Artifactory 4.x

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JFrog Artifactory 5.x User Guide

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Overview

The Single Sign-on (SSO) add-on allows you to reuse existing HTTP-based SSO infrastructures with Artifactory, such as the SSO modules offered by Apache HTTPd.

You can have Artifactory's authentication work with commonly available SSO solutions, such as native NTLM, Kerberos etc.

SSO works by letting Artifactory know what trusted information it should look for in the HTTP request, assuming this request has already been authenticated by the SSO infrastructure that sits in front of Artifactory.

Page Contents

 

Usage

To access the Single Sign-On (SSO) add-on, in the Admin module, select Security | HTTP SSO.

To enable SSO you must alert Artifactory that it is running behind a secure HTTP server that forwards trusted requests to it.

Then you must tell Artifactory in which variable to look for trusted authentication information.

The default is to look for a REMOTE_USER header or the request variable, which is set by Apache's AJP and JK connectors.

You can choose to use any request attribute (as defined by the Servlet specification) by providing a different variable name.

Adding Your Own SSO Integration

You can write a simple servlet filter to integrate with custom security systems and set a request attribute on the request to be trusted by the SSO add-on.

Finally, you can instruct Artifactory to treat externally authenticated users as temporary users, so that Artifactory does not create them in its security database.

In this case, permissions for such users are based on the permissions given to auto-join groups.

HTTP SSO Configuration

 

Field NameDescription
Artifactory is Proxied by a Secure HTTP Server
When checked, Artifactory trusts incoming requests and reuses the remote user originally set on the request by the SSO of the HTTP server.

This is extremely useful if you want to use existing enterprise SSO integrations, such as the powerful authentication schemes provided by Apache (mod_auth_ldap, mod_auth_ntlm, mod_auth_kerb, etc.).

When Artifactory is deployed as a webapp on Tomcat behind Apache:
  • If using mod_proxy_ajp, make sure to set tomcatAuthentication="false" on the AJP connector.
  • If using mod_jk, make sure to use the "JkEnvVar REMOTE_USER" directive in Apache's configuration.
Remote User Request Variable
The name of the HTTP request variable to use for extracting the user identity. Default is: REMOTE_USER.
Auto Create Artifactory Users

When not checked, authenticated users are not automatically created inside Artifactory. Instead, for every request from a SSO user, the user is temporarily associated with default groups (if such groups are defined) and the permissions for these groups apply.
 

Without auto user creation, you must manually create the user inside Artifactory to manage user permissions not attached to its default groups.

When checked, users created after authenticating using HTTP SSO, will be able to access their profile. This means they are able to generate their API Key and set their password for future use.

Custom URL base

For your HTTP SSO settings to work, make sure you have your Custom URL Base configured.

Integrating Apache and Tomcat

When Artifactory is deployed as a webapp on Tomcat behind Apache:

  • If using mod_proxy_ajp - Make sure to set tomcatAuthentication="false" on the AJP connector.
  • If using mod_jk - Make sure to use the JkEnvVar REMOTE_USER directive in Apache's configuration.
  • If using mod_proxy (requires mod_proxy_http, mod_headers and mod_rewrite - There are two known working methods that forward the header:
RequestHeader set REMOTE_USER %{REMOTE_USER}e

or

RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{REMOTE_USER} (.+)
    RewriteRule . - [E=RU:%1]
    RequestHeader set REMOTE_USER %{RU}e

Setting Up a Reverse SSL Proxy for SSO

You may set up a reverse SSL proxy on your webserver in order to run Artifactory supporting SSO.

To do this, you need to have the right components installed, modify your webserver configuration file, and then configure Artifactory for SSO.

When correctly set up,you should be able to login to Artifactory with your Windows credentials and stay logged in between sessions.

Components and Versions

The instructions below have been tested to work with Kerberos/NTLM SSO working with Artifactory using the following components.

Modifying Your Webserver Configuration File

Once you have the right components and versions installed, you need to add the following lines to your [HTTP_SERVER_HOME]/conf/httpd.conf file:

httpd.conf file
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName yourhostname
DocumentRoot "C:/IBM/Installation Manager/eclipse/plugins/org.apache.ant_1.8.3.v20120321-1730"
ProxyPreserveHost on
ProxyPass /artifactory http://yourhostname:9080/artifactory
ProxyPassReverse /artifactory http://yourhostname:9080/artifactory
</VirtualHost>


<Location /artifactory>
AuthName "Artifactory Realm"
AuthType SSPI
SSPIAuth On
SSPIAuthoritative On
require valid-user
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_USER} (.+)
RewriteRule . - [E=RU:%1]
RequestHeader set REMOTE_USER %{RU}e 
</Location>

 

Then you need to enable the following modules in your httpd.conf file:

 

Modules to enable
LoadModule sspi_auth_module modules/mod_auth_sspi.so
LoadModule headers_module modules/mod_headers.so
LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_connect_module modules/mod_proxy_connect.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
 

Using API Key with HTTP-SSO Users 

While HTTP-SSO provides access to Artifactory UI, it is also possible for HTTP-SSO users to generate an API key that can be used instead of a password for basic authentication or in a dedicated REST API header, this is very useful when working with different clients, e.g. docker, npm, maven, etc. or using Artifactory REST API.

In order to allow HTTP-SSO users access to an API key you will need to make sure that the "Auto Create Artifactory Users" and "Allow Created Users Access To Profile Page" check boxes are checked. This means that SSO users are also saved in Artifactory database and can access their profile page in order to generate, retrieve and revoke their API key.

 

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