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Configuring the LDAP Security Manager

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Configuring the LDAP Security Manager

Apr 25, 2019

It is assumed that you have an in-house installation of up and running or you have requested an LDAP tenant in the cloud from frevvo customer support.

Safari browsers later than v5.1.7 running on Windows is no longer supported. Issues were found when using Safari with LDAP - SSO.

On This Page:

Prerequisite Tasks

These instructions assume that you have an in-house installation of Live Forms up and running or you have signed up for an LDAP tenant on the cloud server

Active Directory Customers using LDAP must ensure that frevvo.User, frevvo.TenantAdmin and frevvo.Designer groups are specified on your LDAP/AD server. The group names must be spelled as shown. Upper/lower case may be a factor for Open LDAP systems. 

  • All users requiring access to Live Forms 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.

  • Users with the frevvo.publishers role must be assigned to the frevvo.Publisher and frevvo.User groups on your LDAP/AD Server.

  • Users with the frevvo.ReadOnly role must be assigned to frevvo.ReadOnly and frevvo.User groups on your LDAP/AD Server.

Configuring
and LDAP/Active Directory 

users and groups can be maintained externally in systems such as Active Directory or Open LDAP.  Follow these steps to integrate 
 and your LDAP server:

  1. Collect the key information listed below and verify the Prerequisite Tasks have been performed.

  2. Create a tenant with the LDAP/Active Directory Security Manager class.

  3. Once you have your tenant successfully connecting with your LDAP server, review the available options regarding the authentication process.

Key Information to Collect

Before configuring the LDAP/Active Directory Security Manager, you will need the following information:

  • LDAP server name or ip

  • LDAP server port

  • User name and password with proper permissions to access and browse LDAP.

  • LDAP groups and/or users that will be considered 

     designers. These users will be able to create forms and flows in frevvo.

  • LDAP groups and users that will be considered 

    administrators.

  • LDAP groups and users that will be considered 

    publishers. This role gives a user the permission to go to the home page of every other tenant user. 

  • LDAP groups and users that will be considered ReadOnly.

Create/Edit a tenant with the LDAP/Active Directory Security Manager class

The connection to your LDAP server is configured at the tenant level.

  • Existing in-house customers using LDAP can make changes to the LDAP Configuration Parameters using the Edit Tenant screen.

  • New

    in-house customers can add an LDAP tenant and configure the LDAP parameters via the Add Tenant screen. LDAP properties can be updated at anytime via the Edit Tenant screen.

  • Cloud customers must request an LDAP tenant from frevvo customer support. Cloud customers will receive a default tenant login from frevvo and then they can edit the LDAP configuration properties using the Edit Tenant screen to connect to their LDAP server.

In all cases, follow these steps to configure LDAP. These instructions assume that you have an in-house installation of Live Forms up and running or you have signed up for an LDAP tenant on the cloud server.

  • In-house customers:

 

The Ignore Case and Notify checkboxes are checked by default. It is recommended that you leave them checked. Refer to Mixed or Upper case User Names topic for an explanation of the Ignore Case option.

The Notify checkbox determines whether the task notification emails setup in

flows are sent or not.

 Clicking the submit button tests the connection. Any errors are displayed at the top of the form. Here is an example of an error when there is a typo in the LDAP server name:

 

Here is another example if the connection password is not correct

Check if the configuration is correct

Here are some quick tests to check if the LDAP configuration is correct:

  1. Login as the 

    tenant admin for the LDAP tenant.

  2. Click on the Manage Users link.

  3. Click All. You should see a list of LDAP users which were assigned one of these

    roles on the LDAP server: frevvo.TenantAdmin, frevvo.Designer, frevvo.Publisher, frevvo.ReadOnly

  4. Now, click Back To Manage Tenant.

  5. Click Manage Roles. You should see a list of groups from your LDAP server.

  6. Log out from 

     (you should be currently logged in as the tenantadmin)

  7. Try to login with the user name and password of a user in LDAP. You need to specify the proper tenant when logging in. For instance, if john is a valid LDAP user and the name of the LDAP tenant is MYLDAP, you should log in as john@MYLDAP. The password would be john's password in LDAP.

Since you are using LDAP to define

users and roles (i.e., groups), you do not see an Add User icon or Add Role icon on the Manage Users or Manage Roles pages.

Secure LDAP Configuration

will be connecting to your LDAP server over the network. Here are two methods to secure the LDAP connection:

  1. Simple authentication over SSL - To enable SSL use the ldaps scheme in your LDAP tenant configuration in place of ldap and use port 636.  This is supported by older LDAP products such as AD 2000. It is important that the hostname in the certificate matches the hostname in your ldaps url.

  2. Simple or external SASL authentication over TLS (Transport Layer Security) - To enable this method check the TLS checkbox in your LDAP tenant configuration. TLS is used by the LDAP v3 standard in products such as AD 2003 and above. TLS uses the standard LDAP port 389.  

When using either of these two methods, the recommended approach is to use a CA signed certificate. If you do not have a CA signed certificate then you can use a self-signed certificate.

