This module has been built as a replacement for the aging mod_auth_kerb. Its aim is to use only GSSAPI calls and be as much as possible agnostic of the actual mechanism used.
The mod_auth_gssapi httpd plugin relies on Microsoft's IANA registered
www-authenticate: Negotiate
auth scheme to provide Kerberos and NTLM authentication to web browsers.
The negotiation process is client driven and the default process is to
attempt Kerberos first, then fall back onto NTLM.
If NTLM is not desired it must be disabled client-side. Many browsers
such as recent versions of Firefox default to disabling NTLM and require
opt-in (regardless of OS). However. many browsers behave differently on
Windows, defer to the Windows Authentication subsystem, and therefore still
use an NTLM fallback per the original Microsoft specification in
RFC4559 by default. Browsers which
default to NTLM fallback on Windows include chromium based browsers such as
Chrome and Edge as well as older browsers such as IE.
If NTLM is enabled client side and Kerberos auth fails then the browser will
prompt the user with a username and password dialog that looks similar to an
HTTP Basic auth form, regardless of whether the server is configured to handle
NTLM. This often confuses and frustrates users and admins. It may be
possible to disable NTLM fallback if an admin has control of every user OS and
user browser, but in that scenario (corporate network/intranet) the admin has
presumably correctly configured Kerberos so fallback is unlikely to occur. The
larger issue is if you have an external facing auth server and therefore no
control over all clients some of whom may be on Windows using a browser that
delegates to the Windows Authentication subsystem. Neither Kerberos nor NTLM
are designed to work in a public Internet scenario and therefore using IP-based
request filtering on the auth server to conditionally prompt only internal
managed Kerberos clients (corporate intranet) users with
www-authenticate: Negotiate is a reasonable solution.
A modern version of MIT's Krb5 distribution or any GSSAPI implementation that supports the credential store extension is necessary to achieve full functionality. Reduced functionality is provided without these extensions.
MIT krb5 (>=1.11)
Apache httpd (>=2.4.11)
To run tests, you also need:
- The Kerberos 5 Key-Distribution-Center (
krb5-kdcpackage on Debian,krb5-serveron Fedora) - Packages
mod_session,krb5-workstation,python3-requests-gssapi, andpython3-gssapion Fedora - Some tests require
krb5-pkinitpackage on fedora and krb5 >= 1.15. - nss_wrapper, packaged in Fedora
- socket_wrapper, packaged in Fedora
autoreconf -fi
./configure
make
make install
Apache authentication modules are usually configured per location, see the mod_authn_core documentation for the common directives
The simplest configuration scheme specifies just one directive, which is the location of the keytab.
<Location /private>
AuthType GSSAPI
AuthName "GSSAPI Single Sign On Login"
GssapiCredStore keytab:/etc/httpd.keytab
Require valid-user
</Location>
Your Apache server need read access to the keytab configured. If your Kerberos implementation does not support the credential store extensions you can also simply set the KRB5_KTNAME environment variable in the Apache init script and skip the GssapiCredStore option completely.
(Note: these are not process environment variables, but rather Apache environment variables, as described in the apache docs.)
This environment variable is used to suppress setting Negotiate headers. Not sending these headers is useful to work around browsers that do not handle them properly (and incorrectly show authentication popups to users).
For instance, to suppress negotiation on Windows browsers, one could set:
BrowserMatch Windows gssapi-no-negotiate
GssapiAcceptorName
GssapiAllowedMech
GssapiBasicAuth
GssapiBasicAuthMech
GssapiBasicTicketTimeout
GssapiConnectionBound
GssapiCredStore
GssapiDelegCcacheDir
GssapiDelegCcacheEnvVar
GssapiDelegCcachePerms
GssapiDelegCcacheUnique
GssapiImpersonate
GssapiLocalName
GssapiNameAttributes
GssapiNegotiateOnce
GssapiPublishErrors
GssapiPublishMech
GssapiRequiredNameAttributes
GssapiSessionKey
GssapiSignalPersistentAuth
GssapiSSLonly
GssapiUseS4U2Proxy
GssapiUseSessions
Forces the authentication attempt to fail if the connection is not being established over TLS. The default is "Off", which could be helpful in a local development environment, but we do not recommend for production deployments. A passive adversary could listen to the plaintext HTTP connection to observe any private information in the client's request or server's response (for example: the full HTTP response body, or any web application session cookies, etc). You should only use mod_auth_gssapi with HTTPS in production, so we recommend that you enable this setting in production for added protection.
