cas_validate
Advanced tools
This is a utility to facilitate validating a web service based on Connect or Express (and perhaps other frameworks or nothing at all) with a CAS server(http://www.jasig.org/cas. It allows single sign on and single sign out. In other words, if a client has previously logged in to the CAS server, this library will allow your service to transparently detect that fact, and if the user subsequently logs off from the CAS server, this library can handle the subsequent POST message from the CAS server and log the user out of your service as well.
The need to support single sign out was the original reason I wrote this library. Since then I modularized it so that I could apply different strategies to different services in my Connect and Express applications. The original development was conducted when Connect still had routing capabilities, but all but one feature still works with the latest Connect, and all features work with Express.
This library now requires redis version 2.6.x. I recently added time-to-live capabilities when storing the session ticket data (using the redis setex command as suggested by @chrisbarran). The test for this functionality (test/ttl_test.js) fails when running Redis 2.4, but passes when running Redis 2.6.
A minor update to parse attributes in a second way. According to user @cricri's pull request, another way that is common to send user attributes to the CAS client is to simply list them. That is, the way I am parsing by default is
<cas:serviceResponse xmlns:cas='http://www.yale.edu/tp/cas'>
<cas:authenticationSuccess>
<cas:user>h_mueller</cas:user>
<cas:attributes>
<cas:mail>a.b@c.de</cas:mail>
<cas:__AUTHUSERCONTEXT__>cont</cas:__AUTHUSERCONTEXT__>
<cas:cn>commonname</cas:cn>
<cas:__AUTHTYPE__>TUID</cas:__AUTHTYPE__>
<cas:surname>Müller</cas:surname>
<cas:tudUserUniqueID>1234567</cas:tudUserUniqueID>
<cas:givenName>Hans</cas:givenName>
</cas:attributes>
</cas:authenticationSuccess>
</cas:serviceResponse>
but there is an alternate way that simply lists the attributes as so:
<cas:serviceResponse xmlns:cas='http://www.yale.edu/tp/cas'>
<cas:authenticationSuccess>
<cas:user>bob</cas:user>
<cas:attribute name="uid" value="b01234" />
<cas:attribute name="mail" value="bob@mail.com" />
<cas:attribute name="cn" value="smith" />
<cas:attribute name="givenname" value="bob" />
<cas:attribute name="service" value="other" />
<cas:attribute name="permission" value="p1" />
<cas:attribute name="permission" value="p2" />
<cas:attribute name="permission" value="p3" />
<cas:attribute name="uidnumber" value="123456789" />
</cas:authenticationSuccess>
</cas:serviceResponse>
Version 0.1.9 should now properly parse the second way as well, whereas before it would simply choke and die.
Check out the test in
This email thread is one that I found when trying to dig up the "standard" way to send user attributes: http://jasig.275507.n4.nabble.com/CAS-attributes-and-how-they-appear-in-the-CAS-response-td264272.html
Biggest change here is a switch from SAX parser to XML doc parser for parsing the response from the CAS server ticket validation. It was reported that the parser was choking on attributes with umlauts and other common utf-8 characters. Apparently, either the SAX parser approach in libxmljs or the way I was using it was to blame, but the upshot was that non-ascii characters were getting mangled.
To fix this, I switched to using the whole-doc parsing approach. This will use slightly more memory, etc, as the whole DOM tree for the response has to be loaded into memory, but the docs are small so that is probably fine.
The test that checks this is in test/xml_parser_test.js It does not
use a live CAS server, so you can run it on your own and load it up
with your own CAS response docs to see whether everything is getting
parsed okay. Just replace the file in test/files/cas_auth.xml with
your own difficult-to-parse case, and then submit a bug report is
stuff is breaking.
This new version brings with it some small API changes for the few people who might be using this. The major difference is that it is no longer optional to pass the service location. That is, the routines do not try to guess what the service might be from the request header. This is because at the Open Apereo 2013 conference, it was pointed out during a security audit that doing so is a possible security flaw.
So invoke the various functions as so:
app.use('/valid'
,cas_validate.ticket({'cas_host':my_cas_host,
'service':'http://'+testhost +':'+testport+'/valid'}))
The other major change in functionality is that the ticket response from the CAS server is now parsed for attributes. Unfortunately, this currently requires an XML response from the CAS server. I will implement the JSON response handler soon, but in the interim you might want to check out the Sheffield University fork
I am in the midst of refactoring and modularizing this library. The most pressing need is to parse a JSON response from the CAS server. Next comes centralizing the initialization of this library. For the moment, the best approach is to create an object in your calling code that holds the common CAS initialization attributes.
