Apache Geode CHANGELOG

Implementing Authentication

Authentication lends a measure of security to a cluster by verifying the identity of components as they connect to the system. All components use the same authentication mechanism.

How Authentication Works

When a component initiates a connection to the cluster, the SecurityManager.authenticate method is invoked. The component provides its credentials in the form of properties as a parameter to the authenticate method. The credential is presumed to be the two properties security-username and security-password. The authenticate method is expected to either return an object representing a principal or throw an AuthenticationFailedException.

A well-designed authenticate method will have a set of known user and password pairs that can be compared to the credential presented or will have a way of obtaining those pairs.

How a Server Sets Its Credential

In order to connect with a locator that does authentication, a server will need to set its credential, composed of the two properties security-username and security-password. Choose one of these two ways to accomplish this:

Set security-username and security-password in the server’s gfsecurity.properties file that will be read upon server start up, as in the example
```
security-username=admin
security-password=xyz1234
```
The user name and password are stored in cleartext, so the gfsecurity.properties file must be protected by restricting access with file system permissions.
Implement AuthInitialize interface for the server.
- Set the property security-peer-auth-init, so that an object of the class that implements the AuthInitialize interface will be instantiated. Set the property to one of these two values:
  - Set property security-peer-auth-init to the fully-qualified class name that implements the AuthInitialize interface as in the example
```
security-peer-auth-init=com.example.security.ServerAuthenticate
```
  - Set property security-peer-auth-init to the fully-qualified method name of a method that instantiates an object of the class that implements the AuthInitialize interface as in the example
```
security-peer-auth-init=com.example.security.ServerAuthenticate.create
```
- Implement the getCredentials method within the AuthInitialize interface to acquire values for the security-username and security-password properties in whatever way it wishes. It might look up values in a database or another external resource.

Gateway senders and receivers communicate as a component of their server member. Therefore, the credential of the server become those of the gateway sender or receiver.

How a Client Cache Sets Its Credential

In order to connect with a locator or a server that does authentication, a client will need to set its credential, composed of the two properties security-username and security-password. Choose one of these two ways to accomplish this:

Set the security-username and security-password properties for the client using the API:

Properties properties = new Properties();
properties.setProperty("security-username", "exampleuser23");
properties.setProperty("security-password", "xyz1234");
ClientCache cache = new ClientCacheFactory(properties).create();

Take care that credentials set in this manner are not accessible to observers of the code.

Implement AuthInitialize interface for the client.
- Set the property security-client-auth-init, so that an object of the class that implements the AuthInitialize interface will be instantiated. Set the property to one of these two values:
  - Set property security-client-auth-init to the fully-qualified class name that implements the AuthInitialize interface:
```
security-client-auth-init=com.example.security.ClientAuthInitialize
```
  - Set property security-client-auth-init to the fully-qualified name of a static method that instantiates an object of the class that implements the AuthInitialize interface:
```
security-client-auth-init=com.example.security.ClientAuthInitialize.create
```
- Implement the getCredentials method of the AuthInitialize interface for the client. The implementation of getCredentials acquires values for the security-username and security-password properties in whatever way it wishes. It might look up values in a database or another external resource, or it might prompt for values.

How Other Components Set Their Credentials

gfsh prompts for the user name and password upon invocation of agfsh connect command.

Pulse prompts for the user name and password upon start up.

Due to the stateless nature of the REST API, a web application or other component that speaks to a server or locator via the REST API goes through authentication on each request. The header of the request needs to include attributes that define values for security-username and security-password.

Implement SecurityManager Interface

Complete these items to implement authentication done by either a locator or a server.

Decide upon an authentication algorithm. The Authentication Example stores a set of user name and password pairs that represent the identities of components that will connect to the system. This simplistic algorithm returns the user name as a principal if the user name and password passed to the authenticate method are a match for one of the stored pairs.
Define the security-manager property. See Enable Security with Property Definitions for details about this property.
Implement the authenticate method of the SecurityManager interface.
Define any extra resources that the implemented authentication algorithm needs in order to make a decision.