- Enable with: GssapiSSLonly On
- Default: GssapiSSLonly Off
Tries to map the client principal to a local name using the gss_localname() call. This requires configuration in the /etc/krb5.conf file in order to allow proper mapping for principals not in the default realm (for example a user coming from a trusted realm). See the 'auth_to_local' option in the [realms] section of krb5.conf(5)
When GssapiLocalName is set to on, mod_auth_gssapi will set the
REMOTE_USER variable to the resolved user name. mod_auth_gssapi will also
set the GSS_NAME variable to the complete client principal name.
- Enable with: GssapiLocalName On
- Default: GssapiLocalName Off
This option is not needed for krb5 or basic auth in almost all cases. It incurs overhead, so leaving it off is recommended.
For NTLMSSP (and any other GSS mechanisms that require more than one round-trip to complete authentication), it is necessary to bind to the authentication to the connection in order to keep the state between round-trips. With this option, incomplete context are stored in the connection and retrieved on the next request for continuation.
- Enable with: GssapiConnectionBound On
- Default: GssapiConnectionBound Off
For clients that make use of Persistent-Auth header, send the header according to GssapiConnectionBound setting.
- Enable with: GssapiSignalPersistentAuth On
- Default: GssapiSignalPersistentAuth Off
In order to avoid constant and costly re-authentication attempts for every request, mod_auth_gssapi offers a cookie based session method to maintain authentication across multiple requests. GSSAPI uses the mod_sessions module to handle cookies so that module needs to be activated and configured. GSSAPI uses a secured (encrypted + MAC-ed) payload to maintain state in the session cookie. The session cookie lifetime depends on the lifetime of the GSSAPI session established at authentication. NOTE: It is important to correctly set the SessionCookieName option. See the mod_sessions documentation for more information.
- Enable with: GssapiUseSessions On
- Default: GssapiUseSessions Off
GssapiUseSessions On
Session On
SessionCookieName gssapi_session path=/private;httponly;secure;
When GssapiUseSessions is enabled a key use to encrypt and MAC the session data will be automatically generated at startup, this means session data will become unreadable if the server is restarted or multiple servers are used and the client is load balanced from one to another. To obviate this problem the admin can choose to install a permanent key in the configuration so that session data remain accessible after a restart or by multiple servers sharing the same key.
Two schemes to read persistent keys are provided, 'key' and 'file'.
-
'key' A key is read from the configuration directive. The key must be a base64 encoded raw key of 32 bytes of length.
-
'file' A file on the file system is used to store the key. If the file does not exists one is created with a randomly generated key during the first execution.
GssapiSessionKey key:VGhpcyBpcyBhIDMyIGJ5dGUgbG9uZyBzZWNyZXQhISE=
GssapiSessionKey file:/var/lib/httpd/secrets/session.key
The GssapiCredStore option allows to specify multiple credential related options like keytab location, client_keytab location, ccache location etc.
GssapiCredStore keytab:/etc/httpd.keytab
GssapiCredStore ccache:FILE:/var/run/httpd/krb5ccache
If delegation of credentials is desired credentials can be exported in a
private directory accessible by the Apache process.
The delegated credentials will be stored in a file named after the client
principal and a request environment variable (KRB5CCNAME by default) will be
set to point to that file.
GssapiDelegCcacheDir /var/run/httpd/clientcaches
A user foo@EXAMPLE.COM delegating its credentials would cause the server to create a ccache file named /var/run/httpd/clientcaches/foo@EXAMPLE.COM
Enables using unique ccache names for delegation. ccache files will be placed in GssapiDelegCcacheDir and named using the principal and a six-digit unique suffix.
Note: Consuming application must delete the ccache otherwise it will litter the filesystem if sessions are used. An example sweeper can be found in the contrib directory. If using with gssproxy, see note at the top of that file.
- Enable with: GssapiDelegCcacheUnique On
- Default: GssapiDelegCcacheUnique Off
Set the name of the request environment variable that will receive the
credential cache name. If unspecified, defaults to KRB5CCNAME.
GssapiDelegCcacheEnvVar AJP_KRB5CCNAME
Enables the use of the s4u2Proxy Kerberos extension also known as constrained delegation This option allows an application running within Apache to operate on behalf of the user against other servers by using the provided ticket (subject to KDC authorization). This options requires GssapiDelegCcacheDir to be set. The ccache will be populated with the user's provided ticket which is later used as evidence ticket by the application.
