keycloak-scim/topics/authentication/kerberos.adoc

[[_kerberos]]

=== Kerberos

{{book.project.name}} supports login with a Kerberos ticket through the SPNEGO protocol.
SPNEGO (Simple and Protected GSSAPI Negotiation Mechanism) is used to authenticate transparently through the web browser after the user
has been authenticated when logging-in his session.
For non-web cases or when ticket is not available during login, {{book.project.name}} also supports login with Kerberos username/password.

A typical use case for web authentication is the following: 

. User logs into his desktop (Such as a Windows machine in Active Directory domain or Linux machine with Kerberos integration enabled). 
. User then uses his browser (IE/Firefox/Chrome) to access a web application secured by {{book.project.name}}.
. Application redirects to {{book.project.name}} login.
. {{book.project.name}} renders HTML login screen together with status 401 and HTTP header `WWW-Authenticate: Negotiate`
. In case that the browser has Kerberos ticket from desktop login, it transfers the desktop sign on information to the {{book.project.name}}
  in header `Authorization: Negotiate 'spnego-token'` . Otherwise it just displays the login screen.
. {{book.project.name}} validates token from the browser and authenticates the user.
  It provisions user data from LDAP (in case of LDAPFederationProvider with Kerberos authentication support) or let user
  to update his profile and prefill data (in case of KerberosFederationProvider).
. {{book.project.name}} returns back to the application.
  Communication between {{book.project.name}} and application happens through OpenID Connect or SAML messages.
  The fact that {{book.project.name}} was authenticated through Kerberos is hidden from the application.
  So {{book.project.name}} acts as broker to Kerberos/SPNEGO login.

For setup there are 3 main parts: 

. Setup and configuration of Kerberos server (KDC) 
. Setup and configuration of {{book.project.name}} server
. Setup and configuration of client machines     

==== Setup of Kerberos server

This is platform dependent.
Exact steps depend on your OS and the Kerberos vendor you're going to use.
Consult Windows Active Directory, MIT Kerberos and your OS documentation for how exactly to setup and configure Kerberos server. 

At least you will need to: 

* Add some user principals to your Kerberos database.
  You can also integrate your Kerberos with LDAP, which means that user accounts will be provisioned from LDAP server. 
* Add service principal for "HTTP" service.
  For example if your {{book.project.name}} server will be running on `www.mydomain.org` you may need to add principal `HTTP/www.mydomain.org@MYDOMAIN.ORG`
  assuming that MYDOMAIN.ORG will be your Kerberos realm.
+
For example on MIT Kerberos you can run "kadmin" session.
If you are on same machine where is MIT Kerberos, you can simply use command: 

[source]
----
sudo kadmin.local
----                        
Then add HTTP principal and export his key to keytab file with the commands like: 

[source]
----

addprinc -randkey HTTP/www.mydomain.org@MYDOMAIN.ORG
ktadd -k /tmp/http.keytab HTTP/www.mydomain.org@MYDOMAIN.ORG
----                        

Keytab file `/tmp/http.keytab` will need to be accessible on the host where {{book.project.name}} server will be running.
        
==== Setup and configuration of {{book.project.name}} server

You need to install a kerberos client on your machine.  This is also platform dependent.
If you are on Fedora, Ubuntu or RHEL, you can install package `freeipa-client`, which contains Kerberos client and bunch of other stuff.
Configure kerberos client (on linux it's in file `/etc/krb5.conf` ). You need to put your Kerberos realm and at least configure the Http domains your server will be running on.
For the example realm MYDOMAIN.ORG you may configure `domain_realm` section like this: 

[source]
----
[domain_realm]
  .mydomain.org = MYDOMAIN.ORG
  mydomain.org = MYDOMAIN.ORG
----             
   
Next you need to export the keytab file with the HTTP principal and make sure the file is accessible to the process under which {{book.project.name}} server is running.
For production, it's ideal if it's readable just by this process and not by someone else.
For MIT Kerberos example above, we already exported keytab to `/tmp/http.keytab` . If your KDC and {{book.project.name}} are running on same host, you have file already available.

Next you need to run the {{book.project.name}} server and configure SPNEGO/Kerberos authentication in {{book.project.name}} admin console.
{{book.project.name}} supports Kerberos authentication through <<_user_federation,Federation provider SPI>> . We have 2 federation providers with Kerberos authentication support:

Kerberos::
  This provider is useful if you want to authenticate with Kerberos `NOT` backed by aLDAP server.
  In this case, users are usually created in the {{book.project.name}} database after first successful SPNEGO/Kerberos login
  and they may need to update profile after first login, as Kerberos protocol itself doesn't provision any data like first name, last name or email.

LDAP::
  This provider is useful if you want to authenticate with Kerberos backed by LDAP server.
  In this case, data about users are provisioned from LDAP server after successful Kerberos authentication.

