Prerequisites

Authentication Only mode

When you create your  SAML tenant, you can select Authentication Only mode. This is done by checking a checkbox when you configure your SAML tenant.

If Authentication Only is selected, SAML is used only for authentication. Authorization depends on the roles defined in frevvo.  SAML will authenticate the user but not retrieve any of the attributes.
You may choose to use this mode if you:

• you prefer to maintain groups/roles in frevvo rather than in your IDP or LDAP server.

• you find the SAML mapping for the other required attributes complex. For example, retrieving the manager user id and role names may require writing custom rules.

In this mode, manual creation of users & roles in the frevvo tenant is required. The frevvo CSV upload feature makes this easy.

If Authentication Only is not selected, users will be added (discovery) at runtime when they log in for the first time. It is important to consider the following points before making your decision.

• User discovery:

  • There is no guarantee that the first login will occur before a task is created for a specific user /role. If you have workflows, that are routed to users who have not logged in yet, your workflow may not do what you expect. If the user’s role changes after 1st login but before the next task is routed to their new role, the task will not appear on their Task List. For example, a user with the role of employee logs into frevvo. The user then gets promoted to manager. The user will not receive a task routed to the user's new role of manager if the workflow is initiated before the user logs out and logs in again and the user account is updated.

  • Manually creating/uploading users and roles ahead of time avoids this situation.
    

•  Your IDP or LDAP Server:
  • Customers must ensure that the frevvo.User, frevvo.TenantAdmin and frevvo.Designer roles are specified in their IDP or LDAP server. 
    
    • • All users requiring access to frevvo must be assigned to the frevvo.User group. 
      • Tenant admin users must be assigned to the frevvo.User and frevvo.TenantAdmin groups,
      • Designer users must be assigned to the frevvo.User and frevvo.Designer groups.
        
        

Configuring the SAML Security Manager

In the directions given below, the Service Provider refers to frevvo frevvo. The metadata for your frevvo SAML tenant must be obtained first. Customers will need to configure the frevvo metadata when creating the SAML tenant.

1. On Premise Customers Only
   1. Generate Your Certificate
2. Create the frevvo Metadata file
3. Configure your Identity Provider
4. Create or edit the SAML tenant
5. Users and Roles in a SAML tenant
6. Logging into a frevvo SAML Tenant

Section 1 - On Premise Customers Only

Cloud customers can skip the Generate Your Certificate and Install the Java Cryptography steps. These instructions are provided for On Premise customers only.

Generate Your Certificate

If you are using the frevvo tomcat bundle, the supplied keystore, frevvoKeystore.jks is located in the <frevvo-home>/tomcat/lib folder, The keystore contains a default certificate. Replace this with a certificate for your installation.

This certificate is used to sign/encrypt the SAML request. The use of a long-lived self-signed certificate for SAML is recommended because a CA certificate is usually only valid for 1 to 2 years and you have to keep replacing it. Since the keystore is located outside the frevvo war, you can use the Java keytool to generate and store your certificates

The alias, password, and path to the keystore are configured in the <frevvo-home>\tomcat\bin\setenv.bat and the service.bat files for the Windows OS or setenv.sh for UNIX/Linux OS. The properties listed below are used in the setenv and service.bat files to set the default values:

• com.frevvo.security.saml.key - use this property to change the alias
• com.frevvo.security.saml.password - use this property to change the password
• com.frevvo.security.saml.keystore - use this property to change the location of the keystore
  
  

rem SAML keystore configuration
set CATALINA_OPTS=%CATALINA_OPTS% -Dcom.frevvo.security.saml.keystore=file:${catalina.home}/lib/frevvoKeystore.jks -Dcom.frevvo.security.saml.key=frevvo -Dcom.frevvo.security.saml.password=p@ssw0rd 

# SAML keystore configuration
export CATALINA_OPTS="${CATALINA_OPTS} -Dcom.frevvo.security.saml.keystore='file://${CATALINA_BASE}/lib/frevvoKeystore.jks' -Dcom.frevvo.security.saml.key=frevvo -Dcom.frevvo.security.saml.password=p@ssw0rd"

set SAML_ARGS=-Dcom.frevvo.security.saml.keystore=file:${catalina.home}/lib/frevvoKeystore.jks;-Dcom.frevvo.security.saml.key=frevvo;-Dcom.frevvo.security.saml.password=p@ssw0rd