Version 0.2.0 will be hit when JSON responses are possible, and version 0.3.0 will be hit when all of the various routines are modularized (so you don't have to delete the SSOFF code, for example, you just don't have to use it)
Using the library is pretty easy. Just add the necessary require
statement, and then slot in the desired CAS behavior. For example to
prevent all access to your application, you would do the following:
var cas_validate = require('cas_validate');
...
var app = connect()
.use(connect.cookieParser('barley wheat napoleon'))
.use(connect.session({ store: new RedisStore }))
.use(cas_validate.redirect({'cas_host':'my.cas.host.net'})
.use(function(req, res, next){
res.end('hello world')
});
var server = app.listen(3000,function(e){
if(e) throw new Error(e)
console.log('app started on port 3000')
});
);
A few things to note. First I am using the connect-redis plugin to manage sessions from CAS. I haven't tested whether other session management plugins will work, but as long as they allow simple operations such as
req.session.st = ticket
they should work fine.
Second, the cas_host option currently just wants the host. I prepend
https:// to this host. If you aren't using https for your CAS
server, then you're out of luck for using this library.
$ cd myapplication
$ npm install cas_validate
Or you can add it to your package.json dependencies.
$ cd ~/my/github/repos
$ git clone git://github.com/jmarca/cas_validate.git
$ cd myapplication
$ npm install ~/my/github/repos/cas_validate
ticketThe ticket function is crucial to handling CAS sessions. It will
consume the service ticket from the CAS server, verify that it is
valid, establish a valid session on your service for the client, and
will store the CAS credentials in a redis database to allow for single
sign out POST messages. If there is no service ticket in the request,
or if the service ticket is not valid, this function will simply pass
control along to the next connect middleware in the web stack.
cas_host: the CAS hostname, without the 'https://' part and
without the '/cas/login' part. Something like cas.example.net.
The default is to read the CAS_HOST environment variable. This
option, if set, will override the default.
service: the service for which the service ticket was issued. If
used in the same route as the check_... part of the function, then
this parameter can be left to its default, and the correct value
will be deduced from the request parameters. In some cases it might
be necessary to specify this value.
check_or_redirectThe check_or_redirect function is probably the most useful one.
Used in conjunction with the ticket function, it will enable
CAS-based authentication.
cas_host: the CAS hostname, without the 'https://' part and
without the '/cas/login' part. Something like cas.example.net.
The default is to read the CAS_HOST environment variable. This
option, if set, will override the default.
service: the service for which the service ticket will be issued,
and to which the CAS server will redirect the request after the user
has logged in. The default is to figure out the service from the
incoming request, but one may want to redirect the incoming request
somewhere else.
An example of redirecting the request to another destination is shown below, modified from the test suite.
app = connect()
app.use(cas_validate.ssoff())
app.use(cas_validate.ticket({'cas_host':chost}))
app.use(function(req, res, next){
if(req.session.st){
return res.end('hello '+req.session.name)
}else{
return res.end('hello world (not logged in)')
}
}
)
var login = connect()
login.use(connect.cookieParser('six foot barley at Waterloo'))
login.use(connect.session({ store: new RedisStore }))
login.use('/login',cas_validate.check_or_redirect({'cas_host':chost
,'service':'http://'+testhost+':'+testport+'/'}))
login.use('/',app)
server = login.listen(testport,done)
In the above example, the /login route will send the user to the CAS
server to login, and then return them to the / destination. The
default behavior would be to return them to the /login path that
they came from.
Also note that since we don't expect the CAS server to send its ticket
to the /login path, the ticket service is not attached to that
route. It is attached to the / route, and will consume the ticket
there.
Also also, when the CAS session expires and the CAS server sends a
post request informing your server of this fact, it will send it to
the path listed in the service parameter. So if you only want to
allow POST requests to a certain address, that is another reason to
specify the service parameter.
check_and_returnThe check_and_return function is somewhat useful. The idea is to
exploit the feature in the CAS server that listens for a
'gateway=true' parameter in the URL. This will return a service
ticket if the client has a valid CAS session, and will return nothing
if not.