Note: This flag has no effect when Basic-Auth is used since user's credentials are delegated anyway when GssapiDelegCcacheDir is set.
GssapiUseS4U2Proxy On
GssapiCredStore keytab:/etc/httpd.keytab
GssapiCredStore client_keytab:/etc/httpd.keytab
GssapiCredStore ccache:FILE:/var/run/httpd/krb5ccache
GssapiDelegCcacheDir /var/run/httpd/clientcaches
NOTE: The client keytab is necessary to allow GSSAPI to initiate via keytab on its own. If not present an external mechanism needs to kinit with the keytab and store a ccache in the configured ccache file.
Allows the use of Basic Auth in conjunction with Negotiate. If the browser fails to use Negotiate it will instead fallback to Basic and the username and password will be used to try to acquire credentials in the module via GSSAPI. If credentials are acquired successfully then they are validated against the server's keytab.
- Enable with: GssapiBasicAuth On
- Default: GssapiBasicAuth Off
<Location /gssapi>
AuthType GSSAPI
AuthName "Login"
GssapiBasicAuth On
GssapiCredStore keytab:/etc/httpd/http.keytab
Require valid-user
</Location>
List of allowed mechanisms. This is useful to restrict the mechanism that can be used when credentials for multiple mechanisms are available. By default no mechanism is set, this means all locally available mechanisms are allowed. The recognized mechanism names are: krb5, iakerb, ntlmssp
GssapiAllowedMech krb5
GssapiAllowedMech ntlmssp
List of mechanisms against which Basic Auth is attempted. This is useful to restrict the mechanisms that can be used to attempt password auth. By default no mechanism is set, this means all locally available mechanisms are allowed, unless GssapiAllowedMech is set, in which case those are used. GssapiBasicAuthMech always takes precedence over GssapiAllowedMech. The recognized mechanism names are: krb5, iakerb, ntlmssp
GssapiBasicAuthMech krb5
Enables the module to source Name Attributes from the client name (authorization data associated with the established context) and exposes them as environment variables.
Value format: ENV_VAR_NAME ATTRIBUTE_NAME
This option can be specified multiple times, once for each attribute to expose. The Special value "json" is used to expose all attributes in a json formatted string via the special environment variable GSS_NAME_ATTRS_JSON The environment variable GSS_NAME_ATTR_ERROR is set with the Gssapi returned error string in case the inquire name function fails to retrieve attributes, and with the string "0 attributes found", if no attributes are set.
Note: These variables are NOT saved in the session data stored in the cookie so they are available only on the first authenticated request when GssapiUseSessions is used.
Note: It is recommended but not required to use only capital letters and underscores for environment variable names.
GssapiNameAttributes json
GssapiNameAttributes RADIUS_NAME urn:ietf:params:gss:radius-attribute_1
This option allows specifying one or more Name Attributes that the client must possess in order to be authorized to access the location. The required Name Attributes are specified by name=value pairs (name being the ATTRIBUTE_NAME as mentioned above, and value being a Null-terminated string. Alternately, if a Name Attribute produces binary values or is expected to contain a space character, the desired value can be specified by a ':=' and a base64-encoded string).
A combination of Name Attributes (including multiple values from a single Name Attribute type) can be specified with an expression that separates each name=value pair with the "and" or "or" logical operators. Operator precedence can be influenced by parenthesized statements.
foo=bar
foo:=YmFy
foo=bar or foo=baz
foo=bar and foo=baz and bar=baz
(foo=bar and foo=baz) or bar:=YmFy
If the Name Attributes associated with the client do not satisfy the given expression, or no Name Attributes are present, a 403 response is returned.
GssapiRequiredNameAttributes "auth-indicators=high"
GssapiRequiredNameAttributes "auth-indicators=high or other-attr=foo"
GssapiRequiredNameAttributes "((auth-indicators=low and auth-indicators=med) or auth-indicators=high)"
When this option is enabled the Negotiate header will not be resent if Negotiation has already been attempted but failed.
Normally when a client fails to use Negotiate authentication, a HTTP 401 response is returned with a WWW-Authenticate: Negotiate header, implying that the client can retry to use Negotiate with different credentials or a different mechanism.
Consider enabling GssapiNegotiateOnce when only one single sign on mechanism is allowed, or when GssapiBasicAuth is enabled.
