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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 Configuration

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 Policy.



• Add a Policy Name for your Adative Authentication Policy.
• Select Action for Behavior Change, click the Edit link, and then choose the appropriate Action and Challenge Type for the user from that section.





Action for behavior Change Options :




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




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, many more.
KBA (Knowledge-based authentication)	The System will ask the user for 2 of 3 questions he has configured in his Self-Service Console. Only after the right answer to both questions is the user allowed to proceed further.
OTP over Alternate Email	User will receive an OTP on the alternate email they have configured through the Self Service Console. Once the user provides the correct OTP, they are allowed to proceed further.



• Now click Edit option from the IP Configuration section to configure custom IP range.
• Select Add IP if the User's IP Address is not in the configured list.
• Specify the IP Address that you want to whitelist. For the IP Range other than the whitelisted one, you can select the above setting to reflect.
• Choose either allow or deny by selecting the corresponding option from the dropdown.
• If a user tries to login with the whitelisted IP address, they will always be allowed access.
• We support IP address range in three formats i.e., IPv4, IPv4 CIDR, and IPv6 CIDR. You can choose whichever is suitable for you from the dropdown menu.
• You can add multiple IPs or IP ranges by clicking the + Add IP button.



• Once the changes are made, scroll down 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 Policy.
• 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.



• On the Add Policy tab, go to the Device Configuration section and click the Edit button.
• Enter the Number of Device Registrations Allowed as per your requirement. (2-3 devices are recommended.)
• Choose Action if number of devices exceeded (This will override your setting for Action for behavior Change.)
• Challenge: The user needs to verify himself using any of the three methods mentioned in table in step 5.1
• Deny : Deny users access to the system
• Enable Mobile Device Restriction to block logins from mobile devices. This ensures all login attempts from mobile devices will be declined.
• Enable MAC Address Based Restriction if you want to restrict access based on device MAC address.



• Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Save.

C. Add Adaptive Authentication policy to Alfresco

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



• Set your policy in the Policy Name and select Password as First Factor.
• Enable Adaptive Authentication on Edit Login 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 Submit.

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: Admins need to enable this option to enable receiving alerts for different alert options.
  
  
  

Option	Description
Users login from unknown IP addresses, devices or locations	Enabling this option allows you to login from unknown IP addresses or devices and even locations.
Number of Device registrations exceeded allowed count	This option will allow you to register more devices than the devices you have numbered.
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 checkbox.



• In case you want multiple admin 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 Administrator’s email to receive alerts label. To enable alerts for the end users, you can enable the End User checkbox.
• In case you want to customize the deny message that the end user receives in case his authentication is denied due to adaptive policy, you can do this by entering the message inside Deny Message text box.

How to add a trusted Device

• 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