The same options as check_or_redirect, above
The previous example has been modified below to use check_and_return instead of check_or_redirect
app = connect()
app.use(cas_validate.ssoff())
app.use(cas_validate.ticket({'cas_host':chost}))
app.use(cas_validate.check_and_return({'cas_host':chost
,'service':'http://'+testhost+':'+testport+'/'}))
app.use(function(req, res, next){
if(req.session.st){
return res.end('hello '+req.session.name)
}else{
return res.end('hello world (not logged in)')
}
}
)
var login = connect()
login.use(connect.cookieParser('six foot barley at Waterloo'))
login.use(connect.session({ store: new RedisStore }))
login.use('/login',cas_validate.check_or_redirect({'cas_host':chost
,'service':'http://'+testhost+':'+testport+'/'}))
login.use('/',app)
server = login.listen(testport,done)
In the previous server, the system would not know whether or not a
user was logged in until the user went to the /login route and
triggered the check_or_redirect function. Here, instead, the /
route has the check_and_return function set. What happens is that
the first time the user goes to the / location, the CAS system is
checked to see if the user is logged in already. Internally this sets
a flag in the session, so as to prevent an infinite loop. If the user
is logged in already, then the CAS system will respond with a valid
service ticket that the ticket service will consume. If the client
has not established a CAS login, then there is no ticket sent from
CAS, and the user is not logged in.
The problem with this approach is that it does not detect if the user goes to your web application, then logs in to another CAS service. Once the gateway service is checked, it is not checked again.
If you wish to check the CAS service once with every request, then
simply delete the session property req.session.gateway. However, be
aware that until the user logs in properly, resetting
req.session.gateway will cause a redirect through the CAS server
with every request, which will greatly slow down the performance of
your system.
redirectredirect is a somewhat lame filter, but it can be useful. All it
does is redirect incoming queries to the CAS login page. Even if the
session has been established, it will always ignore that fact and
bounce the request.
ssoffThe ssoff service will listen for incoming POST messages from the
CAS server and will delete sessions as appropriate.
Do not put this service after the check_or_redirect service, or the
CAS server POSTs will get redirected to the CAS server to log in!
No options
app.use(cas_validate.ssoff())
app.use(cas_validate.ticket())
app.use(cas_validate.check_or_redirect())
app.use('/',function(req, res, next){
res.end('hello only to the authenticated world')
});
logoutThe logout service is similar to single sign off, but does the job
of invalidating the current session first, before triggering the CAS
server's logout function.
You can use this with the ssoff service to enable logging out from
your application directly, or indirectly from some other CAS enabled
app.
cas_host: the CAS hostname, without the 'https://' part and
without the '/cas/logout' part. Something like cas.example.net.
The default is to read the CAS_HOST environment variable. This
option, if set, will override the default.
service: the service for which the service ticket will be issued,
and to which the CAS server will redirect the request after the user
has logged in. The default is to figure out the service from the
incoming request, but one may want to redirect the incoming request
somewhere else.
logout_service: the default CAS logout service is /cas/logout.
If your CAS setup uses a different endpoint, then specify that here.
As usual, check out the test for a complete example. Cut and paste below:
app = connect()
.use(connect.bodyParser())
.use(connect.cookieParser('barley Waterloo Napoleon loser'))
.use(connect.session({ store: new RedisStore }))
app.use('/username',cas_validate.username)
app.use('/quit',cas_validate.logout({'cas_host':'my.cas.host'
,'service':'http://myhost.com'}))
app.use(cas_validate.ssoff())
app.use(cas_validate.ticket({'cas_host':'my.cas.host'
,'service':'http://myhost.com'}))
app.use(cas_validate.check_and_return({'cas_host':'my.cas.host'
,'service':'http://myhost.com'}))
app.use(function(req, res, next){
if(req.session.st){
return res.end('hello '+req.session.name)
}else{
return res.end('hello world (not logged in)')
}
}
)
var login = connect()
.use(connect.cookieParser('six foot barley at Waterloo'))
.use(connect.session({ store: new RedisStore }))
login.use('/login',cas_validate.check_or_redirect({'cas_host':'my.cas.host'
,'service':'http://myhost.com'}))
login.use('/',app)
server=login.listen(testport
,done)
usernameA simple service to spit back the current logged in user's username as a JSON object, or null.
