Set up the OpenID Connect (OIDC) Authentication For Deploy

This topic describes how to configure Deploy authentication using the OpenID Connect (OIDC) protocol.

OpenID Connect (OIDC) is an identity layer built on top of the OAuth 2.0 protocol and is supported by various OAuth 2.0 providers.

OIDC defines a sign-in flow that enables a client application to authenticate a user. User identity information is encoded in a secure JSON Web Token (JWT), called the ID token.

You can log into Deploy using various Identity providers that support the OIDC authentication protocol, such as Digital.ai Identity Service, OKTA, Keycloak, and Azure Active Directory (Office 365).

Note: In the above identities, any one single authentication option will be supported.

You can easily add a layer of security for Deploy by enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Using MFA and depending on your identity provider settings, users are required to acknowledge a verification phone call, text message, or app notification on their smartphones after correctly entering their passwords.

Digital.ai Identity Service

• You can directly connect your Deploy instance with your OIDC-compliant IDP or you can also choose to use the more robust and flexible Digital.ai Identity Service.
• To simplify the sso configuration and customer onboarding processes, Digital.ai has introduced its own Digital.ai Identity Service that supports multiple protocols.
• We recommend you integrate Digital.ai Deploy with external IDPs via the Digital.ai Identity Service as it supports multiple protocols, configuration changes with almost nil downtime, and also supports user-friendly workflows for common tasks.
• While setting up the Digital.ai Identity Service involves some manual tasks at the moment, the idea is to let customers plug-and-play with the Digital.ai Identity Service as they come on board with Digital.ai Deploy.
• For more information, see Integrating with Digital.ai Identity Service.

Requirements

The Deploy OIDC authentication plugin must be installed.

Do you want to login as an internal user?

• The The Deploy OIDC authentication plugin offers a seamless user experience by automatically redirecting an unauthenticated user to the Identity Provider's login page.
• This does not allow you to sign in directly as an Internal User.
• If you want to sign in as an Internal User, you can do so directly via the Deploy's login page, xl-deploy.example.com/login, for example.

Configure Digital.ai Deploy for OIDC Authentication

Do this on the Digital.ai Deploy server.

1. Enable the OIDC Authentication plugin, modify the Default configuration property to OIDC in the XL_DEPLOY_SERVER_HOME/centralConfiguration/deploy-server.yaml file.

2. To configure the OIDC Authentication plugin, add the following YAML code snippet to the XL_DEPLOY_SERVER_HOME/centralConfiguration/deploy-oidc.yaml file.

   deploy.security:
     auth:
       providers:
        oidc:
         loginMethodDescription:
         clientId: "<Your client ID>"
         clientSecret: "<Your client secret>"
         issuer: "<Enter the Open ID Provider Issuer>"
         redirectUri: "https://xl-deploy.example.com/login/external-login"
         postLogoutRedirectUri: "https://xl-deploy.example.com/login/external-login"
         rolesClaimName: "<Your roles claim>"
         userNameClaimName: "<Your username claim>"

The above configuration automatically fetches the required configuration from the discovery endpoint. See the Discovery endpoint for more information.

It is possible to override the values for the keyRetrievalUri, accessTokenUri, userAuthorizationUri, and logoutUri keys by adding the values explicitly. This is useful if discovery endpoint is not reachable.

deploy.security:
  auth:
    providers:
     oidc:
      clientId: "<Your client ID>"
      clientSecret: "<Your client secret>"
      clientAuthMethod: "<Your client authentication method here>"
      issuer: "<Enter the Open ID Provider Issuer>"
      keyRetrievalUri: "https://oidc.example.com/endpoint/keys"
      accessTokenUri: "<The redirect URI to use for returning the access token>"                  
      userAuthorizationUri: "<The authorize endpoint to request tokens or authorization codes via the browser>"
      logoutUri: "<The logout endpoint to revoke token via the browser>"
      redirectUri: "https://xl-deploy.example.com/login/external-login"
      postLogoutRedirectUri: "https://xl-deploy.example.com/login/external-login"
      idTokenJWSAlg: "<The ID token signature verification algorithm>"
      rolesClaimName: "<Your roles claim>"
      userNameClaimName: "<Your username claim>"

note

OpenID Connect provider and Deploy instances should be time-synchronized. For example, on NTP.