NOTE: if the initial Negotiate attempt fails, some browsers will fallback to other Negotiate mechanisms, prompting the user for login credentials and reattempting negotiation. This situation can mislead users - for example if krb5 authentication failed and no other mechanisms are allowed, a user could be prompted for login information even though any login information provided cannot succeed. When this occurs, some browsers will not fall back to a Basic Auth mechanism. Enable GssapiNegotiateOnce to avoid this situation.
- Enable with: GssapiNegotiateOnce On
- Default: GssapiNegotiateOnce Off
This option can be used even if AuthType GSSAPI is not used for given Location or LocationMatch, to obtain service ticket for a user that was already authenticated by different module. (This is also known as s4u2self, or protocol transition.)
The principal of the user is retrieved from the internal r->user identifier which typically holds the username from the authentication results.
Optionally, this user principal can later be used for s4u2proxy (constrained
delegation). To do this, ensure the server principal is permitted to acquire
forwardable tickets to itself from arbitrary users (i.e., with the option
+ok_to_auth_as_delegate).
- Enable with: GssapiImpersonate On
- Default: GssapiImpersonate Off
This option is used to set alternative ownership and permission for delegated ccache files stored in the GssapiDelegCcacheDir location. It is a multivalue configuration directive that can accept the following three settings:
- mode
- uid
- gid If a setting is not present the relative file property will not be modified and the default owners and/or mode will be retained.
This option allows to set the file mode, the format used is a numeric mode
with the same semantics of the chmod unix command for mapping numbers to
permissions.
A user id number or name, an attempt to change the user owner of the file
to the uid number specified will be made. If a user name has been
specified, it will be resolved at startup time and the user's id number
stored internally for all subsequent operations.
A group id number or name, an attempt to change the group owner of the
file to the gid number specified will be made. If a group name has been
specified, it will be resolved at startup time and the group's id number
stored internally for all subsequent operations.
GssapiDelegCcachePerms mode:0660 gid:webuiworkers
This option is used to publish errors as Environment Variables for use by httpd processes.
A general error type is provided in the MAG_ERROR variable, and can have the following values: "GSS ERROR", "INTERNAL ERROR", "AUTH NOT ALLOWED" Additionally, in the variable named MAG_ERROR_TEXT there may be a free form error message.
When the error type is "GSS ERROR" the variables GSS_ERROR_MAJ and GSS_ERROR_MIN contain the numeric errors returned by GSSAPI, and the MAG_ERROR_TEXT will contain a GSS Error message, possibly prepended by an additional message that provides more context.
- Enable with: GssapiPublishErrors On
- Default: GssapiPublishErrors Off
This option is used to force the server to accept only for a specific name.
This allows, for example to select to use a specific credential when multiple keys are provided in a keytab.
A special value of {HOSTNAME} will make the code use the name apache sees in the httpd request to select the correct name to use. This may be useful to allow multiple names and multiple keys to be used on the same apache instance.
Note: By default no name is set and any name in a keytab or mechanism specific acceptor credential will be allowed.
Note: Global gssapi options set in krb5.conf like 'ignore_acceptor_hostname' may affect the ability to restrict names.
Note: The GSS_C_NT_HOSTBASED_SERVICE format is used for names (see example).
GssapiAcceptorName HTTP@www.example.com
This option controls the ticket validity time requested for the user TGT by the Basic Auth method.
Normally basic auth is repeated by the browser on each request so a short validity period is used to reduce the scope of the ticket as it will be replaced quickly. However in cases where the authentication page is separate and the session is used by other pages the validity can be changed to arbitrary duration.
Note: the validity of a ticket is still capped by KDC configuration.
Note: the value is specified in seconds.
- Default: GssapiBasicTicketTimeout 300
GssapiBasicTicketTimeout 36000
Sets ticket/session validity to 10 hours.
This option is used to publish the mech used for authentication as an Environment variable named GSS_MECH.
It will return a string of the form 'Authtype/Mechname'. Authtype represents the type of auth performed by the module. Possible values are 'Basic', 'Negotiate', 'NTLM', 'Impersonate'. Mechname is the name of the mechanism as reported by GSSAPI or the OID of the mechanism if a name is not available. In case of errors the 'Unavailable' string may also be returned for either Authtype or Mechname.
- Enable with: GssapiPublishMech On
- Default: GssapiPublishMech Off