Either:
return res.end(JSON.stringify({'user':req.session.name}));
or
return res.end(JSON.stringify({'user':null}));
No options
session_or_abortThe session_or_abort service no longer works with Connect, as
routing has been removed. This is the only feature that requires
Express.
The idea is to abort the current route if a session has not been
established. This is done by calling next('route') within the code
if the CAS session check fails.
The intended use case is to assign certain stacks of routes to logged
in users, and others to those who are not logged in, without having to
resort to multiple paths or lots of if statements in your server
code.
No options
app = express()
.use(connect.cookieParser('barley Waterloo Napoleon Mareschal Foch bravest'))
.use(connect.session({ store: new RedisStore }))
app.get('/secrets'
,cas_validate.session_or_abort()
,function(req,res,next){
res.end('super secret secrets')
})
app.get('/secrets'
,function(req,res,next){
res.end('public secrets')
})
The tests provide working examples of how to use the library.
To run the tests, you need to have a working CAS server, and you need to set lots of environment variables.
CAS_HOST: no default. The CAS host (bare host name or number; not https, not /cas/login)
CAS_USER: no default. Your CAS username you want to use for the tests.
CAS_PASS: no default. The password to go along with the CAS username
CAS_VALIDATE_TEST_URL: Default is '127.0.0.1'. If you want to test
single sign out (the ssoff service), then you'll need to run your
test server on a public machine, with a URL that the CAS server can
send a POST to. SSOFF tests will be skipped if CAS_VALIDATE_TEST_URL
is 127.0.0.1 and the hostname part of CAS_HOST is not 127.0.0.1.
CAS_VALIDATE_TEST_PORT: Default is 3000. If you are already using port 3000 for something else, change this. Also, make sure that this port is not blocked in your firewall if you want to test single sign off...otherwise you won't see the POSTs from the CAS server to your test application.
To run the tests, make sure to first install all of the dependencies with
npm install
Then run the tests with
npm test
or
make test
(I do this to get the nyan cat reporter)
If you are running on localhost, the last tests related to single sign off will be skipped. The idea is that localhost isn't usually an address that can be hit by another machine, so the test should not be run.
Instead, put the library on a machine with a URL (even a numeric one) that your CAS server can see and send a POST to. This will more accurately model a real production environment.
For example, if you have a server called http://awesome.mycompany.net
you can run the test on port 3000 on this machine by typing
export CAS_VALIDATE_TEST_URL='awesome.mycompany.net'
Then all the tests will run, and they should all pass. Assuming of
course that you have a properly configured CAS server and identified
it as noted above. The only caveat is that waiting for the POST is
slow, and so the test may timeout. If this happens, try running with
a longer timeout period (mocha --timeout 50000 test)
By default now, if your CAS server returns user attributes as XML, then these attributes will be parsed and loaded into the environment.
As noted above, the XML parser was switched away from a SAX-style
parser to a whole document parser, in order to get around a character
encoding bug. This change has an accompanying test in
test/xml_parser_test.js, and reads in the two files found in
test/files/, so if you want to test out your own specific case prior
to deploying this library, swap in your own XML files there.
The test (test/parse_casxml_response.js) is designed explicitly for my case,
where I am passing back ['mail','sn','cn','givenName','groups'] from
ldap via CAS. If your local CAS server is not passing back these
things, then the test will fail for you. To help, I am dumping to the
console the object returned from parsing. If it makes sense to you
given your CAS server and given your test user (CAS_USER environment
variable), then the test is passing. Feel free to fork and create a
more general test if you can think of one.
This package uses winston. Not
well, but anyway, there it is. Basically, if you want lots of output,
set the NODE_ENV environment variable to 'development'. If you are
running in production, set NODE_ENV to 'production'. This also
meshes well with Express usage of the NODE_ENV variable. Finally,
if something weird is going on in production, you can also set the log
level explicitly, by setting either CAS_VALIDATE_LOG_LEVEL or
LOGLEVEL to the usual ['debug','info','warn','error'] (although this
hasn't been tested)
In the code noisy alerts are at the debug level, and then errors are at the error level, but maybe in the future I'll add finer grained message levels.
The CAS server is documented at http://www.jasig.org/cas.
FAQs
Interact with a CAS server to validate client interaction
The npm package cas_validate receives a total of 2 weekly downloads. As such, cas_validate popularity was classified as not popular.
We found that cas_validate demonstrated a not healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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