Discovery Endpoint

The discovery endpoint is a static page that you use to retrieve metadata about your OIDC Identity Provider.

In most of the cases, the discovery endpoint is available through /.well-known/openid-configuration relative to the base address of your Identity Provider. For example: https://login.microsoftonline.com/xebialabs.com/.well-known/openid-configuration.

The field names and values are defined in the OpenID Connect Discovery Specification. For more information, see OpenID Connect Discovery Specification.

The issuer, accessTokenUri, userAuthorizationUri, jwks_uri, and logoutUri options are also presented in the JSON metadata that the Identity Provider server publishes at the discovery endpoint. The path obtained in the jwks_uri is used as a value for keyRetrievalUri in the XL_DEPLOY_SERVER_HOME/centralConfiguration/deploy-oidc.yaml file.

note

The redirectUri endpoint must always point to the /login/external-login Deploy endpoint. The redirectUri is an endpoint where authentication responses can be sent and received by Deploy. It must exactly match one of the redirect_uris you registered in the OKTA and Azure AD portal and it must be URL encoded. For Keycloak you can register a pattern for redirect_uri from the Keycloak Admin Panel. For example, you can provide a mask such as: http://example.com/mask** that matches http://example.com/mask/ or http://example.com/mask.

Select Claims for a Specific User

In OIDC the term claim is used to define settings used to obtain information about a specific user, such as the username and roles. When a user logs in, the Deploy server receives a token with a number of claims, which comprises of several key-value pairs. From these claims, you must select two keys that represent the username and the user roles.

You can provide the required claims from the following configuration properties:

• rolesClaimName - In Deploy, the OIDC roles become principals that you can assign to roles inside Deploy.Each time you login, the rolesClaim is matched to the principal assigned to the role in Deploy. This grants access according to the permissions of the role in Deploy.

  Nested Claims for Deploy Roles Mapping:

  • Digital.ai Deploy supports nested claims for Deploy roles mapping. The . acts as a path separator and if needed can be escaped with backslash \\..

        {​
          ...​
          "realm_access": {​
            "roles": [​
              "default-roles-digitalai",​
              "dai-user",​
              "offline_access",​
              "uma_authorization"​
            ]​
          }...​
        }​

  • Nested claim such as rolesClaim.realm_access.roles are supported, where . acts as a path separator.
  • To prevent nesting and use dot literally, escape the dot with backslash (\.). For example, rolesClaim.realm_access\\.roles

• userNameClaimName - Unique username for both internal and external users. You cannot sign in with a user if a local account with the same username exists.

Send Additional Parameters to the OIDC Provider

Do you want to send additional parameters to the OIDC provider?

You can send additional parameters to the OIDC provider as part of the OIDC authentication request.

Here's an example, in which you can find two additional parameters—param1 and param2.

deploy.security:
  auth:
    providers:
     oidc:
      clientId: "<Your client ID>"
      clientSecret: "<Your client secret>"
      clientAuthMethod: "<Your client authentication method here>"
      issuer: "<Enter the Open ID Provider Issuer>"
      keyRetrievalUri: "https://oidc.example.com/endpoint/keys"
      accessTokenUri: "<The redirect URI to use for returning the access token>"                  
      userAuthorizationUri: "<The authorize endpoint to request tokens or authorization codes via the browser>"
      logoutUri: "<The logout endpoint to revoke token via the browser>"
      redirectUri: "https://xl-deploy.example.com/login/external-login"
      postLogoutRedirectUri: "https://xl-deploy.example.com/login/external-login"
      idTokenJWSAlg: "<The ID token signature verification algorithm>"
      rolesClaimName: "<Your roles claim>"
      userNameClaimName: "<Your username claim>"
      additionalParameters:
       param1: false
       param2: "str"

With such a configuration, the additional parameters are passed in the login URL as shown in the following example request URL.

https://example.oktapreview.com/oauth2/.../.../code_challenge=xyz&param1=false&param2=str

OpenID Connect Logout

The logout works by directing the user’s browser to the end-session endpoint of the OpenID Connect provider, with the logout request parameters encoded in the URL query string.

If you need to redirect to the login page after logout, you can use your redirectUri as the postLogoutRedirectUri parameter.

