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Alfresco Application SSO (Header based SSO) Integration

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miniOrange provides secure access to Alfresco for enterprises and full control over access of Alfresco application. Single Sign-On (SSO) solution for Alfresco is a cloud based service. With this service you need only one password for all your web & SaaS apps including Alfresco. miniOrange provides secure access and full control to Alfresco for enterprises and applications. With the help of the given guide you can configure Alfresco easily.

Follow the step-by-step guide given below for Alfresco SSO (Single Sign-On)

1. Configure Alfresco in miniOrange

• Login into miniOrange Admin Console.
• Go to Apps and click on Add Application button.



• In Choose Application Type click on the All Apps dropdown under the OAUTH/OpenID application type.



• Search for Alfresco in the list, if you don't find Alfresco in the list then, search for OAuth2/OpenID Connect and you can set up your application via OAuth2/OpenID Connect.



• In the Basic tab, enter the following details:

Basic Tabs	Description
Application Name:	The pre-selected app from the catalog in this case, Alfresco is automatically filled in.
Custom App Name	Provide a unique name for this app instance to differentiate it from others.
Individual Login Account	Each user logs in with their own unique credentials specific to this application.
Shared Login Account:	All users access the application using the same set of shared credentials configured by the admin.
Show on End User Dashboard	Enabling this option displays the application on the user's dashboard for easy access.
Group Name	Select the group for which you wish to add a this policy. For multiple groups, you can click here to add a multiple/separate policies for each group.
Policy Name	You can give a name for the authentication policy.
Login Method	Select how users authenticate—choose Password for traditional login or Passwordless Login for seamless access.
Enable MFA (Optional)	Toggle to enable 2-Factor Authentication for enhanced login security if required.
Enable Adaptive Authentication (Optional)	Activate this to enforce access based on user’s IP, device, location, and time conditions.




• Click on Save.
• You can edit Application by using the following steps:
• Go to the Apps.
• section from the side menu. From the list of configured apps, locate the app you created. Click the ( ⋮ ) icon next to the app and select the Edit option.



• You can edit any of the above-mentioned details in case you want to change them.

2. Configure Single Sign-On (SSO) into Alfresco

• To enable Single Sign-On (SSO) in Alfresco, the following changes are to be made in: <alfresco_root_folder>\tomcat\shared\classes\alfresco\web-extension\share-config-custom.XML
  
  

  Note:

  • Uncomment the 2nd instance of the following section at the end of the file: <config evaluator="string-compare" condition="Remote"> </config>
  Then add the following lines before the closing </config> tag.
  
  

  <connector>
    <id>alfrescoHeader</id>
    <name>Alfresco Connector</name>
    <description>Connects to an Alfresco instance using header and cookie-based authentication</description>
    <class>org.alfresco.web.site.servlet.SlingshotAlfrescoConnector</class>
    <userHeader>X-Alfresco-Remote-User</userHeader>
  </connector>
  
  <endpoint>
    <id>alfresco</id>
    <name>Alfresco - user access</name>
    <description>Access to Alfresco Repository WebScripts that require user authentication</description>
    <connector-id>alfrescoHeader</connector-id>
    <endpoint-url>http://<alfresco_base_url>/alfresco/wcs</endpoint-url>   
    <identity>user</identity>
    <external-auth>true</external-auth>
  </endpoint>
  

• The following changes are to be made in: <alfresco_root_folder>\tomcat\shared\classes\alfresco-global.properties
  

  ### EXTERNAL AUTHENTICATION ###
  authentication.chain=external1:external
  external.authentication.proxyUserName=
  external.authentication.enabled=true
  external.authentication.defaultAdministratorUserNames=admin
  external.authentication.proxyHeader=X-Alfresco-Remote-User
  

3. The following changes are to be made in Nginx server:

• The following changes are to be made in alfresco.conf file.

# HTTP server

server {
listen                80;
server_name  alfresco.example.com;
error_page 401 = @error401;

location @error401 {
return 302 http://<base_url_of_http_connector>/httpauth/sso;
}

location / {
  auth_request /auth;
  proxy_set_header X-Alfresco-Remote-User $cookie_MO_REMOTE_USER;
  #add_header X-Alfresco-Remote-User $cookie_MO_REMOTE_USER;
  #proxy_set_header   X-Alfresco-Remote-User admin;
  #add_header              X-Alfresco-Remote-User admin;
  proxy_pass http://<localhost:port_for_alfresco>;
}

location = /auth {
internal;
proxy_pass  http://<localhost:port_for_http_connector>/siebelauth/check;
}
}

• The following changes are to be made in HttpAuth.conf file.

