B Using Oracle Application Server SSO Plug-in

B.1 Overview

OracleAS SSO Plug-in is Oracle's single sign-on (SSO) solution for third-party listeners such as Sun ONE and IIS. The plug-in is designed to protect native third-party listener applications using the SSO infrastructure. With the help of the OracleAS SSO Plug-in, you can be authenticated to different third-party listener applications using only one SSO password. You can integrate these SSO-protected third-party listener applications with SSO enabled Oracle HTTP Server applications or legacy Oracle SSO enabled application together as long as they are all protected on the same SSO server.

OracleAS SSO Plug-in is a simple version of mod_osso, and only implements some of its basic functionality. Features such as dynamic authentication, global logout, idle timeout and global timeout, and basic authentication for legacy application are not implemented in the current OracleAS SSO Plug-in release.

Figure B-1 illustrates the process involved when you request a URL protected by the OracleAS SSO Plug-in.

Figure B-1 OracleAS SSO Plug-in

Description of "Figure B-1 OracleAS SSO Plug-in"

1. The user requests a URL through a Web browser.

2. The Web server looks for an OracleAS SSO Plug-in cookie for the user. If the cookie exists, the Web server extracts the user's information and uses it to log the user in to the requested application.

3. If the cookie does not exist, then the OracleAS SSO Plug-in redirects the user to the single sign-on server.

4. The single sign-on server looks for its own cookie in the browser. If it finds none, it tries to authenticate the user with a user name and password. If authentication is successful, the single sign-on server creates a cookie in the browser as a reminder that the user has been authenticated. If a cookie exists, the single sign-on server authenticates using the cookie.

5. The single sign-on server returns the user's encrypted information to the OracleAS SSO Plug-in.

6. OracleAS SSO Plug-in creates its own cookie for the user in the browser and redirects the user to the requested URL.

   During the same session, if the user again seeks access to the same or to a different application, the user is not prompted for a user name and password; the application uses an HTTP header to obtain this information from the OracleAS SSO Plug-in session cookie.

B.2 Downloading OracleAS SSO Plug-in

OracleAS SSO Plug-in is available on the Oracle Application Server 10g Companion CD, which is included in your Oracle Application Server CD Pack.

B.3 Installing OracleAS SSO Plug-in

Install OracleAS SSO Plug-in on a machine that has an Oracle Application Server installation. This installation is required only for the network and security dependent libraries and single sign-on registration tool; it is not required to be running. After the Oracle Application Server installation on UNIX systems, add ORACLE_HOME/lib to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH in the listener's start script. For example, the "start" script in Sun ONE. On Windows systems, the installation automatically sets the environment variable PATH. For example, ORACLE_HOME\bin.

Download, or copy, the plug-in, and place the configuration file and shared libraries in directories that the third-party listener can access. For security reasons, ensure that all the configuration files and plug-in modules are given minimum privileges.

On the Oracle Application Server 10g Companion CD, the files are located at /plugins/solaris/ for UNIX and /plugins/win32/ for Windows.

Table B-1 contains information about the shared libraries for OracleAS SSO Plug-in.

B.4 Registering with Single Sign-On

The single sign-on registration process enables the single sign-on server and the listener to share information such as server location, protocol version, and common encryption key, before they communicate. After the registration process, this information is stored on the single sign-on server side as a single sign-on partner application entry. On the listener side, a single sign-on file called sso_conf is created. sso_conf is obfuscated for security purposes. Copy it to an appropriate location so that the listener can access it.

Oracle provides a Java-based single sign-on registration tool to automatically complete this process.

ORACLE_HOME/jdk/bin/java -jar ORACLE_HOME/sso/lib/ossoreg.jar [arguments]

ORACLE_HOME/jdk/bin/java -jar ORACLE_HOME/sso/lib/ossoreg.jar \
-ssoDBConnect <host.domain>:1521:iasdb -pass your_password \
-oracle_home_path ORACLE_HOME -site_name <host.domain>:7778 \
-config_mod_osso TRUE -mod_osso_url http://<host.domain>:7778 \
-u nobody -admin_id admin_name -admin_info admin@company.com \
-sso_partner_version v1.2 \
-virtualhost \
-config_file ORACLE_HOME/Apache/Apache/conf/osso/sso_conf 

ORACLE_HOME/jdk/bin/java -jar ORACLE_HOME/sso/lib/ossoreg.jar \
-ssoDBConnect <host.domain>:1521:iasdb -pass your_password \
-oracle_home_path ORACLE_HOME -site_name <host.domain>:8080 \
-config_mod_osso TRUE -mod_osso_url http://<host.domain>:8080 \
-u SYSTEM -admin_id admin_name -admin_info admin@company.com \
-sso_partner_version v1.2 \
-virtualhost \
-config_file ORACLE_HOME/Apache/Apache/conf/osso/sso_conf 

B.5 Configuring OracleAS SSO Plug-in

Create a plug-in configuration file such as osso_plugin.conf. This is the file where you define all the plug-in functionality. It can also be referred as the osso property file. The syntax is exactly the same for all third-party listeners. This file must reside in a directory that is readable by the third-party listener. This file also contains the following:

• Plug-in directives such as LoginServerFile and IpCheck

• A set of rules that match resources to be protected.