Follow these steps to generate and import the certificate for your installation:

1. Stop frevvo if it is running.
2. Copy the default <frevvo-home>\tomcat\lib\ frevvoKeystore.jks to another location as a backup
3. Log in as administrator.
4. Make sure the path to the keytool application is configured in your system path. keytool is part of the standard Java distribution (JDK or JRE)). For example, keytool is located in the C:\Program Files\Java\jdkx.x.x\bin directory in the JDK.
5. Navigate to <frevvo-home>\ tomcat\lib or to the new location of the keystore if you changed the com.frevvo.security.saml.keystore property in the setenv or service.bat files

6. Delete the existing certificate:

   keytool -delete -alias frevvo -keypass p@ssw0rd -keystore frevvoKeystore.jks -storepass p@ssw0rd

7. If you changed the password from the default, execute this keytool command to change the password in the keystore

   keytool -storepasswd -keystore frevvoKeystore.jks

   You will be prompted for the old password. Enter p@ssw0rd. Then when prompted, enter the new one. The keystore password must match whatever is in the line that you added to the setenv or service.bat files.

   
   

8. Generate a new certificate: Here is the command: Change the -dname value to the DNS name of your IDP.
   
   If you changed the values of the com.frevvo.security.saml.key or com.frevvo.security.saml.password properties in the setenv or service.bat files then change the alias in the command and the keypass and storepass password parameters to match those values. The key and store passwords need to be the same as there is only one password property.
   
   The dname in this keytool command specifies the X.500 Distinguished Name to be associated with the alias and is used as the issuer and subject fields in the self-signed certificate. While we provide a sample in the documentation, it is up to the customer (your security policy) to decide what the value should be when the certificate for your installation is generated. Since this is a self-signed certificate, the dname could be anything. Here is a link to the Oracle documentation to give you some ideas.
   
   Execute this command to create a new certificate and store it in the keystore.
   

   keytool -genkey -dname "cn=app.frevvo.com" -alias frevvo -keypass p@ssw0rd -keystore frevvoKeystore.jks -storepass p@ssw0rd -keyalg rsa -keysize 2048 -validity 3650

   
   

9. The certificate can be viewed by exporting it to a file. If you changed the password, substitute the new password in the command:

   keytool -exportcert -alias frevvo -file frevvo.rfc -rfc -keystore frevvoKeystore.jks -storepass p@ssw0rd

Section 2 - Create the frevvo Metadata file

Follow these steps to generate the frevvo metadata for your SAML tenant. You can do this even if the tenant has not been created yet.

1. Paste this URL into your browser:

   1. Cloud Customers: https://app.frevvo.com:443/frevvo/web/saml/metadata/alias/{t} - replace {t} with the tenant id of your SAML tenant.

   2. On-premise customers: http://<server>:<port>/frevvo/web/saml/metadata/alias/{t} - replace <server> with the ip of your server, <port> with the port number (if applicable) and t with your tenant id).
      
      

2. When the metadata displays, right-click and select the browser option to View the Page source.
   
   
   
   

3. Save the page as an xml file.
4. Metadata must be generated for each SAML tenant. Each tenant will have a unique URL.

Section 3 - Configure Your Identity Provider

1. Configure the Service Provider metadata for your Identity Provider. For example, the Shiboleth Identity provider requires modification of a file to provide the path to the frevvo tenant metadata xml file created above.
2. Your Identity Provider must be configured to expose the attributes that frevvo requires. Attribute mapping is done when you create the SAML tenant. These are:
   1. User Id
   2. First Name
   3. Last Name
   4. Email
   5. Manager Id (optional)
   6. Groups
   7. Custom Attributes (optional)

We know that your IDP software of choice is outside of the frevvo server software and that you have the expertise in-house to install, configure and maintain your IDP software. But here are some tips we have found that may assist you.

Section 4 - Create or edit the SAML tenant

To successfully create a frevvo tenant using the SAML Security manager, you will need the following:

 frevvo SAML Security Manager#Step2-CreatetheMetadatafile

• The metadata for your Identity Provider
• Attribute mapping information  

frevvo cloud customers, migrating your tenant to the SAML Security Manager, will make the changes via the Edit Tenant screen. Once accessed, follow these steps beginning with step 2.