# HTTP server
server {
  listen                80;
  server_name   <base_url_for_http_connector>;
  location / {
      proxy_pass  http://<localhost:port_for_http_connector>;
  }
}

OAuth Properties:

redirect.uri	http://<http_oauth_connector_base_url>/httpauth/redirect
client.id	Client Id value
client.secret	Client Secret value

• Siebel CRM properties

  Application.properties (OAuth Connector)

  siebel.cookie.name=MO_REMOTE_USER
  siebel.cookie.path=/
  siebel.cookie.domain=example.com
  siebel.app.url=http://alfresco.example.com
  
  

4. Adaptive Authentication with Alfresco

A. Restricting access to Alfresco with IP Blocking

You can use adaptive authentication with Alfresco Single Sign-On (SSO) to improve the security and functionality of Single Sign-On. You can allow a IP Address in certain range for SSO or you can deny it based your requirements and you can also challenge the user to verify his authenticity. Adaptive authentication manages the user authentication bases on different factors such as Device ID, Location, Time of Access, IP Address and many more.

You can configure Adaptive Authentication with IP Blocking in following way:

• Login to Self Service Console >> Adaptive Authentication.
• Add a Policy Name for your Adaptive Authentication Policy.



• Select your Action for behavior Change and Challenge Type for user from the Action for behavior Change Section.





Action for behavior Change Options :




Attribute	Description
Allow	Allow user to authenticate and use services if Adaptive authentication condition is true.
Challenge	Challenge users with one of the three methods mentioned below for verifying user authenticity.
Deny	Deny user authentications and access to services if Adaptive authentication condition is true.




Challenge Type Options :




Attribute	Description
User second Factor	The User needs to authenticate using the second factor he has opted or assigned for such as OTP over SMS PUSH Notification OTP over Email And 12 more methods.
KBA (Knowledge-based authentication)	The System will ask user for 2 of 3 questions he has configured in his Self Service Console. Only after right answer to both questions user is allowed to proceed further.
OTP over Alternate Email	User will receive a OTP on the alternate email he has configured threw Self Service Console. Once user provides the correct OTP he is allowed to proceed further.



• Now Enable Enable IP Restriction option from the IP RESTRICTION CONFIGURATION section to configure custom IP range.



• Select the Action you want to perform if the IP address is out of the range. i.e. Allow, Challenge & Deny.
• Specify the IP Address range for which you want above setting to reflect. You can add more than one IP Address ranges by clicking on following button +.
• Scroll to the end and click on save.

B. Adaptive Authentication with Limiting number of devices.

Using Adaptive Authentication you can also restrict the number of devices the end user can access the Services on. You can allow end users to access services on a fixed no. of devices. The end users will be able to access services provided by us on this fixed no. of devices.

You can configure Adaptive Authentication with Device Restriction in following way


• Login to Self Service Console >> Adaptive Authentication.
• Add a Policy Name for your Adaptive Authentication Policy.
• Select your Action for behavior Change and Challenge Type for user from the Action for behavior Change Section.




• Scroll down to Device Configuration section and enable Allow User to Register Device option to allow users to register their devices.
• Enter the Number of Devices which are allowed to register in field next to Number of Device Registrations Allowed
• Choose Action if number of devices exceeded (This will override your setting for Action for behavior Change.)
1. Challenge: The user needs to verify himself using any of the three methods mentioned in table in step 4.1
2. Deny : Deny users access to the system
• Enable option Send email alerts to Users if number of Device registrations exceeded allowed count if you want to alert the user about no of devices exceeding the limit. Save the configuration.

C. Add Adaptive Authentication policy to Alfresco.

• Login to Self Service Console >> Policies.
• Click on Edit option for predefined app policy.



• Set your application name in the Application and select password as Login Method.
• Enable Adaptive Authentication on Policy page and select the required restriction method as an option.
• From Select Login Policy dropdown select the policy we created in last step and click on save.

D.Notification and Alert Message.

This section handles the notifications and alerts related to Adaptive Authentication.It provides the following options :

• Get email alerts if users login from unknown devices or locations : Admin need to enable this option to enable receiving alerts for different alert options.
  
  
  

Option	Description
Challenge Completed and Device Registered	Enabling this option allows you to send an email alert when an end-user completes a challenge and registers a device.
Challenge Completed but Device Not Registered	Enabling this option allows you to send an email alert when an end-user completes a challenge but do not registers the device.
Challenge Failed	Enabling this option allows you to send an email alert when an end-user fails to complete the challenge.






• Next subsection is Send email alerts which allows us to enable or disable alerts for admin and end-users. To enable alerts for admins, you can enable the “Administrators” switch button.




• In case you want multiple admins accounts to receive alerts then you can enable the option for admin and then enter the admin emails separated by a ‘,’ in the input field next to Administrators email to receive alerts label. To enable alerts for the end-users, you can enable the “End Users” switch button.
• In case you want to customize the deny message that end user receive in case his authentication denied due to adaptive policy, you can do this by entering the message inside “Deny message for Adaptive Authentication” text box.


How to add a trusted Device

1. When End-user log in to the self service console after the policy for device restriction is on, he is provided the option to add the current device as a trusted device.

External References

• miniOrange SSO Solution
• SSO Integration for other Applications