Re: Is it even possible to retrieve a custom user principal? (Was: Tomcat user principal)

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 11:16:22 -0700 

Mark,
Thanks so much for your help. That is very enlightening, and I'll consider doing the same, depending on whether I get a response about this from my post on the Tomcat dev mailing list. One complication of mine is that I've implemented single-signon, and need that behavior as well. I have a couple of responses (and one important question) below. 

Mark Benussi wrote:


Brad,

From my understanding of j_security_check (Which I used to use) it
integrated seamlessly with JAAS. However:

1) You will not be able to get at the Principal to place in the session if
you let Tomcat do the work. It will still fail in the way it is doing at the
moment i.e. JAAS works but the request.getUserPrincipal() is not your class
and its associated Roles.

 


Ok, this is consistent with the behavior I am seeing. JAAS is working on 
my end, but I can't get at my user principal at all. This seems very 
bizarre to me. It defeats a major purpose of implementing (and then 
being required to specify in the server.xml's realm configuration) a 
custom user principal. More than that, it would be weird to have lack of 
complete support of JAAS, which is *the* authentication/authorization 
API for the Java platform, be a security deal-killer for using Tomcat.



2) The j_security_check is a very basic validation. It doesn't really help
if you want to let them know that the user name was ok but the password was
wrong or that the user_name doesn't exists, which is why I write a custom
call to JAAS via the LoginContext. See

<snip>

 


   if (le instanceof UnknownUserNameException) {
       throw (UnknownUserNameException) le;
   } else if (le instanceof UserPasswordException) {
       throw (UserPasswordException) le;
   } else {
       throw new SystemException(le);
   }

   


</snip>


I am following that you are performing your own authentication as the result of a post from your login form. I also see that you are putting the subject into the session. I presume this is so you can retrieve not only your user principal, but role principals as well for authorization. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't going this route prevent you from using *any* container-managed security? 


Thanks again for your help. If you could answer this one last question, that 
would be great!

Brad


I get a bit scared of making these sweeping statements as there are people
on this list that know infinitely more than me but myself and people like
Wendy Smoak went through this a while back and when I published my thoughts
I didn't get any grumbles.

Hell maybe Apache have reworked this.


-----Original Message-----

From: Brad O'Hearne [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: 18 October 2005 15:31

To: Tomcat Users List
Subject: Re: Is it even possible to retrieve a custom user principal? (Was:
Tomcat user principal)

Mark,


Thanks for the response. In the code below, are you manually calling  
JAAS, rather than via the j_security_check mechanism? The proper way  
to access the authentication mechanism in Tomcat is to post to  
j_security_check from a login form -- I wasn't sure from your post  
below whether you were referring to this or to executing the below  
code within a servlet.



In my case, I'm JAAS is being invoked as a result of posting to  
j_security_check. This is why I'm confused as to the "place the JAAS  
subject in the session" part of it. I could just be missing the boat,  
but I do not see that I have access to the session in my JAAS login  
module. If you know of a way to access the session from within a JAAS  
login module, that is the code I need to see. I should have been more  
clear about this before.


Thanks for your help Mark.

Brad

On Oct 18, 2005, at 1:30 AM, Mark Benussi wrote:


 


Hate publishing my code.

I have a struts form that takes the user name and password.

// Create a new CallbackHandler

JAASCallbackHandler callbackHandler = new JAASCallbackHandler 
("username",

"password");

Subject jaasSubject = null;
LoginContext context = null;
try {
   context = new LoginContext("IBTJAAS", callbackHandler);
   context.login();
   // Retrieve the authenticated subject
   jaasSubject = context.getSubject();
} catch (LoginException le) {
   if (le instanceof UnknownUserNameException) {
       throw (UnknownUserNameException) le;
   } else if (le instanceof UserPasswordException) {
       throw (UserPasswordException) le;
   } else {
       throw new SystemException(le);
   }
}
// Now place the JAAS subject in the session.

-----Original Message-----
From: Brad O'Hearne [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 17 October 2005 23:06
To: Tomcat Users List

Subject: Re: Is it even possible to retrieve a custom user  
principal? (Was:

Tomcat user principal)

Mark,


Thanks a ton for the reply. I almost want to reply with "you're  
kidding,

right?", as I am kind of speechless that using JAAS (which I am), the

Java platform's standard authentication/authorization API, doesn't  
allow

one to use a custom principal. It seems like a major hole in Tomcat

security flexibility. I suppose I'll float on over the developer  
list to

find out more about whether this is a planned change or not, and how
much trouble it would be to add it.

As for your workaround, where can I set the session? My JAAS login
module doesn't have access to the session, I don't believe, which is
where my user principal is created. If I had my principal in the
session, then the default isUserInRole() should work as is, I'll just

retrieve my custom user principal out of the session for other  
custom data.


Mark, where can I add my user principal to the session?

Brad

Mark Benussi wrote:



   


If you're implementing JAAS... no. No idea about the rest. Its not


     


supported


   


in Tomcat (But should be). Stick it in the session, and then you  
have to

override the Tomcat HttpRequestProcessor (isUserInRole()) to get your
Principal out of the session and call the validation.

-----Original Message-----
From: Brad O'Hearne [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 17 October 2005 22:25
To: Brad O'Hearne
Cc: Tomcat Users List

Subject: Is it even possible to retrieve a custom user principal?  
(Was:

Tomcat user principal)

Hello,

As this has become a bit of a roadblock in implementing security, I'd
like to ask anyone out there two things:


1) Is it even possible to use a custom user princpal within a  
realm that

is retrievable within a servlet (via presumably the request or
otherwise) in Tomcat?

2) If the answer to #1 is yes, how is this done? Does anyone have a
working code snippet that demonstrates this?


Thanks, I'm about to head to the developer list to ask this  
question, as

its pretty crucial for our security implementation.

Brad

Brad O'Hearne wrote:





     


Response below:

Wendy Smoak wrote:





       


From: "Brad O'Hearne" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>





         


I would have expected that designation of the user class name  
would

have resulted in my being returned the class I specified for the

user class name from the requestion.getUserPrincpal() method,  
but it

doesn't.




           


What version of Tomcat are you using?  As far as I know, it  
works the

way you want on 5.0.28.  I remember trying it with and without the
class name, and writing that comment to remind myself.

Could this be it?
http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=37044





         


I am using 5.0.28, and I'm not seeing the expected behavior.
Hmmm.....was there anything else that has to be done to be able to
access your own custom user principal?

Brad





       


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