Authentication at Penn State: The Present State of Affairs and Future Directions James A. Vuccolo, Manager, Software Technologies Group Phil Pishioneri, Manager, UNIX Systems and Technical Solutions Group Advanced Information Technologies (AIT) in Academic Services and Emerging Technologies (ASET), a unit of Information Technology Services (ITS)

Agenda Introduction Current State of Affairs Future Directions Wrap Up

Introduction Definitions Account Types

Definitions Authentication (AuthN) –The process of validating that a user is who he or she says they are Is the user’s Userid and Password correct? Authorization (AuthZ) –The process of deciding if a user is allowed to have access to a service Is the user allowed to view a specific Web page? Single Sign-On (SSO) –The process by which a user logs on to a site and then can visit other “protected” sites without the need to re-authenticate

Account Types Access Account –A digital identity and password that enables Penn State students, faculty, and staff to use the full range of services either on or off campus –Provides: Authentication, , PASS and an LDAP Entry Friends of Penn State Account –A digital identity and password that enables users outside of Penn State to access applications within Penn State. (Most likely for Web-based applications). –Provides: Authentication

Current State of Affairs Penn State Infrastructure Web Access Methods

Penn State Infrastructure Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) –Based on Kerberos V –Provides Authentication and Authorization Distributed File System (DFS) –Enterprise-wide file system –Also known as PASS (Penn State Access Account Storage Space)

Web Access Methods MethodAuthNAuthZSSO Mod_auth_externalYesMaybeNo Mod_auth_kerberosYesNo Mod_auth_DCEYes No FPS APIYesNo ShibbolethYes No

Demise of DCE/DFS IBM’s DCE/DFS, which is at the core of Penn State’s infrastructure no longer will be supported after April 2006 ASET/ITS is looking for replacement options –DCE = Kerberos V + LDAP –DFS = ???

Future Directions Kerberos (Authentication) LDAP (Authorization) CoSign (SSO)

Kerberos What is Kerberos? Kerberos Configuration Files Things to Know

What is Kerberos? Kerberos is: –“…a network authentication protocol. It is designed to provide strong authentication for client/server applications using secret-key cryptography” Components –Key Distribution Center (KDC) Masters (located in Computer Building) Back-ups (located off-site) –Clients –Application Servers

Kerberos Configuration Files Access Accounts [libdefaults] default_realm = dce.psu.edu default_tkt_enctypes = des3-hmac-sha1 des-cbc-crc default_tgs_enctypes = des3-hmac-sha1 des-cbc-crc [realms] dce.psu.edu = { kdc = fido.aset.psu.edu:88 kdc = sparky.offsite.psu.edu:88 kdc = scooby.aset.psu.edu:88 default_domain =.psu.edu } [domain_realm].psu.edu = dce.psu.edu psu.edu = dce.psu.edu [logging] default = FILE:/var/log/krb5/krb5lib.log Friends of Penn State Accounts [libdefaults] default_realm = fops.psu.edu default_tkt_enctypes = des3-hmac-sha1 des-cbc-crc default_tgs_enctypes = des3-hmac-sha1 des-cbc-crc [realms] fops.psu.edu = { kdc = fps.aset.psu.edu:88 kdc = rover.offsite.psu.edu:88 default_domain =.psu.edu } [domain_realm].psu.edu = dce.psu.edu psu.edu = dce.psu.edu [logging] default = FILE:/var/log/krb5/krb5lib.log

Things to Know Our Access Account Kerberos KDCs are fully synced with DCE using Kerberos propagation –A full copy of the Kerberos database is dumped –kprop command is used to sync the back-up KDCs –This done is every 15 minutes, so password changes are not immediate Using MIT Kerberos solves a number of problems using tools such as Java for authentication

LDAP What is it? Authorization Mechanisms –Roles –Groups Examples DCE vs. LDAP ACLs

What is it? Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) –Is a standard technology for network directories –Network directories are specialized databases that store information about devices, applications, people and other aspects of a computer network –At Penn State, LDAP is the replacement for Ph Usage Info –Server: ldap.psu.edu –Port: 389 –Search Base: dc=psu,dc=edu

Roles Are attribute/value pairs –Examples (from my entry) eduPersonPrimaryAffiliation=STAFF eduPersonEntitlement=URN:PSU.EDU:MUSIC –Users Penn State Portal Shibboleth –Napster –Physics Class –PHEAA (Future application)

Groups DN containing a list of member DNs Types –Static –Dynamic –Hybrid –Nested Rich set of Access Control Lists (ACLs) features

Group Examples Static Group Dn: cn=AIT Staff,dc=psu,dc=edu objectClass: groupOfNames Cn: AIT Staff Member: psDirIdn=4,dc=psu,dc=edu Member: psDirIdn=5,dc=psu,dc=edu Dynamic Group Dn: ITS Staff,dc=psu,dc=edu objectClass: groupOfURLs Cn: ITS Staff memberURL: ldap:///dc=psu,dc=edu??subtree?(p sAdminArea=ITS)

DCE vs. LDAP ACLs DCE R = Read W = Write X = Execute C = Control I = Insert D = Delete LDAP R = Read W = Write S = Search C = Compare A = Add D = Delete

CoSign WebAccess WebAccess Adopters Supported Web Servers Overview of Process Sample Configurations WebAccess Login Page WebAccess in Action…

CoSign Technology behind the WebAccess service –Scheduled to be available this summer –Initially only Access Accounts – FPS to be added Developed by the University of Michigan

WebAccess Provides Single Sign-On for Web-based services Cf. FPS API –One login per session/timeout –No application coding –Password never on your Web server Can be combined with other functions to provide authorization (LDAP, local groups, etc.)

WebAccess Adopters Initial ITS Services converting to it –Penn StatePortal –Penn State WebMail –eLion –ANGEL

Supported Web Servers Apache (1 & 2) IIS (5 & 6) Tomcat

Overview of Service Login Case of person browsing to the service Web page (e.g., Similar flow if starting from the WebAccess login page Based on documents written by University of Michigan

Sample Configurations Apache IIS

Apache LoadModule cosign_module libexec/mod_cosign.so CosignProtected On CosignHostname webaccess.psu.edu CosignRedirect CosignPostErrorRedirect CosignService webconf-test CosignCrypto /psuopt/conf/ssl.key/my.key /psuopt/conf/ssl.crt/my.crt /psuopt/conf/ssl.crt

IIS C:\Program Files\IISCosign\SSL\ASET-CA.pem C:\Program Files\IISCosign\SSL\testsys.aset.psu.edu.cert PrivateKeyFilePath>C:\Program Files\IISCosign\SSL\testsys.aset.psu.edu.key C:\Program Files\IISCosign\Logs C:\Program Files\IISCosign\CookieDB webaccess.psu.edu FALSE cosign-testsys-its Protected>/protected.htm

WebAccess Login Page

WebAccess in Action…

Wrap Up Questions?