 Log onto frevvo as the superuser (on-premise) or the tenant admin (cloud).

1. Access the Add Tenant (on-premise) or Edit Tenant (cloud) screen.
2. Select SAML Security Manager from the Security Manager Class dropdown.
3. Copy the Service Provider (frevvo) metadata into the Service Provider field. The xml should be pasted without the prolog. For example, the image shows an example of the frevvo metadata file before pasting:
   
   
   
   
4. Retrieve the metadata for your Identity Provider. For example, for the Shibboleth product, the metadata is located in the idp-metadata file.
   
   
5. Paste the metadata into the Identity Provider field. This metadata should also be pasted without the prolog.
   
   
   
   
6. Check the Ignore Case checkbox if you are using LDAP for authentication and you want frevvo to ignore the case stored in LDAP systems for users/roles. It is checked by default. Refer to the Mixed or Upper case User Names topic for more information.

7. Check the Authentication Only checkbox if you want SAML to handle authentication and provide user identification but all other user attributes come from the frevvo database.
   
   When checked, the screen display changes as attribute mapping, other than the mapping for the user id and custom attributes, is no longer necessary.
   
   
   
   

   SAML Security Manager#Prerequisites:

   • If Authentication Only is checked:
     • SAML will authenticate the user but not retrieve any of the attributes. Authorization depends on the roles defined in frevvo. Changes made in the frevvo UI will not be overridden if the user logs out and then logs in again.
       
     • Manual creation of users & roles in the frevvo SAML tenant is required. This can be done with a csv upload.
       
       
   • If Authentication Only is unchecked:

     • All users requiring access to frevvo must be assigned to the frevvo.User group in your IDP. Tenant Admins must be assigned to the frevvo.User and frevvo.TenantAdmin groups. Designer users must be assigned to the frevvo.User and frevvo.Designer groups.

     • Users are added (discovered) when they log in. 
     • It is important to know that a SAML tenant in this mode (SAML/LDAP handles authentication and authorization) that users and tenant admins can modify user information in the frevvo UI. If user information/role assignment is changed in the frevvo UI, the changes will be overwritten by the information in SAML the next time the user logs out and then logs back in again. In this case, make the changes in your IDP to make them permanent.
       

8. Map the attributes configured in your Identity Provider by entering the name for each attribute in the corresponding field on the frevvo screen. Be sure to provide the attribute name - not the friendly name. For example, if you are using Shibboleth for your Identity Provider the attribute information is located in the attribute-resolver.xml file. The image shows the section of the file where the attributes are defined.
   
   
   The image below shows the attribute mapping on the frevvo screen with the attribute names from the Shibboleth file:

   
   
   

   If Authentication Only mode is enabled for your tenant, mapping is only required for the User Id. Refer to step 8 for the details

9. Custom attributes can be mapped by typing the attribute names in the Custom field separated by a comma.
10. Configure a tenant admin account. This account does not require SAML authentication. This tenant admin can log directly into frevvo.
    
    1. The tenant admin id, password and email fields are required. The Change password on next login field is optional. It is checked by default.
    2. When this tenant admin performs a form-based login i.e. /frevvo/web/login, the password entered on this screen is used for authentication. This is also the URL used by the API. For cloud customers, the <base> is always https://app.frevvo.com.
    3. If the tenant based login url is used i.e. /frevvo/web/tn/{t}/login then SAML login is used. 
    
    
    
    
    The forgot password function works for a SAML tenant admin user. For all others, it will display the error message, "Password reset is not supported in the tenant."
    
    
    
    
11. Configure the Business Calendar for your tenant and HTTP Authorization Credentials if required.
12. Click Submit.
    

Section 5 - Users and Roles in a SAML tenant

Choosing the Authentication only option in your SAML tenant implies that the user and roles will be managed from frevvo. You may choose this mode if:

1. 1. you prefer to maintain groups/roles in frevvo rather than in your IDP or LDAP server.
   2. you find the SAML mapping for the other required attributes complex. For some IDPs, retrieving the manager user id and role names may require writing custom rules.

