documentation:2.0:ssoaas
Keywords: documentation,2.0,ssoaas

# SSO as a service (SSOaaS)

## Our concept of SSOaaS

Access management provides 3 services:

- Global Authentication: Single Sign-On
- Authorization: to grant authentication is not enough. User rights must be checked
- Accounting: SSO logs (access) + application logs (transactions and results)

LL::NG affords all these services (except application logs of course, but headers are provided to permit this).

Headers setting is an another LL::NG service. LL::NG can provide any user attributes to an application (see Rules and headers)

`*aaS` means that application can drive underlying layer (IaaS for infrastructure, PaaS for platform,…). So for us, `SSOaaS` must provide the ability for an app to manage authorizations and choose user attributes to set. Authentication can not be really “*aaS”: app must just use it, not manage it.

LL::NG affords some features that can be used to provide SSO as a service: a web application can manage its rules and headers. Docker or VM images (Nginx only) includes LL::NG Nginx configuration that aims to a global LL::NG authorization server. By default, all authenticated users can access and one header is set: `Auth-User`. If application gives a RULES_URL parameter that refers to a JSON file, authorization server will read it, apply specified rules and set required headers (see DevOps Handler).

There are two different architectures to do this:

- Using a global FastCGI (or uWSGI) server
- Using front reverse-proxies (some cloud installations use reverse-proxies in front-end)

In both case, Handler type must be set to DevOps.

## Examples of webserver configuration for Docker/VM images

### Using a global FastCGI (or uWSGI) server

#### Nginx

In this example, web server templates (Nginx only) are configured to request authorization from a central FastCGI server:

test-nginx.conf

      server {
        server_name myapp.domain.com;
        location = /lmauth {
          internal;
          include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
          # Pass authorization requests to Central FastCGI server:
          fastcgi_pass 10.1.2.3:9090;
          fastcgi_param VHOSTTYPE DevOps;
          # Drop post datas
          fastcgi_pass_request_body  off;
          fastcgi_param CONTENT_LENGTH "";
          # Keep original hostname
          fastcgi_param HOST $http_host;
          # Keep original request (LLNG server will received /lmauth)
          fastcgi_param X_ORIGINAL_URI  $request_uri;

          # Set dynamically rules (LLNG will poll it every 10 mn)
          fastcgi_param RULES_URL http://rulesserver/my.json
        }
        location /rules.json {
          auth_request off;
          allow 10.1.2.3;
          deny all;
        }
        location ~ ^(.*\.php)$ {
          auth_request /lmauth;
          auth_request_set $lmremote_user $upstream_http_lm_remote_user;
          auth_request_set $lmlocation $upstream_http_location;
          error_page 401 $lmlocation;
          include /etc/lemonldap-ng/nginx-lua-headers.conf;
          ...
          # Example with php-fpm:
          include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
          fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
        }
        location / {
          try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
        }
      }

#### Apache

There is an experimental FactCGI client in LLNG. You just have to install FCGI::Client and add this in your apache2.conf:

apache2.conf

      <VirtualHost ...>
          PerlHeaderParserHandler Lemonldap::NG::Handler::ApacheMP2::FCGIClient
          PerlSetVar LLNG_SERVER 127.0.0.1:9090
          PerlSetVar VHOSTTYPE DevOps
          PerlSetVar RULES_URL http://app.tld/rules.json
          ...
      </VirtualHost>

#### Node.js

Using express and fastcgi-authz-client, you can protect also an Express server. Example:

app.js

      var express = require('express');
      var app = express();
      var FcgiAuthz = require('fastcgi-authz-client');
      var handler = FcgiAuthz({
        host: '127.0.0.1',
        port: 9090,
        PARAMS: {
          RULES_URL: 'http://my-server/rules.json'
        }
      });

      app.use(handler);

      // Simple express application
      app.get('/', function(req, res) {
        return res.send('Hello ' + req.upstreamHeaders['auth-user'] + ' !');
      });

      // Launch server
      app.listen(3000, function() {
        return console.log('Example app listening on port 3000!');
      });

#### Plack application

You just have to enable Plack::Middleware::Auth::FCGI. Simple example:

app.psgi

      use Plack::Builder;

      my $app   = sub {
        my $env = shift;
        my $user = $env->{fcgiauth-auth-user};
        return [ 200, [ 'Content-Type' => 'text/plain' ], [ "Hello $user" ] ];
      };

      # Optionally ($fcgiResponse is the PSGI response of remote FCGI auth server)
      #sub on_reject {
      #    my($self,$env,$fcgiResponse) = @_;
      #    my $statusCode = $fcgiResponse->{status};
      #    ...
      #}

      builder
      {
        enable "Auth::FCGI",
          host => '127.0.0.1',
          port => '9090',
          fcgi_auth_params => {
            RULES_URL => 'https://my-server/my.json',
          },
          # Optional rejection subroutine
          #on_reject => \&on_reject;
          ;
        $app;
      };

### Using front reverse-proxies

This is a simple Nginx configuration file. It looks like a standard LL::NG nginx configuration file except for:

- VHOSTTYPE parameter forced to use DevOps handler
- /rules.json must not be protected by LL::NG but by the web server itself

This configuration handles `*.dev.sso.my.domain` URL and forwards authenticated requests to `<vhost>.internal.domain`. Rules can be defined in `/rules.json` which is located at the website root directory.

test-nginx.conf

      server {
        server_name "~^(?<vhost>.+?)\.dev\.sso\.my\.domain$";
        location = /lmauth {
          internal;
          include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
          fastcgi_pass unix:/home/xavier/dev/lemonldap/e2e-tests/conf/llng-fastcgi.sock;
          # Force handler type:
          fastcgi_param VHOSTTYPE DevOps;
          # Drop post datas
          fastcgi_pass_request_body  off;
          fastcgi_param CONTENT_LENGTH "";
          # Keep original hostname
          fastcgi_param HOST $http_host;
          # Keep original request (LLNG server will received /lmauth)
          fastcgi_param X_ORIGINAL_URI  $request_uri;
        }
        location /rules.json {
          auth_request off;
          allow 127.0.0.0/8;
          deny all;
        }
        location / {
          auth_request /lmauth;
          auth_request_set $lmremote_user $upstream_http_lm_remote_user;
          auth_request_set $lmlocation $upstream_http_location;
          error_page 401 $lmlocation;
          include /etc/lemonldap-ng/nginx-lua-headers.conf;
          proxy_pass https://$vhost.internal.domain;
        }
      }