JWKS Storage - OpenID Connect Authentication
By default, a global keystore can be expected and defined via CAS properties as a path on the file system. The format of the keystore file is similar to the following:
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{
"keys": [
{
"d": "...",
"e": "AQAB",
"use": "sig",
"n": "...",
"kty": "RSA",
"kid": "cas",
"state": 0
}
]
}
The contents of the keystore may be encrypted via CAS configuration security outlined here.
When deploying CAS in a cluster, you must make sure all CAS server nodes have access to and share an identical and exact copy of the keystore file. Keystore differences will lead to various validation failures and application integration issues.
The following settings and properties are available from the CAS configuration catalog:
cas.authn.oidc.jwks.file-system.jwks-file=file:/etc/cas/config/keystore.jwks
Path to the JWKS file resource used to handle signing/encryption of authentication tokens. Contents of the keystore may be encrypted using the same encryption and security mechanism available for all other CAS configuration settings. The setting value here may also be defined in a raw format; that is, you may pass the actual contents of the keystore verbaitm to this setting and CAS would load the keystore as an in-memory resource. This is relevant in scenarios where the setting source is external to CAS and has no support for file systems where the value is loaded on the fly from the source into this setting. Note that if the keystore files does not exist at the specified path, one will be generated for you. This setting supports the Spring Expression Language.
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cas.authn.oidc.jwks.file-system.watcher-enabled=true
Flag indicating whether a background watcher thread is enabled for the purposes of live reloading of keystore data file changes from disk.
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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.
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 keystore is automatically watched and monitored by CAS for changes. As changes are detected, CAS will invalidate the cache and will reload the keystore once again.
Advanced
The following alternative strategies can be used to generate, manage and storage a JSON Web keystore.
Option | Reference |
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Groovy | See this page. |
JPA | See this page. |
MongoDb | See this page. |
REST | See this page. |
Custom | See this page. |