When Authentication Only is selected (checked) there is no discovery of Users & Roles. They must be created in your tenant manually. The CSV upload is a good way to do this.

When Authentication Only is not selected (unchecked) frevvo will discover new users at run-time. However, users are only discovered when the person tries to log in. They are not discovered nor is their user data (email, name, report-to) kept in sync automatically. It requires the user to log in. So, this does not necessarily remove the need for manually creating/uploading users and roles ahead of time nor does it remove the need to continuously update the users when changes are made in LDAP. 

If you have workflows that are routed to users/roles there is no guarantee that the required users will log in before a task is created for that user (specifically or via a role). For example, if a workflow is routed to a specific user and it is performed before the first login of that user, frevvo will send an email to the tenant admin indicating that the user is unknown. Routing based on the user's manager will fail. Routing based on a role will succeed but the user will receive no notification.

Manually creating/uploading users/roles in frevvo ahead of time avoids this situation. Be sure to review CSV Upload Considerations first.

Section 6 - Logging into a frevvo SAML Tenant

Browse the URL below to initiate the SAML authentication process by redirecting to the Identity Provider login page.  

• Cloud Customers: https://app.frevvo.com:443/frevvo/web/tn/{t}/login. Replace {t} with the name of your SAML tenant.

• On-premise Customers: http://<server>:<port>/frevvo/web/tn/{t}/login. Replace <server> and <port> with your server information and t with the name of your SAML tenant.

SAML Tenant Built-in Admin User

Just a reminder that the tenant admin account can log in directly into frevvo or use the SAML login.

When you create/edit a new tenant you are prompted to set up/modify a tenant admin user id, password, and email address. This tenant admin does not authenticate via your SAML IDP. It only exists in frevvo. If you experience an issue with your SAML configuration such that you can't log in as a SAML authenticated user, use the built-in admin to log in to your tenant as a tenant admin in order to fix your SAML configuration issue. Only one built-in tenant admin account is supported.

Browse this URL to login as the built-in: <base_URL>/frevvo/web/admin/login. When specified, frevvo will prepend the base URL to the URLs in your Form/Document Actions. The <base_URL> is typically http(s)://<your servername>:<port>.

• You must use the admin specific URL - <base-url>/frevvo/web/admin/login - to login as the built-in.
• Non-admin users can also log in using the admin-specific URL.

If your tenant originally used the Default Security Manager and then you changed to the SAML Security Manager, this tenant admin account has already been set up. If you have forgotten the password, you can change it by:

• Browsing the admin specific URL - <base-url>/frevvo/web/admin/login. Enter the built-in userid. Click Forgot Password?. The error message "Password reset is not supported in the tenant." displays if any other user clicks on the Forgot Password link after browsing the admin specific URL:
  
  
  
  
• Logging in as a SAML authenticated tenant admin and changing the password via Manage Users.
  

What if you do not remember the userid of your original tenant admin? Follow these steps:

1. Log in as your authenticated Azure SAML tenant admin
2. Click Manage Users and click the edit admin icon
   

Logged in User Display in Azure SAML frevvo tenant

If your SAML userIds are in the format <username>@<domain name>, when you log in to frevvo the frevvo tenant name is appended to the userId. This is as designed. You will see <username@domain name@frevvo tenant name> as the logged-in user at the top of the screen. If your domain name is the same as your frevvo tenant name, it will appear as if the domain name is listed twice, for example, tom@frevvo.com@frevvo.com.

Session Timeout

Session timeouts are configured in frevvo and in your IDP. If a user's session ends before the IDP timeout is reached, they will automatically be logged back into frevvo if they try to access it again. It is recommended that the frevvo session timeout and the IDP session timeout be configured for the same value.

Embedding Forms/Workflows in your website

Embedding forms and workflows into your website when using the SAML Security Manager, will work in the following scenarios :

• The visibility of the form is set to Public.
• The visibility of the form is set to Public in Tenant and the user is already authenticated to SAML

Automating the Daily CSV Upload

Customers using the SAML Security Manager, often want to schedule a daily upload batch job to automatically handle the synchronization of users between their IDP and frevvo. The Java Client API is one way to do this. Refer to the How do I batch upload users from the api? topic for the details.

