RemoteUserInternalAuthnConfiguration

Current File(s): conf/authn/remoteuser-internal-authn-config.xml, conf/authn/authn.properties (V4.1+)
Format: Native Spring, Properties (V4.1+)

1 Overview
2 Enabling Module (V4.1+)
3 General Configuration
4 Reference

Overview

The authn/RemoteUserInternal login flow relies on whatever container-based mechanism you have available (HTTP BASIC auth, LDAP, Kerberos, other SSO systems, etc.). It is particularly friendly to non-browser profiles such as ECP. By default, this flow is configured without support for advanced authentication controls like passive or forced authentication.

The difference between this flow and the RemoteUser flow is that this flow doesn't redirect to a protected path; rather, the path of the requested profile flow has to be protected, which will trigger as soon as the client makes its first request. This is primarily suited to the use of basic-authentication and non-browser clients, though of course this will depend on the exact mechanism involved. Using a second SSO mechanism is likely to be incompatible with non-browser clients.

The main disadvantage of using this flow for browser use cases is that it will perform the request for authentication without having a chance to determine if the request will succeed, which may be undesirable from a usability perspective.

Enabling Module (V4.1+)

For V4.1+, configuring and using this feature requires that you first enable the "RemoteUserInternal" module if it isn't already enabled. Systems upgraded from older releases generally come pre-enabled due to the prior state of the configuration tree.

(Windows)
C:\opt\shibboleth-idp> bin\module.bat -t RemoteUserInternal || bin\module.bat -e RemoteUserInternal
 
(Other)
$ bin/module.sh -t RemoteUserInternal || bin/module.sh -e RemoteUserInternal

General Configuration

Use authn/remoteuser-internal-authn-config.xml to configure this flow. Various beans are defined to control how the user identity is extracted from the HTTP request, various transforms to perform on the resulting name prior to final evaluation, and rules for evaluating the name, such as allow/deny lists, or a matching expression. Simple echoing of the extracted REMOTE_USER value requires no changes. See the reference below for a complete list.

Simple echoing of the extracted REMOTE_USER value requires no special settings. Other simple options are available using authn/authn.properties, and some more advanced cases will require defining/adjusting bean definitions in authn/remoteuser-internal-authn-config.xml

Reference

The following beans are defined, or expected to be defined in, authn/remoteuser-internal-authn-config.xml:

Bean ID	Type	Default	Description

Bean ID	Type	Default	Description
shibboleth.authn.RemoteUser.checkRemoteUser	Boolean	true	Whether to check REMOTE_USER for a username
shibboleth.authn.RemoteUser.checkAttributes	List<String>		A list of servlet request attributes to check for a username
shibboleth.authn.RemoteUser.checkHeaders	List<String>		A list of request headers to check for a username
shibboleth.authn.RemoteUser.Lowercase	Boolean	false	Whether to lowercase the username
shibboleth.authn.RemoteUser.Uppercase	Boolean	false	Whether to uppercase the username
shibboleth.authn.RemoteUser.Trim	Boolean	true	Whether to trim leading and trailing whitespace from the username
shibboleth.authn.RemoteUser.Transforms	List<Pair<String,String>>		Pairs of regular expressions and replacement expressions to apply to the username
shibboleth.authn.RemoteUser.whitelistedUsernames	List<String>		A list of usernames to accept (blocking all others)
shibboleth.authn.RemoteUser.blacklistedUsernames	List<String>		A list of usernames to reject (accepting all others)
shibboleth.authn.RemoteUser.matchExpression	Pattern		A regular expression that must match the username
shibboleth.authn.RemoteUser.resultCachingPredicate	Predicate<ProfileRequestContext>		An optional bean that can be defined to control whether to preserve the authentication result in an IdP session
shibboleth.authn.RemoteUser.addDefaultPrincipals	Boolean	true	Whether to add the content of the `supportedPrincipals` property of the underlying flow descriptor to the resulting Subject

The following beans are defined, or expected to be defined in, authn/remoteuser-internal-authn-config.xml:

Bean ID	Type	Description

Bean ID	Type	Description
shibboleth.authn.RemoteUser.Transforms	List<Pair<String,String>>	Pairs of regular expressions and replacement expressions to apply to the username
shibboleth.authn.RemoteUser.resultCachingPredicate	Predicate<ProfileRequestContext>	An optional bean that can be defined to control whether to preserve the authentication result in an IdP session

The flow-specific properties usable via authn/authn.properties are:

