirect to a IDP where you can login. Afterwards its redirecting back to the App with an IV-User in Http-Header. Good news is, i can still use the Lioberty Formlogin from here - but this is kinda stupid, cause you gotta login twice...

Now my Question is, how can i use this IV-User to create the UserSession with liberty or maybe to check against the LdapRegistry?


Solution

  • If you dont want to query registry you need to create full subject. So instead of this:

    return TAIResult.create(HttpServletResponse.SC_OK, userid);
    

    you need to do this in your TAI:

    // stash in hashtable
    Hashtable hashtable = new Hashtable();
    hashtable.put(AttributeNameConstants.WSCREDENTIAL_UNIQUEID,uniqueid);
    hashtable.put(AttributeNameConstants.WSCREDENTIAL_SECURITYNAME,userid);
    hashtable.put(AttributeNameConstants.WSCREDENTIAL_GROUPS, groupList); 
    hashtable.put(AttributeNameConstants.WSCREDENTIAL_CACHE_KEY, "myCustomAttribute" + uniqueid);    
    Subject subject = new Subject();
    subject. getPublicCredentials().add(hashtable);
    return TAIResult.create(HTTPServletResponse.SC_OK, "userid", subject);
    

    For more information check these pages:

    Successful authentication should create LTPA cookie and not require additional authentications, so if you dont see such behavior something is still misconfigured.

    I did a very quick look at the F5 APM and it looks like it supports OIDC so you should at least also consider that option.