Dynamic Client Registration - OpenID Connect Authentication

Please study the specification to learn more about dynamic client registration.

The registration endpoint accepts POST requests where the body of the request is to contain the application registration record. By default, CAS operates in a PROTECTED mode where the registration endpoint requires user authentication.

The following settings and properties are available from the CAS configuration catalog:

_{The configuration settings listed below are tagged as Required in the CAS configuration metadata. This flag indicates that the presence of the setting may be needed to activate or affect the behavior of the CAS feature and generally should be reviewed, possibly owned and adjusted. If the setting is assigned a default value, you do not need to strictly put the setting in your copy of the configuration, but should review it nonetheless to make sure it matches your deployment expectations.}

_{The configuration settings listed below are tagged as Optional in the CAS configuration metadata. This
flag indicates that the presence of the setting
is not immediately necessary in the end-user CAS configuration, because a default value is assigned or
the activation of the feature is not conditionally controlled by the setting value. You should only include this field in your
configuration if you need to modify the default value.}

cas.authn.oidc.registration.client-secret-expiration=0

When client secret is issued by CAS, this is the period that gets added to the current time measured in UTC to determine the client secret's expiration date. An example value would be P14D forcing client applications to expire their client secret in 2 weeks after the registration date. Expired client secrets can be updated using the client configuration endpoint. A value of 0 indicates that client secrets would never expire.

This settings supports the java.time.Duration syntax ^[?].

org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.support.oidc.OidcClientRegistrationProperties.

_{How can I configure this property?}

Configuration properties can be included and activated using the following strategies.

:information_source: Note

When possible, properties should be stored in lower-case kebab format, such as cas.property-name=value. The only possible exception to this rule is when naming actuator endpoints; The name of the actuator endpoints (i.e. ssoSessions) MUST remain in camelCase mode.

CAS properties can be specified using the Java configuration property syntax in any and all .properties files:

cas.authn.oidc.registration.client-secret-expiration=0

This is the most common form of property configuration that is recognized by CAS, regardless of the actual property source, which might in fact be managed separately outside the CAS environment, by another system or cloud framework.

CAS properties can be specified using the YAML syntax:

cas: 
  authn: 
    oidc: 
      registration: 
        client-secret-expiration: "0"

Note that YAML is very specific about structure and indentation. Be sure to verify the correctness of the final result with your YAML validator of choice.

CAS properties can be passed to the CAS web application as system properties, when the application is launched:

java -Dcas.authn.oidc.registration.client-secret-expiration="0" -jar build/libs/cas.war

The above example assumes that the CAS web application is packaged as cas.war with an embedded server container and can be found in the build/libs directory. Note the placement of the system property which must be specified before the CAS web application is launched.

CAS properties can specified as system environment variables before the CAS web application is launched:

export CAS_AUTHN_OIDC_REGISTRATION_CLIENT_SECRET_EXPIRATION="0"

java -jar build/libs/cas.war

The above example assumes that the CAS web application is packaged as cas.war with an embedded server container and can be found in the build/libs directory.

CAS properties can be passed to the CAS web application as command-line arguments, when the application is launched:

java -jar build/libs/cas.war --cas.authn.oidc.registration.client-secret-expiration="0"

The above example assumes that the CAS web application is packaged as cas.war with an embedded server container and can be found in the build/libs directory.

cas.authn.oidc.registration.dynamic-client-registration-mode=PROTECTED

Whether dynamic registration operates in OPEN or PROTECTED mode. Available values are as follows:

OPEN: Registration is open to all. In a situation where CAS is supporting open Client registration, it will check to see if the logo_uri and policy_uri have the same host as the hosts defined in the array of redirect_uris.
PROTECTED: registration is protected for all.

org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.support.oidc.OidcClientRegistrationProperties.

_{How can I configure this property?}

Configuration properties can be included and activated using the following strategies.