Finally you may need to check the Kerberos authenticator correctly configured.
You can go to `Authentication` tab in admin console and select `Browser` flow.
Here you will see `Kerberos` authenticator, which is used by {{book.project.name}} for SPNEGO handshake with client (exchange `Negotiate` header etc.).
By default it's disabled, so {{book.project.name}} doesn't ask for the Negotiate header, however once you configured federation provider in previous step,
it's automatically switched to _alternative_.
You should make sure that it is switched to _alternative_.

image:../../{{book.images}}/kerberos-browser-flow.png[]

_Alternative_ means that {{book.project.name}} tries to ask the browser for Negotiate header, but if it's not available,
it will continue on to next authenticator (which usually means displaying username/password form to user).
You can switch the Kerberos authentication type to _required_ if you want to enforce login with kerberos ticket and not allow any fallback to the username/password form.


==== Setup and configuration of client machines

Clients need to install kerberos client and setup krb5.conf as described above.
Additionally they need to enable SPNEGO login support in their browser.
See link:http://www.microhowto.info/howto/configure_firefox_to_authenticate_using_spnego_and_kerberos.html[configuring Firefox for Kerberos] if you are using that browser.
URI `.mydomain.org` must be allowed in `network.negotiate-auth.trusted-uris` config option.

In windows domain, clients usually don't need to configure anything special as IE is already able to participate in SPNEGO authentication for the windows domain. 

{% if book.community %}
==== Example setups

For easier testing with Kerberos, we provided some example setups to test. 

===== {{book.project.name}} and FreeIPA docker image

Once you install https://www.docker.com/[docker], you can run docker image with http://www.freeipa.org/[FreeIPA]         server installed.
FreeIPA provides integrated security solution with MIT Kerberos and 389 LDAP server among other things . The image provides also {{book.project.name}}
server configured with LDAP Federation provider and enabled SPNEGO/Kerberos authentication against the FreeIPA server.
See details https://github.com/mposolda/keycloak-freeipa-docker/blob/master/README.md[here] . 

===== ApacheDS testing Kerberos server

For quick testing and unit tests, we use very simple http://directory.apache.org/apacheds/[ApacheDS] Kerberos server.
You need to build {{book.project.name}} from sources and then run Kerberos server with maven-exec-plugin from our testsuite.
See details https://github.com/keycloak/keycloak/blob/master/misc/Testsuite.md#kerberos-server[here] .
{% endif %}

==== Credential delegation

Kerberos 5 supports the concept of credential delegation.  In this scenario, your applications may want access to the Kerberos ticket so that
they can re-use it to interact with other services secured by Kerberos.  Since the SPNEGO protocol is processed in the {{book.project.name}} server,
you have to propagate the GSS credential to your application
within the  OpenID Connect token claim or a SAML assertion attribute that is transmitted to your application from the {{book.project.name}} server.
To have this claim inserted into the token or assertion, each application will need to enable the built-in protocol mapper called `gss delegation credential`.
This is enabled in the `Mappers` tab of the application's
client page.  See <<fake/../../clients/protocol-mappers.adoc#_protocol-mappers, Protocol Mappers>> chapter for more details.

Applications will ned to deserialize the claim it receives from {{book.project.name}} before it can use it to make GSS calls against other services.
We have an example, that shows this in detail.
It's in `examples/kerberos` in the {{book.project.name}} example distribution or demo distribution download.
You can also check the example sources directly https://github.com/keycloak/keycloak/blob/master/examples/kerberos[here] . 

Once you deserialize the credential from the access token to the GSSCredential object, then GSSContext will need to be created with this credential
passed to the method `GSSManager.createContext` for example like this:

[source]
----
GSSContext context = gssManager.createContext(serviceName, krb5Oid,
    deserializedGssCredFromKeycloakAccessToken, GSSContext.DEFAULT_LIFETIME);
----        

Note that you also need to configure `forwardable` kerberos tickets in `krb5.conf` file and add support for delegated credentials to your browser.
For details, see the kerberos example from {{book.project.name}} examples set as mentioned above.

WARNING: Credential delegation has some security implications so only use it if you really need it.
         It's highly recommended to use it together with HTTPS.
         See for example http://www.microhowto.info/howto/configure_firefox_to_authenticate_using_spnego_and_kerberos.html#idp27072[this article] for more details.

==== Troubleshooting

If you have issues, we recommend that you enable additional logging to debug the problem:

* Enable `Debug` flag in admin console for Kerberos or LDAP federation providers 
* Enable TRACE logging for category `org.keycloak` in logging section of `$WILDFLY_HOME/standalone/configuration/standalone.xml` to receive more info `$WILDFLY_HOME/standalone/log/server.log`                    
* Add system properties `-Dsun.security.krb5.debug=true` and `-Dsun.security.spnego.debug=true`