Name	Default	Description

Name	Default	Description
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.checkRemoteUser	true	Whether to check REMOTE_USER for a username
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.checkAttributes		Comma-delimited lists of request attributes to check for a username
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.checkHeaders		Comma-delimited list of request headers to check for a username
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.trim	true	Whether to trim leading and trailing whitespace from the username before validating it
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.lowercase	false	Whether to lowercase the username before validating it
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.uppercase	false	Whether to uppercase the username before validating it
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.matchExpression		A regular expression that must match the username
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.allowedUsernames		Comma-delimited list of usernames to accept (blocking all others)
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.deniedUsernames		Comma-delimited list of usernames to deny (accepting all others)

The general properties configuring this flow via authn/authn.properties are:

Name	Default	Description

Name	Default	Description
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.order	1000	Flow priority relative to other enabled login flows (lower is "higher" in priority)
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.nonBrowserSupported	true	Whether the flow should handle non-browser request profiles (e.g., ECP)
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.passiveAuthenticationSupported	false	Whether the flow allows for passive authentication
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.forcedAuthenticationSupported	false	Whether the flow supports forced authentication
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.proxyRestrictionsEnforced	%{idp.authn.enforceProxyRestrictions:true}	Whether the flow enforces upstream IdP-imposed restrictions on proxying
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.proxyScopingEnforced	false	Whether the flow considers itself to be proxying, and therefore enforces SP-signaled restrictions on proxying
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.discoveryRequired	false	Whether to invoke IdP-discovery prior to running flow
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.lifetime	%{idp.authn.defaultLifetime:PT1H}	Lifetime of results produced by this flow
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.inactivityTimeout	%{idp.authn.defaultTimeout:PT30M}	Inactivity timeout of results produced by this flow
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.reuseCondition	shibboleth.Conditions.TRUE	Bean ID of Predicate<ProfileRequestContext> controlling result reuse for SSO
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.activationCondition	shibboleth.Conditions.TRUE	Bean ID of Predicate<ProfileRequestContext> determining whether flow is usable for request
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.subjectDecorator		Bean ID of BiConsumer<ProfileRequestContext,Subject> for subject customization
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.supportedPrincipals	(see below)	Comma-delimited list of protocol-specific Principal strings associated with flow
idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.addDefaultPrincipals	true	Whether to auto-attach the preceding set of Principal objects to each Subject produced by this flow

Most of the flows, including this one, default to describing themselves in terms of "password"-based authentication, so the supportedPrincipals property defaults to the following XML:

<list>
    <bean parent="shibboleth.SAML2AuthnContextClassRef"
        c:classRef="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport" />
    <bean parent="shibboleth.SAML2AuthnContextClassRef"
        c:classRef="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:Password" />
    <bean parent="shibboleth.SAML1AuthenticationMethod"
        c:method="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password" />
</list>

In property form, this is expressed as (note especially the trailing commas, which MUST be there):

idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.supportedPrincipals = \
    saml2/urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport, \
    saml2/urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:Password, \
    saml1/urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password

To replace the internally defined flow descriptor bean, the following XML is required:

<util:list id="shibboleth.AvailableAuthenticationFlows">
 
    <bean p:id="authn/RemoteUserInternal" parent="shibboleth.AuthenticationFlow"
            p:order="%{idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.order:1000}"
            p:nonBrowserSupported="%{idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.nonBrowserSupported:true}"
            p:passiveAuthenticationSupported="%{idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.passiveAuthenticationSupported:false}"
            p:forcedAuthenticationSupported="%{idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.forcedAuthenticationSupported:false}"
            p:proxyRestrictionsEnforced="%{idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.proxyRestrictionsEnforced:%{idp.authn.enforceProxyRestrictions:true}}"
            p:proxyScopingEnforced="%{idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.proxyScopingEnforced:false}"
            p:discoveryRequired="%{idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.discoveryRequired:false}"
            p:lifetime="%{idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.lifetime:%{idp.authn.defaultLifetime:PT1H}}"
            p:inactivityTimeout="%{idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.inactivityTimeout:%{idp.authn.defaultTimeout:PT30M}}"
            p:reuseCondition-ref="#{'%{idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.reuseCondition:shibboleth.Conditions.TRUE}'.trim()}"
            p:activationCondition-ref="#{'%{idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.activationCondition:shibboleth.Conditions.TRUE}'.trim()}"
            p:subjectDecorator="#{getObject('%{idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.subjectDecorator:}'.trim())}">
        <property name="supportedPrincipalsByString">
            <bean parent="shibboleth.CommaDelimStringArray"
                c:_0="#{'%{idp.authn.RemoteUserInternal.supportedPrincipals:}'.trim()}" />
        </property>
    </bean>
 
</util:list>

In older versions and upgraded systems, this list is defined in conf/authn/general-authn.xml. In V4.1+, no default version of the list is provided and it may simply be placed in conf/global.xml if needed.

Identity Provider 4

RemoteUserInternalAuthnConfiguration

Overview

Enabling Module (V4.1+)

General Configuration

Reference

Related content