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Logging in to WSO2 Products via the Identity Server

Owned by Former user (Deleted)
Jan 11, 2018
6 min read

When using multiple products of the WSO2 in a deployment, you need to log in to the management console of each and every product. This can be an overhead and a waste of time. Hence, it is useful to configure single sign-on for all the WSO2 products in the deployment and obtain access to all by providing credentials only once.

Applies to:

By default, all WSO2 servers start in the HTTPS port 9443 and HTTP port 9763. Therefore, when you run multiple WSO2 servers you must change the default ports so that there would be no port conflicts. So you must do the following port allocations for this scenario:

  • IS runs in https port 9443 (default)
  • AS runs in https port 9444 (offset = 1)
  • ESB runs in https port 9445 (offset = 2)
  • G-Reg runs in https port 9446 (offset = 3)

By default, WSO2 servers use basic authentication for authentication. However, in a Single-Sign-On (SSO) environment, you must use SAML-based authentication to authenticate users to WSO2 servers. The following needs to be done in order to enable SSO:

Before you begin

For single sign-on to work, you need to configure the WSO2 products to share a common user store. For more information on configuring this, see Configuring the Primary User Store.

Configuring WSO2 Application Server

There are two main configurations to be done in the WSO2 Application Server. These are changing the port configuration and changing the configuration in the <PRODUCT_HOME>/repository/conf/security/authenticators.xml file.

Port configuration

  1. Download the WSO2 Application Server from here.
  2. Extract the .zip file. This unzipped folder is referred to as <AS_HOME> in this topic.
  3. Navigate to the <AS_HOME>/repository/conf/carbon.xml file in the unzipped folder. 
  4. Open the carbon.xml file and search for the following configuration: <offset>0</offset>
  5. Change the offset value from 0 to 1.
  6. Save the carbon.xml file and close it.

Authenticators configuration

  1. Navigate to the <AS_HOME>/repository/conf/security/authenticators.xml file. 

  2. Open the authenticators.xml file and set the "disabled" attribute value to "false" for the SAML2SSOAuthenticator configuration.

    Additional Configuration

    When the cluster is hosted on the cloud or on a remote server, the  IdentityProviderSSOServiceURL tag must be changed in the<PRODUCT_HOME>/repository/conf/security/authenticators.xml file. This should point to the host URL of the load balancer of the cluster. This is done because the authentication is done by the WSO2 Identity Server cluster and the load balancer will decide where the authentication request is sent to.

    From WSO2 Identity Server 5.0.0 onwards, there are different SAML endpoints for each tenant. If the service provider calls the identity provider's SAML endpoint URL as https://is.com:9443/samlsso?tenantDomain=foo.com or the issuer name is appended with @<TenantDomain> like travelocity.com@foo.com, the SAML requests are directed to the foo.com tenant.

    The VerifySignatureWithUserDomain parameter is used to make the most recent Carbon-based products switch behaviour to expect SAML responses in the previous way. I.e., if this is set as true, it means that the SAML response is verified with the tenant's key that the authenticated user is belongs to. If it is set to false it means that the SAML response is verified with the tenant's key to which the SAML request is directed to. This can be set in the <PRODUCT_HOME>/repository/conf/security/authenticators.xml  file.


    <Parameter name="VerifySignatureWithUserDomain">true</Parameter>

Configuring WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus

Similar to the WSO2 Application Server, configure the port and the authenticator of the WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus.

Port configuration

  1. Download the WSO2 ESB from here and extract it. This unzipped folder is referred to as <ESB_HOME> in this topic.
  2. Similar to the WSO2 Application Server, open the <ESB_HOME>/repository/conf/carbon.xml file and change the port offset to 2.

Authenticators configuration

  1. Follow the exact same steps done for the WSO2 Application Server and enable the SAML2SSOAuthenticator in the <ESB_HOME>/repository/conf/security/authenticators.xml file.

  2. Change the ServiceProviderID. This ID is used by the Identity Server to identify the ESB's requests. Change this value to carbonServer2.

    Additional Configuration

    When the cluster is hosted on the cloud or on a remote server, the  IdentityProviderSSOServiceURL tag must be changed in the<PRODUCT_HOME>/repository/conf/security/authenticators.xml file. This should point to the host URL of the load balancer of the cluster. This is done because the authentication is done by the WSO2 Identity Server cluster and the load balancer will decide where the authentication request is sent to.

    From WSO2 Identity Server 5.0.0 onwards, there are different SAML endpoints for each tenant. If the service provider calls the identity provider's SAML endpoint URL as https://is.com:9443/samlsso?tenantDomain=foo.com or the issuer name is appended with @<TenantDomain> liketravelocity.com@foo.com, the SAML requests are directed to the foo.com tenant.

    The VerifySignatureWithUserDomain parameter is used to make the most recent Carbon-based products switch behaviour to expect SAML responses in the previous way. I.e., if this is set as true, it means that the SAML response is verified with the tenant's key that the authenticated user is belongs to. If it is set to false it means that the SAML response is verified with the tenant's key to which the SAML request is directed to. This can be set in the <PRODUCT_HOME>/repository/conf/security/authenticators.xml  file.

