Groovy Attribute Resolution

The following configuration describes how to fetch and retrieve attributes from Groovy attribute repositories.

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.

  • cas.authn.attribute-repository.groovy[0].location=
  • The location of the resource. Resources can be URLs, or files found either on the classpath or outside somewhere in the file system.

    In the event the configured resource is a Groovy script, specially if the script set to reload on changes, you may need to adjust the total number of inotify instances. On Linux, you may need to add the following line to /etc/sysctl.conf: fs.inotify.max_user_instances = 256.

    You can check the current value via cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_instances.

    In situations and scenarios where CAS is able to automatically watch the underlying resource for changes and detect updates and modifications dynamically, you may be able to specify the following setting as either an environment variable or system property with a value of false to disable the resource watcher: org.apereo.cas.util.io.PathWatcherService.

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.core.authentication.GroovyPrincipalAttributesProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

    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. In other words, you should only include this field in your configuration if you need to modify the default value or if you need to turn on the feature controlled by the setting.

  • cas.authn.attribute-repository.groovy=
  • Retrieve attributes from multiple Groovy scripts.

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.core.authentication.PrincipalAttributesProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

  • cas.authn.attribute-repository.groovy[0].case-insensitive=
  • Whether attribute repository should consider the underlying attribute names in a case-insensitive manner.

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.core.authentication.GroovyPrincipalAttributesProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

  • cas.authn.attribute-repository.groovy[0].id=
  • A value can be assigned to this field to uniquely identify this resolver.

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.core.authentication.GroovyPrincipalAttributesProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

  • cas.authn.attribute-repository.groovy[0].order=
  • The order of this attribute repository in the chain of repositories. Can be used to explicitly position this source in chain and affects merging strategies.

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.core.authentication.GroovyPrincipalAttributesProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

  • cas.authn.attribute-repository.groovy[0].state=ACTIVE
  • Whether attribute resolution based on this source is enabled. Available values are as follows:

    • ACTIVE: Active and enabled repository, and is invoked by default automatically.
    • DISABLED: Attribute repository is disabled and will not be used to resolve people and attributes.
    • STANDBY: Repository is in a semi-enabled state, waiting to be called only on-demand when explicitly asked for and will not be registered into the resolution plan.

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.core.authentication.GroovyPrincipalAttributesProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

    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.

    :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.

    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. 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 Groovy script may be designed as:

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    import java.util.*
    
    def run(final Object... args) {
        def (username,attributes,logger,properties,appContext) = args
        logger.debug("[{}]: The received uid is [{}]", this.class.simpleName, username)
        
        // All attribute values must be defined as a collection wrapped in []
        return [username:[username], likes:["cheese", "food"], id:[1234,2,3,4,5], another:["attribute"] ]
    }
    

    The following parameters are passed to the script:

    Parameter Description
    username Current principal identifier found from the authentication phase.
    attributes Map of query attributes built by CAS to construct the attribute resolution query.
    logger The object responsible for issuing log messages such as logger.info(...).
    properties CAS configuration properties.
    appContext The current and active application context under the type ApplicationContext.