Client Authentication

Clients are required to authenticate against Authorization server when using the Token Endpoint. Below client authentication methods are currently supported:

Value	Description
client_secret_basic	Authenticate using HTTP Basic authentication scheme
client_secret_post	Authenticate by including the Client Credentials in the request body. This is the default authentication method supported by Digital.ai Release.
client_secret_jwt	One of the client authentication methods defined in OpenID Connect Client Authentication.
private_key_jwt	One of the client authentication methods defined in OpenID Connect Client Authentication.

For more information, see Client Authentication

By default, client_secret_post authentication method is used. You can also override default values as shown below.

deploy.security:
  auth:
    providers:
     oidc:
      clientAuthMethod: <Expected client authentication method>
      ...

For more information, see Using OpenID Connect to secure applications and services.

• Digital.ai Deploy and Release—22.1 and later—support client_secret_jwt and private_key_jwt methods to authenticate clients with OIDC-based ID providers such as Keycloak.
• The JWT assertion must be digitally signed using a private key in asymmetric cryptography.
• Digital.ai Deploy and Release—22.1 and later—support signed JWTs only—it does not extend to encrypted JWTs encoded in a JSON Web Encryption (JWE) structure.

ID Token Signature Verification

The ID Token is represented as a JSON Web Token (JWT) and MUST be signed using JSON Web Signature (JWS).

Clients are required to validate ID Token. The default algorithm for signature verification is RS256. You can use the idTokenJWSAlg parameter as described in above configuration file to set a different value. Below JSON Web Algorithms (JWA) are currently supported:

Value	Digital Signature or MAC Algorithm
RS256	RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 using SHA-256
RS384	RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 using SHA-384
RS512	RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 using SHA-512
ES256	ECDSA using P-256 and SHA-256
ES384	ECDSA using P-384 and SHA-384
ES512	ECDSA using P-521 and SHA-512
PS256	RSASSA-PSS using SHA-256 and MGF1 with SHA-256
PS384	RSASSA-PSS using SHA-384 and MGF1 with SHA-384
PS512	RSASSA-PSS using SHA-512 and MGF1 with SHA-512
HS256	HMAC using SHA-256
HS384	HMAC using SHA-384
HS512	HMAC using SHA-512

note

For MAC based algorithms such as HS256, HS384 or HS512, the clientSecret corresponding to the clientId is used as the symmetric key for signature verification.

Client Authentication​ Using client_secret_jwt

Digital.ai Deploy supports client authentication using the client_secret_jwt method.

The following JSON Web Algorithms (JWA) are supported:

• HS256 (HMAC using SHA-256)​—this is the default if you use the client_secret_jwt authentication method
• HS384 (HMAC using SHA-384)​
• HS512 (HMAC using SHA-512)

You can configure the desired JWS algorithm using the deploy.security.auth.providers.oidc.clientAuthJwt.jwsAlg​ key.

Here's an example deploy-oidc.yaml file that uses the client_secret_jwt authentication method.

deploy:
  security:
    auth:
      providers:
        oidc:
          clientAuthJwt:
            jwsAlg: HS256
          clientAuthMethod: client_secret_jwt
          ...

Client Authentication​ Using private_key_jwt

Digital.ai Deploy supports client authentication using the private_key_jwt method.

The following JSON Web Algorithms (JWA) are supported:

• RS256 (RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 using SHA-256)​​—this is the default if you use the private_key_jwt authentication method
• RS384 (RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 using SHA-384)​
• RS512 (RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 using SHA-512)​
• ES256 (ECDSA using P-256 and SHA-256)​
• ES384 (ECDSA using P-384 and SHA-384)​
• ES512 (ECDSA using P-521 and SHA-512)​
• PS256 (RSASSA-PSS using SHA-256 and MGF1 with SHA-256)​
• PS384 (RSASSA-PSS using SHA-384 and MGF1 with SHA-384)​
• PS512 (RSASSA-PSS using SHA-512 and MGF1 with SHA-512)​

Here's an example deploy-oidc.yaml file that uses the private_key_jwt authentication method.

deploy:
  security:
    auth:
      providers:
        oidc:
          clientAuthMethod: private_key_jwt        
          clientAuthJwt:
            jwsAlg: RS256 # Expected JSON Web Algorithm
            key-password: mykeyAliasPassword # Private key password
            key-store-password: password # The key store password
            keyAlias: mykeyAlias # Private key alias inside the key store
            tokenKeyId: mykey # This is a token key identifier 'kid' header - set it if your OpenID Connect provider requires it

          ...
 