    Parameter name="VerifySignatureWithUserDomain">true</Parameter>

Configuring WSO2 Governance Registry

Port configuration

  1. Download the WSO2 Governance Registry from here.
  2. Set the port offset to 3.

Authenticators configuration

  • Follow the exact same steps done for other WSO2 products and enable the SAML2SSOAuthenticator in the <G-REG_HOME>/repository/conf/security/authenticators.xml file. Also change the ServiceProviderID value to carbonServer3.

Configuring WSO2 Identity Server

  1. Download the WSO2 Identity Server from here.
  2. Extract the .zip file.
  3. Open a terminal and navigate to the <IS_HOME>/bin folder.
  4. Start the Identity Server using the wso2server.sh file in Unix or wso2server.bat file in Windows.
  5. Once the server is started, visit the following URL:  https://localhost:9443/carbon/
  6. Sign in to the WSO2 Identity Server. Enter your username and password to log on to the Management Console. 
  7. Navigate to the Main menu to access the Identity menu. Click Add under Service Providers.

  8. Fill in the Service Provider Name and provide a brief Description of the service provider in the resulting screen. If the service provider configuration is used by tenants as well, you must select the SaaS Application checkbox.

    Icon

    Tip: By default, the SaaS Application checkbox is disabled, which means the web application is not shared among tenants so only users in the current tenant (the one you use to define the service provider) will be allowed to log into the web application. Alternatively, if you enabled the SaaS Application checkbox, that means this web application is shared among tenants so users from any tenant will be allowed to log into the web application. For example, if there are three tenants, namely TA, TB and TC and the service provider is registered and configured only in TA.

    • If the SaaS Application configuration is disabled, only users in TA are able to log into the web application.

    • If the SaaS Application configuration is enabled, all TA, TB, TC users are able to log into the web application.

  9. Expand the SAML2 Web SSO Configuration under Inbound Authentication Configuration.
  10. Click Configure. Fill in the form that appears. 
  11. Fill up this page with the following configurations. You must register different service providers for WSO2 Application Server, WSO2 ESB and WSO2 Governance Registry.

    1. Use the following configurations for WSO2 Application Server and add them to the relevant sections in the New Service Provider screen:

      Issuer: carbonServer

      Assertion Consumer URL: https://localhost:9444/acs

      Use fully qualified username in the NameID

      Enable Response Signing

      Enable Assertion Signing

      Enable Single Logout

    2. Use the following values to register the WSO2 ESB:

      Issuer : carbonServer2

      Assertion Consumer URL : https://localhost:9445/acs

      Use fully qualified username in the NameID

      Enable Response Signing

      Enable Assertion Signing

      Enable Single Logout

    3. Use the following values to register the WSO2 Governance Registry.

      Issuer : carbonServer3

      Assertion Consumer URL : https://localhost:9446/acs

      Use fully qualified username in the NameID

      Enable Response Signing

      Enable Assertion Signing

      Enable Single Logout

    4. Make a note of the following when you are using tenant configurations. This can be done in all the WSO2 Carbon servers.

      Additional configurations

      Icon

      If you need to sign the SAML response using an authenticated user's tenant keystore, please add the following configuration. (By default, the response is signed using the certificate that belongs to the tenant where the service provider is registered). This property must be added if the SAML authenticator version in the WSO2 Carbon products that you are using is 4.2.2 or higher (org.wso2.carbon.identity.authenticator.saml2.sso_4.2.2.jar).

      Add the <UseAuthenticatedUserDomainCrypto> property available in the <IS_HOME>/repository/conf/identity.xml file as shown below.


      < SSOService >
      ...
           < UseAuthenticatedUserDomainCrypto >true</ UseAuthenticatedUserDomainCrypto >
      </ SSOService >


      The above configuration is an alternative to the VerifySignatureWithUserDomain property in the<PRODUCT_HOME>/repository/conf/security/authenticators.xml  file.

  12. Under the Local & Outbound Authentication Configuration you can configure different authentication mechanisms you like to enforce. For example you can configure a authentication chain and enable Multi-factor authentication for WSO2 Products.

  13. Click Register to save the values and register each service provider created.

Configuring WSO2 API Manager

For more information on configuring IS as the identity provider in WSO2 API Manager, see Configuring Identity Server as IDP for SSO.

Testing the SSO Environment

Now that all the required configurations are done, test the SSO environment.

  1. Access the Application Server: https://localhost:9444/carbon/
  2. You are redirected to the Identity Server for authentication. After successful authentication you are redirected back and logged into the Application Server.
  3. Access the ESB using the URL https://localhost:9445/carbon/. You are directly logged into ESB without any authentication challenge.
  4. Access the Governance Registry using the URL https://localhost:9446/carbon/. You are logged into G-Reg directly without any authentication challenge.
  5. Test the Single Sign Out,
    1. Log out from WSO2 Application Server. You are redirected to the SSO authentication page.
    2. Now you should be logged out from ESB and Governance Registry as well. Try accessing them.