Password Management

If authentication fails due to a rejected password policy, CAS is able to intercept that request and allow the user to update the account password in place. The password management features of CAS are rather modest, and alternatively should the functionality provide inadequate for your policy, you may always redirect CAS to use a separate and standalone application that is fully in charge of managing the account password and associated flows.

Support is enabled by including the following dependency in the WAR overlay:

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<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apereo.cas</groupId>
    <artifactId>cas-server-support-pm-webflow</artifactId>
    <version>${cas.version}</version>
</dependency>
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implementation "org.apereo.cas:cas-server-support-pm-webflow:${project.'cas.version'}"
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dependencyManagement {
    imports {
        mavenBom "org.apereo.cas:cas-server-support-bom:${project.'cas.version'}"
    }
}

dependencies {
    implementation "org.apereo.cas:cas-server-support-pm-webflow"
}
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dependencies {
    /*
        The following platform references should be included automatically and are listed here for reference only.

        implementation enforcedPlatform("org.apereo.cas:cas-server-support-bom:${project.'cas.version'}")
        implementation platform(org.springframework.boot.gradle.plugin.SpringBootPlugin.BOM_COORDINATES)
        
        Including this module in the CAS WAR overlay is optional and unnecessary. This module is automatically included
        and bundled with the CAS server distribution and there are alternative options baked in to allow one to replace
        this module with another. The entry below is listed for reference only.
    */
    implementation "org.apereo.cas:cas-server-support-pm-webflow"
}
:information_source: YAGNI

You do not need to explicitly include this module in your configuration and overlays. This is just to tell you that it exists.

Configuration

To learn more about available notification options, please see this guide or this guide.

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.pm.core.enabled=false
  • Flag to indicate if password management facility is enabled.

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.support.pm.PasswordManagementCoreProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

  • cas.authn.pm.core.password-policy-pattern=^(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[A-Z])(?=.*\d)(?=.*[$@$!%*?&])[A-Za-z\d$@$!%*?&]{8,10}
  • A String value representing password policy regex pattern. Minimum 8 and Maximum 10 characters at least 1 Uppercase Alphabet, 1 Lowercase Alphabet, 1 Number and 1 Special Character.

    This settings supports regular expression patterns. [?].

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.support.pm.PasswordManagementCoreProperties.

    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.pm.webflow.enabled=true
  • Whether webflow auto-configuration should be enabled.

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.core.web.flow.WebflowAutoConfigurationProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

  • cas.authn.pm.webflow.order=0
  • The order in which the webflow is configured.

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.core.web.flow.WebflowAutoConfigurationProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

  • cas.authn.pm.core.auto-login=false
  • Flag to indicate whether successful password change should trigger login automatically.

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.support.pm.PasswordManagementCoreProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

  • cas.authn.pm.core.password-policy-character-set=abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789![]{}()%&*$#^<>~@|
  • The character set that CAS may use to generate and suggest new passwords.

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.support.pm.PasswordManagementCoreProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

  • cas.authn.pm.core.password-policy-password-length=10
  • The password length used by CAS when suggesting generated passwords.

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.support.pm.PasswordManagementCoreProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

  • cas.authn.pm.history.core.enabled=false
  • Flag to indicate if password history tracking is enabled.

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.support.pm.PasswordHistoryCoreProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

  • cas.authn.pm.core.password-policy-pattern=^(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[A-Z])(?=.*\d)(?=.*[$@$!%*?&])[A-Za-z\d$@$!%*?&]{8,10}
  • A String value representing password policy regex pattern. Minimum 8 and Maximum 10 characters at least 1 Uppercase Alphabet, 1 Lowercase Alphabet, 1 Number and 1 Special Character.

    This settings supports regular expression patterns. [?].

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.support.pm.PasswordManagementCoreProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

  • cas.authn.pm.core.password-policy-character-set=abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789![]{}()%&*$#^<>~@|
  • The character set that CAS may use to generate and suggest new passwords.

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.support.pm.PasswordManagementCoreProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

  • cas.authn.pm.core.password-policy-password-length=10
  • The password length used by CAS when suggesting generated passwords.

    org.apereo.cas.configuration.model.support.pm.PasswordManagementCoreProperties.

    How can I configure this property?

    Password Policy Strategies

    If the password policy strategy is to be handed off to a Groovy script, the outline of the script may be as follows:

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    import java.util.*
    import org.ldaptive.auth.*
    import org.apereo.cas.*
    import org.apereo.cas.authentication.*
    import org.apereo.cas.authentication.support.*
    
    List<MessageDescriptor> run(final Object... args) {
        def (response,configuration,logger,applicationContext) = args
        logger.info("Handling password policy [{}] via ${configuration.getAccountStateHandler()}", response)
    
        def accountStateHandler = configuration.getAccountStateHandler()
        return accountStateHandler.handle(response, configuration)
    }
    

    The parameters passed are as follows:

    Parameter Description
    response The LDAP authentication response of type org.ldaptive.auth.AuthenticationResponse
    configuration The LDAP password policy configuration carrying the account state handler defined.
    logger The object responsible for issuing log messages such as logger.info(...).
    applicationContext The Spring ApplicationContext that allows one to interact with the runtime.

    To prepare CAS to support and integrate with Apache Groovy, please review this guide.

    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.

    Password Reset

    Please see this guide for more details.

    Account Management

    CAS may also allow individual end-users to update certain aspects of their account that relate to password management in a mini portal like setup, such as resetting the password or updating security questions, etc. Please see this guide for more details.

    Forgot Username

    To learn more, please see this guide.

    Password History

    To learn more, please see this guide.

    Storage

    User accounts can be found via the following ways.

    Storage Instructions
    JSON See this guide.
    Groovy See this guide.
    LDAP See this guide.
    JDBC See this guide.
    REST See this guide.
    Custom See this guide.