Retrieving Custom Attributes from LDAP in a SAML Tenant

Custom properties in LDAP server for the logged-in user can be made available so you can pull them into your form/workflow using a frevvo business rule. Attributes have to be configured and released in your IDP configuration for them to be available on login. There are several steps that have to happen to accomplish this:

1. Make sure Authentication Only is unchecked in your SAML tenant.
2. Make sure the custom attribute(s) are configured in your LDAP server and assigned to the correct users.

3. Configure and release the custom attributes as SAML attributes in your IDP.  

   The procedure to expose custom attributes will differ depending on the IDP you have selected. Refer to your IDP documentation or your on-staff IDP expert to complete this step.

4. Map the attribute with this name in the Custom section of the tenant setup screen.
   1. You can do this when you are creating your SAML tenant or by accessing the Edit Tenant link, after signing on as the tenant admin of your existing SAML tenant.
5. Save the tenant configuration.
6. Write a frevvo business rule to populate controls in your form/workflow with the information.
   

Example:

Let's take a look at a frevvo installation using a SAML tenant, Shibboleth as the IDP and Active Directory for authentication. When the user logs into the SAML tenant, you want to populate these fields in your form with the information from the LDAP server:

These attributes must be configured and released in your IDP. The process to expose the attributes varies for each Identity Provider. In our example, which uses the Shibboleth IDP, configuration and release of the attributes is done in two files, attribute-resolver.xml and attribute-filter.xml. You may need to confer with your on-staff IDP expert to complete this step.

Here is an example of the section of the attribute-resolver.xml file that was added for the employeeType and employeeNumber custom attributes:

When the attributes are configured in the IDP, add them to the Custom section for attribute mapping by editing/creating your SAML tenant : 

Note the friendly name for the employeeType is listed here while the name of the employeeNumber attribute is used. This was done to match the configuration of the attributes in the IDP.

Next, create your form with fields to collect the attribute information. Include a Dropdown control that will be populated with the groups (roles) that are assigned to the designer user in Active Directory. Add a rule to pull the information into your form:

if(form.load) {
    FirstName.value = _data.getParameter('subject.first.name');
    LastName.value = _data.getParameter('subject.last.name');
    EMail.value = _data.getParameter('subject.email'); 
    EmployeeType.value = _data.getParameter('subject.employeeType');
    EmployeeNumber.value = _data.getParameter('subject.urn:oid:0.9.2342.19200300.100.1.30');
  MemberOf.options =JSON.parse(_data.getParameter('subject.urn:oid:1.3.6.1.4.1.5923.1.1.1.7'));
}

Troubleshooting Tips

Login fails with illegal Key Size Error

After a failed login, if this error message appears in the <frevvo-home>\tomcat\logs\frevvo.log file:

org.apache.xml.security.encryption.XMLEncryptionException: Illegal key size 
at org.apache.xml.security.encryption.XMLCipher.decryptToByteArray(XMLCipher.java:1822) ~[xmlsec-1.5.7.jar:1.5.7]
…
org.opensaml.xml.encryption.DecryptionException?: Failed to decrypt EncryptedData? 
at org.opensaml.xml.encryption.Decrypter.decryptDataToDOM(Decrypter.java:546) ~[xmltooling-1.4.4.jar:na]
…

Solution

This error indicates the Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files are missing in the Java Development Kit (JDK) software of your on-premise installation. Ensure you have the supported version of JDK installed which includes the JCE. 

The IDP login page does not display in the Microsoft Edge Browser

On Premise customers may see a blank page when browsing the URL to access your SAML tenant in the Microsoft Edge browser. There is a known issue with the Edge browser and untrusted self-signed certificates, especially where redirect is concerned. Registering the certificates in Windows will not work. The workaround is to:

• Refresh the page. It shows the untrusted site warning.
  
• Click on the Run anyway option to display the stale SAML request message.
  
• Enter the login url again and the IDP login page displays

Chrome browser: - You may see "Connection is not private" messages -skip these warnings and the login page displays

Access Denied Authentication Required error

This error typically occurs if the login is invalid, but may also occur if the max concurrent user limit has been reached. The max concurrent user limit can be configured by the server admin for On Premise installations.

SAML Errors

The table below lists errors you may encounter when configuring your tenant with the SAML Security Manager. Verify the recommended values to resolve.