APEREO CASDocumentation

Enterprise Authentication for All Earthlings and Beyond

Identity, Single Sign-On and Access Management
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Apache Geode Ticket Registry

Apache Geode integration is enabled by including the following dependency in the WAR overlay:

Show in CAS Initializr Generate CAS Server WAR Overlay 


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<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apereo.cas</groupId>
    <artifactId>cas-server-support-geode-ticket-registry</artifactId>
    <version>${cas.version}</version>
</dependency>





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implementation "org.apereo.cas:cas-server-support-geode-ticket-registry:${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-geode-ticket-registry"
}





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dependencies {
    /*
        The following platform references are included automatically and are listed 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)
        
    */
    implementation "org.apereo.cas:cas-server-support-geode-ticket-registry"
}

This registry stores tickets in an Apache Geode instance. On startup, CAS created dedicated regions in REPLICATED mode for each ticket type. Additional indexes are created on ticket documents stored to improve performance.

Replication

With REPLICATED mode, the entire dataset in that region is copied and stored on every participating member that hosts the region. Any change made to the region (such as a put or update) is propagated to all members. Since every member holds an identical copy of the data, read operations can be performed locally on any member, and the data is consistent across the cluster. This makes replicated regions particularly useful for read-intensive applications where having low-latency, local access to all the data is important.

This option provides the following advantages:

  • As every member has the complete dataset, reads are extremely fast because they occur locally without the need for inter-node communication.
  • Data is available on all nodes. If one node fails, other nodes still have the entire dataset, ensuring high availability.
  • Queries that involve looking up data from the entire dataset are simplified because the full data is present locally on each member.

You should also note that with this mode:

  • Since the data is fully replicated on every node, the memory footprint multiplies with the number of nodes. This approach is best suited for datasets that are moderate in size.
  • Every write operation (such as an update or insert) must be propagated to all members, which can incur additional network overhead and latency, especially as the size of the cluster increases.
  • REPLICATED mode is most beneficial in scenarios where the workload is primarily read-heavy and the size of the dataset remains manageable.

Configuration

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

cas.ticket.registry.geode.crypto.encryption.keyThe encryption key.
no default
Required

The encryption key. The encryption key by default and unless specified otherwise must be randomly-generated string whose length is defined by the encryption key size setting.

Type
String
Default
none
Defined by
EncryptionRandomizedCryptoProperties
cas.ticket.registry.geode.crypto.signing.keyThe signing key is a string whose length is defined by the signing key size setting.
no default
RequiredSpEL

The signing key is a string whose length is defined by the signing key size setting.

Type
String
Default
none
Defined by
SigningJwtCryptoProperties
Supports
Spring Expression Language
cas.ticket.registry.geode.crypto.algThe signing/encryption algorithm to use.
AES

The signing/encryption algorithm to use.

Type
String
Default
AES
Defined by
EncryptionRandomizedSigningJwtCryptographyProperties
cas.ticket.registry.geode.crypto.enabledWhether crypto operations are enabled.
true

Whether crypto operations are enabled.

Type
Boolean
Default
true
Defined by
EncryptionRandomizedSigningJwtCryptographyProperties
cas.ticket.registry.geode.crypto.encryption.key-sizeEncryption key size.
16

Encryption key size.

Type
Integer
Default
16
Defined by
EncryptionRandomizedCryptoProperties
cas.ticket.registry.geode.crypto.signing-enabledWhether signing encryption operations are enabled.
true

Whether signing encryption operations are enabled.

Type
Boolean
Default
true
Defined by
EncryptionRandomizedSigningJwtCryptographyProperties
cas.ticket.registry.geode.crypto.signing.key-sizeThe signing key size.
512

The signing key size.

Type
Integer
Default
512
Defined by
SigningJwtCryptoProperties
cas.ticket.registry.geode.locatorsWhen a Geode member starts up, it contacts one or more locators.
localhost[10334]

When a Geode member starts up, it contacts one or more locators. The locator(s) maintain a list of all live members and help new members discover one another. They manage the membership view and broadcast updates when nodes join or leave the cluster. The locator acts as a bootstrap service. A member that does not yet know about the rest of the cluster can reach out to the locator to obtain the current membership list and configuration details. This is particularly useful when multicast is disabled (commonly the case in many environments), and static locator configuration is required.

Locators continuously monitor the health of the cluster members. If a member becomes unresponsive, the locator updates the membership view, which can trigger re-balancing or other recovery actions. Specify one or more locators in host[port] format. Multiple locators can be comma separated. A blank value or none disables the locator support.

You typically disable multicast by settings its port to zero to rely exclusively on locators for discovery. This ensures that all members explicitly contact the known locator addresses.

For a real cluster, you’ll usually start locators as separate processes using Geode’s command-line tool, gfsh.

Type
String
Default
localhost[10334]
Defined by
GeodeProperties
cas.ticket.registry.geode.multicast-portMembers broadcast their presence over the multicast group so that any new or existing member on the same network can detect them automatically.
0

Members broadcast their presence over the multicast group so that any new or existing member on the same network can detect them automatically. The multicast mechanism helps build the initial membership view of the cluster and continuously updates it as nodes join or leave, which simplifies the network configuration in environments where nodes are frequently added or removed. You typically disable multicast by settings its port to zero.

Type
Integer
Default
0
Defined by
GeodeProperties

Required settings may be needed to activate or affect the feature; review them even when they have a default. Optional settings only need to be set to change a default or to turn on the behavior they control. Third party settings belong to libraries such as Spring Boot that CAS builds on; their own documentation may have more detail.

Signing & encryption

This CAS feature is able to accept signing and encryption crypto keys. In most scenarios if keys are not provided, CAS will auto-generate them. The following instructions apply if you wish to manually and beforehand create the signing and encryption keys.

Note that if you are asked to create a JWK of a certain size for the key, you are to use the following set of commands to generate the token:



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wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apereo/cas/master/etc/jwk-gen.jar
java -jar jwk-gen.jar -t oct -s [size]

The outcome would be similar to:



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{
  "kty": "oct",
  "kid": "...",
  "k": "..."
}

The generated value for k needs to be assigned to the relevant CAS settings. Note that keys generated via the above algorithm are processed by CAS using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm which is a specification for the encryption of electronic data established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Notes on configuration

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, especially 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.