:information_source: Note

CAS properties can be specified using the Java configuration property syntax in any and all .properties files:

cas.authn.oidc.registration.dynamic-client-registration-mode=PROTECTED

CAS properties can be specified using the YAML syntax:

cas: 
  authn: 
    oidc: 
      registration: 
        dynamic-client-registration-mode: "PROTECTED"

Note that YAML is very specific about structure and indentation. Be sure to verify the correctness of the final result with your YAML validator of choice.

CAS properties can be passed to the CAS web application as system properties, when the application is launched:

java -Dcas.authn.oidc.registration.dynamic-client-registration-mode="PROTECTED" -jar build/libs/cas.war

CAS properties can specified as system environment variables before the CAS web application is launched:

export CAS_AUTHN_OIDC_REGISTRATION_DYNAMIC_CLIENT_REGISTRATION_MODE="PROTECTED"

java -jar build/libs/cas.war

The above example assumes that the CAS web application is packaged as cas.war with an embedded server container and can be found in the build/libs directory.

CAS properties can be passed to the CAS web application as command-line arguments, when the application is launched:

java -jar build/libs/cas.war --cas.authn.oidc.registration.dynamic-client-registration-mode="PROTECTED"

The above example assumes that the CAS web application is packaged as cas.war with an embedded server container and can be found in the build/libs directory.

cas.authn.oidc.registration.initial-access-token-password=

The password used in a basic-auth scheme to request an initial access token that would then be used to dynamically register clients in DynamicClientRegistrationModes#PROTECTED mode.

org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.support.oidc.OidcClientRegistrationProperties.

_{How can I configure this property?}

Configuration properties can be included and activated using the following strategies.

:information_source: Note

CAS properties can be specified using the Java configuration property syntax in any and all .properties files:

cas.authn.oidc.registration.initial-access-token-password=...

CAS properties can be specified using the YAML syntax:

cas: 
  authn: 
    oidc: 
      registration: 
        initial-access-token-password: "..."

Note that YAML is very specific about structure and indentation. Be sure to verify the correctness of the final result with your YAML validator of choice.

CAS properties can be passed to the CAS web application as system properties, when the application is launched:

java -Dcas.authn.oidc.registration.initial-access-token-password="..." -jar build/libs/cas.war

CAS properties can specified as system environment variables before the CAS web application is launched:

export CAS_AUTHN_OIDC_REGISTRATION_INITIAL_ACCESS_TOKEN_PASSWORD="..."

java -jar build/libs/cas.war

The above example assumes that the CAS web application is packaged as cas.war with an embedded server container and can be found in the build/libs directory.

CAS properties can be passed to the CAS web application as command-line arguments, when the application is launched:

java -jar build/libs/cas.war --cas.authn.oidc.registration.initial-access-token-password="..."

The above example assumes that the CAS web application is packaged as cas.war with an embedded server container and can be found in the build/libs directory.

cas.authn.oidc.registration.initial-access-token-user=

The username used in a basic-auth scheme to request an initial access token that would then be used to dynamically register clients in DynamicClientRegistrationModes#PROTECTED mode.

org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.support.oidc.OidcClientRegistrationProperties.

_{How can I configure this property?}

Configuration properties can be included and activated using the following strategies.

:information_source: Note

CAS properties can be specified using the Java configuration property syntax in any and all .properties files:

cas.authn.oidc.registration.initial-access-token-user=...

CAS properties can be specified using the YAML syntax:

cas: 
  authn: 
    oidc: 
      registration: 
        initial-access-token-user: "..."

Note that YAML is very specific about structure and indentation. Be sure to verify the correctness of the final result with your YAML validator of choice.

CAS properties can be passed to the CAS web application as system properties, when the application is launched:

java -Dcas.authn.oidc.registration.initial-access-token-user="..." -jar build/libs/cas.war

CAS properties can specified as system environment variables before the CAS web application is launched:

export CAS_AUTHN_OIDC_REGISTRATION_INITIAL_ACCESS_TOKEN_USER="..."

java -jar build/libs/cas.war

The above example assumes that the CAS web application is packaged as cas.war with an embedded server container and can be found in the build/libs directory.

CAS properties can be passed to the CAS web application as command-line arguments, when the application is launched:

java -jar build/libs/cas.war --cas.authn.oidc.registration.initial-access-token-user="..."

The above example assumes that the CAS web application is packaged as cas.war with an embedded server container and can be found in the build/libs directory.

Configuration Metadata

The collection of configuration properties listed in this section are automatically generated from the CAS source and components that contain the actual field definitions, types, descriptions, modules, etc. This metadata may not always be 100% accurate, or could be lacking details and sufficient explanations.

Be Selective

This section is meant as a guide only. Do NOT copy/paste the entire collection of settings into your CAS configuration; rather pick only the properties that you need. Do NOT enable settings unless you are certain of their purpose and do NOT copy settings into your configuration only to keep them as reference. All these ideas lead to upgrade headaches, maintenance nightmares and premature aging.

YAGNI

Note that for nearly ALL use cases, declaring and configuring properties listed here is sufficient. You should NOT have to explicitly massage a CAS XML/Java/etc configuration file to design an authentication handler, create attribute release policies, etc. CAS at runtime will auto-configure all required changes for you. If you are unsure about the meaning of a given CAS setting, do NOT turn it on without hesitation. Review the codebase or better yet, ask questions to clarify the intended behavior.

Naming Convention

Property names can be specified in very relaxed terms. For instance cas.someProperty, cas.some-property, cas.some_property are all valid names. While all forms are accepted by CAS, there are certain components (in CAS and other frameworks used) whose activation at runtime is conditional on a property value, where this property is required to have been specified in CAS configuration using kebab case. This is both true for properties that are owned by CAS as well as those that might be presented to the system via an external library or framework such as Spring Boot, etc.

Settings and properties that are controlled by the CAS platform directly always begin with the prefix cas. All other settings are controlled and provided to CAS via other underlying frameworks and may have their own schemas and syntax. BE CAREFUL with the distinction. Unrecognized properties are rejected by CAS and/or frameworks upon which CAS depends. This means if you somehow misspell a property definition or fail to adhere to the dot-notation syntax and such, your setting is entirely refused by CAS and likely the feature it controls will never be activated in the way you intend.

Validation

Configuration properties are automatically validated on CAS startup to report issues with configuration binding, specially if defined CAS settings cannot be recognized or validated by the configuration schema. The validation process is on by default and can be skipped on startup using a special system property SKIP_CONFIG_VALIDATION that should be set to true. Additional validation processes are also handled via Configuration Metadata and property migrations applied automatically on startup by Spring Boot and family.

Indexed Settings

CAS settings able to accept multiple values are typically documented with an index, such as cas.some.setting[0]=value. The index [0] is meant to be incremented by the adopter to allow for distinct multiple configuration blocks.

The registration endpoint’s response on a successful operation will contain information about the registered entity along with an access token found at registration_access_token which can be used to update or retrieve the registered entity found at registration_client_uri.

Protected Dynamic Client Registration

By default, CAS operates in a PROTECTED mode where the registration endpoint requires user authentication via a specially-created master access token that contains the necessary scopes that would allow the registration to proceed. Before you can register clients, you will need to obtain this access token by sending a GET request to the /oidc/initToken endpoint. This endpoint is protected with a Basic authentication scheme and will authenticate the request using the credentials that are specified in CAS configuration for dynamic registration. The access token that is received in the response should be passed as a Bearer authorization header to all dynamic registration requests.

Client Configuration

Application definitions that are registered with CAS dynamically may be retrieved or updated using the /oidc/clientConfig endpoint. This endpoint supports GET and PATCH requests for read and update operations. Each operation expects a clientId parameter that allows CAS to locate the previously-registered entity for processing. Update requests using PATCH may also specify the updated registration requests in the request body. Update requests may also update the client’s secrets and generate a new one if the client secret is determined to be expired.