Bearer Token Authentication for REST APIs

It is possible to use the OAuth 2.0 token to access the public REST APIs. By default, the RS256 algorithm is used to validate the token. You can also override all default values as shown below.

deploy:
  security:
    auth:
      providers:
        oidc:
          ...
          access-token: "<Expected issuer 'iss' claim value>"
            issuer: "<Expected audience 'aud' claim value>"
            audience: "<The jwks_uri to retrieve keys for the token>"
            keyRetrievalUri: "<The jwks_uri to retrieve keys for the token>"
            jwsAlg: "<The token signature verification algorithm>"
            secretKey: "<The secret key if MAC based algorithms is used for the token>"         
          ...
 

The default values for access token configuration properties are described below:

Configuration property	Default
xl.security.auth.providers.oidc.access-token.issuer	OIDC issuer xl.security.auth.providers.oidc.issuer
xl.security.auth.providers.oidc.access-token.audience	OIDC clientId xl.security.auth.providers.oidc.clientId
xl.security.auth.providers.oidc.access-token.keyRetrievalUri	OIDC jwks_uri xl.security.auth.providers.oidc.keyRetrievalUri
xl.security.auth.providers.oidc.access-token.jwsAlg	RS256

note

The token must contain userNameClaim and rolesClaim to map proper roles in Deploy.

Integration with Keycloak Identity Provider

Installing Keycloak

1. Download the latest version of Keycloak.
2. Unpack the file, open a terminal window and go to the directory where you extracted the file.
3. Go to the bin directory and run standalone.sh.
4. By default, Keycloak runs on port 8080. Using your browser, navigate to that location, and create an admin user. For example: admin/admin.
5. When the admin user is created, go to the Administration Console.

Setting Up Keycloak for Deploy

For more information, see Configure OpenID Connect (OIDC) Authentication with Keycloak.

1. On the top left, go to Master, open the drop-down menu, and click Add realm.
2. Set the name to XLDeploy, and save it.
3. Set the Display name to Deploy.
4. On the sidebar, select Clients
5. Click create, set the client ID to Deploy Server.
6. Click Save.
7. Set Access Type to Confidential, and add the URL to your Deploy server, for example: http://localhost:4516/, as Valid Redirect URI.
8. Click Save. A new Credentials tab appears.

note

To add roles to Keycloak, select Roles on the sidebar. These will be mapped to the Deploy principals later. For example, if you create a user JohnDoe and you assign the role admins to the user, and in Deploy you assign admin permission to admins, then the JohnDoe user can log in as an admin in Deploy.

9. On the sidebar, under Users, click Add user.
10. Set the username to JohnDoe and click Save.
11. Select the Credentials tab and specify a password.

note

If you have created roles, go to the Role Mappings tab, and add the desired roles.

12. Click Clients in the sidebar, go to the Mappers tab, and click Create.
13. Specify a name, for example: group memberships.
14. Set Mapper Type to Group Membership,
15. Set Token Claim Name to groups,
16. Set Add to ID Token to ON.

Integration with OKTA Identity Provider

You can register an OAuth client by creating a new application integration from the OKTA Admin interface:

1. Log in to your OKTA organization as an administrator.
2. Click Admin.
3. From Shortcuts on the right side of the screen, click Add Applications.
4. On the left of the screen, click Create New App.
5. Select OpenID Connect as the Sign on method.
6. Configure one or more Redirect URIs for your Deploy application.
7. Click Finish.
8. Using the People or Groups tabs, assign people to your newly created Deploy application.

note

Users cannot authenticate to your Deploy application if they are not assigned.

9. Find your Client ID in the Client Credentials section of the Groups tab. Use the Client ID that you obtained to configure the Deploy server as it was described above.

for more information on how to configure OKTA, see the OKTA documentation.

Integration with Azure Active Directory (Office 365)

Register your application as described here and use https://login.microsoftonline.com/{your tenant id}/.well-known/openid-configuration to collect configurations.

Using OIDC with DevOps as Code

The DevOps as Code CLI is not compatible with OIDC's authentication method. As a workaround, if your Deploy instance is configured to use OIDC, you can create a devops-as-code internal system user to work with the CLI.

Debugging

To enable extra debugging in case of any failures, modify the logback.xml file and add the logger as shown below:

<logger name="org.springframework.security" level="trace" />