Self signed certificates are not supported for Live Forms Online. Although they are supported for

in-house, use of self-signed certificates is not recommended.

Finally you need to install your signed or self-signed certificate. You can import the certificate into a keystore that 

 can access and trust. Follow the instructions for your keystore. If 
 is installed in a tomcat server, the tomcat keystore can be used. Refer to this Apache Tomcat website for instructions .

External SASL and pooling are currently not supported. This is planned for a later release. 

Configuring LDAPs for your Cloud tenant

Once your 

Online cloud hosted tenant has been provisioned for production use, follow the steps below to configure your tenant to use the frevvo LDAP/Active Directory Security Manager to integrate with your company's AD server:

  1. Confirm that your LDAP/AD server is running LDAPs with a third-party certification authority.

    1. It is likely your LDAP/AD server already has a CA certificate installed. But if not, this Microsoft KB article tells you how to do this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/321051

    2. Your LDAP/AD server must be running LDAPs with a third-party certification authority BEFORE performing Step 4.

  2. Email support@frevvo.com

    1. Provide frevvo with the IP Address or range of IP Addresses (in the case where your LDAP config is fault tolerant) of the machine(s) hosting your AD server.

  3. STOP:

    1. Wait for a reply email from support@frevvo.com letting you know that the frevvo infrastructure team has completed the white listing of your IP(s) on port 636 (ssl) in our firewall.

  4. Once you receive this white listing confirmation email:

    1. Go to https://app.frevvo.com

    2. Login as your tenant admin

    3. Edit your tenant configuration and change the security manager to the LDAP Security Manager.

    4. Change the LDAP properties to your company's AD server following the instructions.

    5. Save your tenant AD configuration settings

    6. Verify that your tenant is now connected to your company AD server

LDAP Configuration Properties

These are the properties used to configure the LDAP/Active Directory security manager. The properties in bold are required.

Property

 Description

Property

 Description

Connection URL

ldap server url

Connection User

User to connect to LDAP. This user must have the proper permissions to read and run queries in the ldap server.

If using Active Directory, it is common to specify the domain. For instance, TEST\Administrator refers to the user Administrator in the TEST domain.

Connection Password

Password for the user defined in com.frevvo.security.ldap.connection.name.

Users Base

Searches for users will start from the ldap node specified by this property.If the value is empty the searches will start from the root domain.

Groups Base

Searches for the groups will start from the ldap node specified by this property. If the value is empty, searches will start from the root domain

UserId Display

User attribute that will be visible in frevvo. This is what will be displayed in the list of users a tenant admin sees and has to be unique in the server.

Another restriction is that the values for the attribute configured here cannot have spaces.

For instance, don't configure CN as the value since it can contain spaces in most systems.

GroupId Display

Group attribute that will be visible in frevvo. This is, for instance, what will be displayed in the list of groups a tenant admin sees or the groups used in workflows. This attribute has to be unique in the server.

 

Notify checkbox

Notifications are emails sent by frevvo to workflows participants. If checked, notifications will be sent.

All Groups Filter

The expected value is an LDAP filter expression.

The expression should return the groups that will be available to be used in frevvo workflows. com.frevvo.security.ldap.groupIdDisplayAttribute

All Users Filter

The expected value is an LDAP filter expression. The expression should return the users that will be available to be used in frevvo work flows and authentication. com.frevvo.security.ldap.groupIdDisplayAttribute

User Member Of

Attribute on a user object storing the groups the user is a member of.

Group Member

Attribute on a group object storing the users that are a member of this group.

First Name

Name of the user ''first name'' attribute

Last Name

Name of the user ''last name'' attribute.

Email

Name of the user ''email'' attribute in the LDAP server. This value can be used in a rule is used in email notifications

Manager

Attribute on a user object storing the DN of the user’s manager. This value can be retrieved in a rule or used in flow navigation using the subject.reports.to data available in

.

Ignore Case checkbox

If checked, 

ignores the case stored in LDAP systems, primarily for the purpose of determining roles.

Custom

This is a a comma separated list of attribute names to be retrieved from the LDAP Server.

TLS

This enables simple authentication over TLS. If checked, a trusted certificate for the LDAP server is required.

Sample Configurations

Property

 Active Directory Sample Configuration

OpenLDAP Sample Configuration

Property

 Active Directory Sample Configuration

OpenLDAP Sample Configuration

Connection URL

ldap://[your server]:[port, typically the default is 389 ]

ldap://[your server]:[port, typically the default is 389 ]

Connection User

[user name]

cn=admin,dc=test,dc=frevvo,dc=com

Connection Password

[user password]

[user password]

Users Base

CN=Users,DC=test,DC=windows,DC=frevvo,DC=com

DC=test,DC=frevvo,DC=com

Groups Base

CN=Users,DC=test,DC=windows,DC=frevvo,DC=com

DC=test,DC=frevvo,DC=com

UserId Display

sAMAccountName

uid

GroupId Display

sAMAccountName

entryDN

Notify checkbox

Check the Notifications checkbox

 

All Groups Filter

(objectClass=group)

( | (objectClass=groupOfUniqueNames)(objectClass=organizationalRole))

All Users Filter

(objectClass=user)

(objectClass=person)

Group Member

member

uniqueMember

 User Member Of

memberOf

" "

 First Name

givenName

cn

 Last Name

sn

sn

 Email

mail

mail

Manager

manager

manager 

Ignore Case

Check the Ignore Case checkbox

Check the Ignore Case checkbox

Custom

carLicense, employeeName

carLicense

TLS

Check to secure the connection using TLS

Check to secure the connection using TLS

Options for Authentication

Once you have your tenant successfully connecting with your LDAP server, there are two options available regarding the authentication process.