B.6 Resource Protection

Use the following format to protect resources:

<OSSO url-matching-rule>
  SSO_configuration_directives
</OSSO>

Use the following rules to define the url-matching-rule:

When multiple rules apply to the same URL, the following precedence applies:

1. Exact matches

2. Longest context match plus suffix match

3. Longest context match

Some examples of the precedence are:

/foo/bar/index.html would take precedence over /foo/bar/* 
/foo/bar/*.jsp would take precedence over /foo/bar/* 
/foo/bar/* would take precedence over /foo/*

LoginServerFile=/path/sso_conf
<OSSO /private/hello.html>
  IpCheck = false
</OSSO>
<OSSO /private1/*>
</OSSO>
<OSSO /private2/*.jsp>
  IpCheck = true
</OSSO> 

B.7 Configuring Sun ONE Listener for Single Sign-on

This section provides OracleAS SSO Plug-in configuration instructions for the Sun ONE listener on UNIX and Windows systems.

1. Open the magnus.conf file, version 6, or obj.conf, version 4, in the Sun ONE listener /config directory.

2. Add the load-modules line:

   On UNIX:

   Init fn="load-modules" shlib="/path/oracle_proxy.so" funcs="osso_init,oracle_single_sign_on,osso_redirect_service,osso_success_service"
   
   

   On Windows:

   Init fn="load-modules" shlib="/path/oracle_proxy_sunone.dll" funcs="osso_init,oracle_single_sign_on,osso_redirect_service,osso_success_service"
   
   

   where /path/ is the path to the shared library for the plug-in. This line tells the listener where the proxy shared library is, and which functions are exposed by this library.

3. Add the configuration parameters line:

   Init fn="osso_init" osso_properties="/path/osso_plugin.conf" log_file="/path/plugin.log" log_level=error
   

   where /path/osso_plugin.conf is the exact location of the plug-in configuration file you just created. Also this line can specify a log file and log level to log messages from the plug-in (optional).

4. Add the following line to the <Object name=default> section of the obj.conf file, before all other lines:

   AuthTrans fn="oracle_single_sign_on"
   
   

5. Add the following line to the <Object name=default> section before all other lines that begin with the word Service:

   Service type="oracle/sso_redirect" fn="osso_redirect_service"
   
   

6. Add the following lines where /path/ is the path of your document root. For example: /home/Sun ONE/docs/ or $docroot.

   <Object ppath="/path/osso_login_success">
     Service fn="osso_success_service"
   </Object>
   
   

7. Change the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable in your start script to include the location of ORACLE_HOME/lib32, where ORACLE_HOME is the Oracle Application Server installation home directory.

8. Restart the listener.

B.8 Configuring IIS Listener for Single Sign-On

This section provides instructions on configuring the IIS Listener to use OracleAS SSO Plug-in. The plug-in consists of a single .dll, oracle_osso.dll. To install the plug-in, copy the .dll to the host on which IIS resides and perform the following steps:

1. Edit your registry to create a new registry key named HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Oracle\IIS OSSO Adapter.

2. Specify the exact location of your plug-in configuration file you just created. For example: d:\osso\osso_plugin.conf, by adding this string value with the name cfg_file and a value pointing to the location of your configuration file.

3. Specify a log_file and log_level. This is optional.

   1. Add a string value with the name log_file and the desired location of the log file. For example: d:\ossoplugin.log.

   2. Add a string value with the name log_level and a value for the desired log level. Valid values are debug, inform, error and emergency.

4. Using the IIS management console, add a new virtual directory to your IIS Web site with the same physical path as that of oracle_osso.dll. Name the directory osso and give it execute access.

5. Using the IIS management console, add oracle_osso.dll as a filter in your IIS Web site. The name of the filter should be osso and its executable must point to the directory containing oracle_osso.dll.For example, d:\osso\oracle_osso.dll.

6. Stop and then start the IIS Server, ensuring that the filter is marked with a green up-pointing arrow.

   
   

   Note: To restart IIS, you must stop all of the IIS services through the control panel, or restart the computer. This is the only way to ensure that the .dll is reloaded. Restarting IIS through the management console is not sufficient. If you want multiple Oracle installations on the same home, the ORACLE_HOME\bin PATH entry for the installation that you wish to use in conjunction with the OracleAS SSO Plug-in must appear first in your PATH.

   
   

B.9 Troubleshooting

This section describes common problems and possible reasons.

Oracle Dependency Libraries Not Found

OracleAS SSO Plug-in could not find the libraries it needs. Possible reason would be that you do not have ORACLE_HOME/lib included in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH on UNIX. On Windows, you do not have ORACLE_HOME/bin included in your PATH.

Single Sign-On Server Configuration File De-obfuscation Fails

Single sign-on server configuration file, for example, sso_conf, is obfuscated using a certain account and this account has to be the one being used to start your listener. For example, use the value of User specified in magnus.conf for Sun ONE and usually SYSTEM for IIS.

IIS Oracle Application Server OracleAS SSO Plug-in Does Not Work with HTML Authentication

OracleAS SSO Plug-in is designed to not work with other authentication modules. It is either a native listener authentication module, or third-party module.