WORKERS AHEAD!
You are viewing the development documentation for the Apereo CAS server. The functionality presented here is not officially released yet. This is a work in progress and will be continually updated as development moves forward. You are most encouraged to test the changes presented.
Clustered Deployments
CAS uses the Spring Cloud Bus to manage configuration in a distributed deployment. Spring Cloud Bus links nodes of a distributed system with a lightweight message broker. This can then be used to broadcast state changes (e.g. configuration changes) or other management instructions.
The bus supports sending messages to all nodes listening. Broadcasted events will attempt to update, refresh and reload each CAS server application’s configuration.
If CAS nodes are not sharing a central location for configuration properties such that each node contains a copy of the settings, any changes you make to one node must be replicated and synced across all nodes so they are persisted on disk. The broadcast mechanism noted above only applies changes to the runtime and the running CAS instance. Ideally, you should be keeping track of CAS settings in a shared (git) repository (or better yet, inside a private GitHub repository perhaps) where you make a change in one place and it’s broadcasted to all nodes. This model removes the need for synchronizing changes across disks and CAS nodes.CAS uses the Spring Cloud Bus to manage configuration in a distributed deployment. Spring Cloud Bus links nodes of a distributed system with a lightweight message broker.
The following settings and properties are available from the CAS configuration catalog:
spring.cloud.bus.ack.destination-service=
Service that wants to listen to acks. By default null (meaning all services). |
spring.cloud.bus.ack.enabled=true
Flag to switch off acks (default on). |
spring.cloud.bus.content-type=
The bus mime-type. |
spring.cloud.bus.destination=
Name of Spring Cloud Stream destination for messages. |
spring.cloud.bus.enabled=true
Flag to indicate that the bus is enabled. |
spring.cloud.bus.env.enabled=true
Flag to switch off environment change events (default on). |
spring.cloud.bus.id=application
The identifier for this application instance. |
spring.cloud.bus.refresh.enabled=true
Flag to switch off refresh events (default on). |
spring.cloud.bus.trace.enabled=false
Flag to switch on tracing of acks (default off). |
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. 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 following endpoints are provided by Spring Cloud: