PingFederate: OAuth implementation approaches

Hello IAM Learners

It is common to use claims based authentication in recent times for any SSO integrations using OAuth/OpenID connect standards. 

For OAuth implementation in PingFederate, you could create multiple Access Token Manager and map it to adapter if you have multiple HTML adapters in the deployment, otherwise if you just single HTML Adapter used by all OAuth applications then you don't need any of these I am referring to below.

OAuth request coming from Application can be intercepted and processed in PingFederate using two approaches; OAuthSelector or HTTP Header selector. Both of these approaches requires to use Ping authentication policies.

OAuth Client Set Authentication Selector: All OAuth client IDs should be added in this selector as Client.   

HTTP Request Parameter Name: All OAuth client IDs should be added in this selector as parameter values.

There is another selector OAuth Scope Authentication Selector that will be used for OAuth implementations if you have a requirement to trigger the authentication flow based on client scope. 

 

Identifier First Adapter: PingFederate

Hello IAM Experts

Today, I would like to talk about Identifier First Adapter and how it can be addressed for variety of use cases.

Identifier First Adapter is available out-of-the-box in PingFederate 9.3 version and above. This adapter uses HTML template in the back-end which can be customized as per Org needs and it captures the user identifier (could be email or userid) and it uses two attributes Subject and Domain. 

Domain is typically the user email address. Additional attributes can be added to this adapter as needed. 

Some of the use cases:

1. This adapter can be used if the organization has a requirement to display separate branded login page based on email address or user domain.  
2. This adapter can be used if you need to separate the authentication flow or trigger additional security mechanism based on userid or email address. 

HTML template also uses velocity template which can be customized with HTML/JS as per Org needs. 

PingFederate redirect URL after logout

Readers

Logout is a typical requirement in Single Sign-On world. In the interest of today's post, PingFederate can perform SAML single logout or individual adapter logout and I will talk about these topics in detail in separate post.

It is also a common requirement to be able to redirect user to login page post logout. Today, I will explain the PingFederate capabilities to redirect user to different url post SAML logout.

PingFederate SAML logout end-point is https://<>/startSLO.ping, and this URL will perform SAML single logout. 

TargetResource parameter should be appended to logout URL to redirect the user to login page or to land onto different page.

https://<>/idp/startSLO.ping?TargetResource=https://<> 

This TargetResource should be whitelisted as shown below. 

Add the new <> under Security -> Redirect Validation section by specifying the domain name as abc.domain.com and select TargetResource for SLO and Other checkbox. This setting should be added only when ENABLE TARGETRESOURCE VALIDATION check box is enabled for SLO AND OTHER OPTION.


Without whitelisting the redirect URL, you will see below error 

Tomcat "Cannot recover key" SSL error

Tomcat has been enabled with SSL port. While renewing the SSL certificate, Tomcat server is throwing below error.

java.io.IOException: Cannot recover key
        at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.jsse.JSSESocketFactory.init(JSSESocketFactory.java:507)
        at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.jsse.JSSESocketFactory.createSocket(JSSESocketFactory.java:218)
        at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint.bind(JIoEndpoint.java:400)
        at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.AbstractEndpoint.init(AbstractEndpoint.java:650)
        at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol.init(AbstractProtocol.java:434)
        at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11JsseProtocol.init(AbstractHttp11JsseProtocol.java:119)
        at org.apache.catalina.connector.Connector.initInternal(Connector.java:978)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.init(LifecycleBase.java:102)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.initInternal(StandardService.java:559)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.init(LifecycleBase.java:102)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.initInternal(StandardServer.java:821)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.init(LifecycleBase.java:102)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.load(Catalina.java:642)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.load(Catalina.java:667)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)

The error indicates that key can't be recovered using the password specified in server.xml. SSL section in server.xml is as shown below. If you have wallet pfx/p12 file, then you may convert it to java keystore using the same wallet password to use for java keystore password. 

<Connector port="8443" protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol"  maxThreads="100" SSLEnabled="true" scheme="https" secure="true"            keystoreFile="/u01/app.jks" keystorePass="XXXXX"  clientAuth="false" SSLProtocol="TLS" sslEnabledProtocols="TLSv1.2" />

The keystorePass value is different from passphrase used while creating private key/cert. After recreating the java keystore with same password as key and updated server.xml with new password and Tomcat started working fine. 

Azure AD SAML Integration issue with PingFederate : AADSTS75011

Readers, I'm back!

I would like to resume blogging my working experiences and best possible solutions on technologies that I come across every day.

Today, I would like to share some limitation that I came across on Azure AD SAML integration.

Scenario:

A cloud application is integrated with PingFederate where Ping is IDP and app is SP.
PingFederate is delegating authentication to Azure AD; so Ping is SP and Azure AD is IDP.

Issue:
As per the scenario, all three systems Application, PingFederate and Azure AD are configured with SAML integration.

When Application is accessed, it is throwing an error when it is landing on Azure AD for authentication.

Cause:
As per Azure error code AADSTS75011, the problem seems to be Authentication Context parameter sent by the Application in SAML Authentication request as shown below.

<saml:AuthnContextClassRef xmlns:saml="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:assertion">urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport</saml:AuthnContextClassRef>

Refer this article, https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-active-directory/aadsts75011-by-which-the-user-authenticated-with-the-service/m-p/196130#

Azure AD supports only urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:Password as authentication context value in SAML requests. Refer this article, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/develop/single-sign-on-saml-protocol

Fix:
Ensure that application would send AuthnContextClassRef parameter as urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:Password