  • Options 1: Users can login using the

    login page and

    will delegate authentication back to the LDAP/Active Directory server. See the example below. There is nothing more to do if you choose this option.

  • Options 2: You can implement Single Sign On with IIS. See the details below.

Option 1 - Live Forms login page authenticating against LDAP

This is the case where the user will authenticate through the 

's login page but delegate authentication to LDAP. Lets assume that your tenant named 'LDAP' was successfully configured to connect to your LDAP server and there is a user 'john' in your LDAP server. You can now login directly via
's login page:

 

The password provided in the login page is the user's password in LDAP. A very important point to note is that the user name, "john" in the example above, needs to match the value for the LDAP entry attribute configured in the property UserID Display field on the  Edit Tenant screen. For instance, for Active Directory, the value of this property is normally sAMAccountName. That means 

 will try to find an entry in LDAP that has sAMAccountName=john.

Option 2 - Single Sign On with IIS

In this scenario, a user authenticates to his windows account and tries to use 

. Since the user is already authenticated to the network, 
 will recognize his credentials and automatically forward the user to his 
 account, if he is a designer, or allow the user to use a form/flow if those resources are available to the tenant.

The basic deployment is IIS fronting 

 and the authentication is done against LDAP.  For that to work you need to:

  1. Install Live Forms 

  2. Configure Live Forms to work with IIS

  3. Configure Windows Authentication 

    1. Configure Windows Authentication on IIS7

    2. Configure Windows Authentication on IIS6

  4. In IIS, Make sure that Anonymous Authentication or Basic Authentication is NOT configured in the Web Application (Default Web) that will be used to proxy requests to 

    . 

Please also refer to the force auth property for forms and flows. Force auth lets you override SSO for an individual form or flow.

If you are using LDAP and SSO, and you want to embed the

in your website, refer to this topic for some important information.

Once all is configured and running it is possible to test these scenarios:

Signing in from within the network

In this case, the 

 server and the Active Directory server are running on the same machine. The user is already authenticated to the windows network and points the browser to:

http://[server]/frevvo/web/tn/[LDAP tenant]/login

Substitute LDAP tenant above with the tenant name you configured with the LDAP Security Manager. The server variable should be the ip address of the machine where IIS is installed .

The user will automatically authenticate to 

. It is crucial that the LDAP user is known to 
, in other words, the user should be one of the entries retrieved by the LDAP expression configured in the All Users Filter on the LDAP configuration screen.

Signing in from outside the network

In this case, the 

 server and the Active Directory server are running on different machines. The user is trying to hit the URL below from outside the network. 

 http://[server]/frevvo/web/tn/[LDAP tenant]/login

Substitute LDAP tenant above with the tenant name you configured with the LDAP Security Manager and the server variable with the ip address of the machine where IIS is installed.

Since the user is not authenticated in the windows Network, he will be prompted by the browser for credentials. IIS will authenticate the user in the network and forward the request to 

. The user will be automatically redirected to his initial page without having to re-enter his credentials.

Single sign-on Browser Configuration

If you are still being prompted for Windows authentication after SSO is configured, the security settings for your browser may be too high. Configure your browser to authenticate using the "system logon credentials" (Kerberos authentication mechanism) by adding the frevvo server to the browser's trusted sites.

Follow these steps for the specified browsers:

Configuring Internet Explorer

If you are using either the IisLoginModule or NtlmLoginModule option, your Internet Explorer users may want to modify their browser settings.  By default, Internet Explorer will only allow automatic login for sites in its Intranet zone.  For sites not included in the specified Intranet Zones, a windows dialog box will popup requesting login information.  This popup can be avoided by having your users modify their Intranet Zone settings as described below.

IE will recognize a site as being in its Intranet zone in one of two ways.

1.     The name of the server that you are accessing does not have a dot in the name. For example, http://frevvoserver/.

2.     The site is configured as an Intranet site for IE.

To configure the Intranet sites for IE,

  1. Open IE and select "Tools > Internet Options...".

  2. Select the "Security" tab, click on the "Local intranet" icon, and then click on the "Sites..."

  3. Click the Advanced button. Type the full name of the frevvo server, including protocol, in the first field. For example: http://frevvoserver.com

    1. If you are using SSL, then replace "http" with "https".

  4. Click the "Add" button.

  5. Click the "Close" and "OK" buttons to back out. Now IE should recognize the server as being part of its Intranet zone.

Configuring Firefox

If you are using either the IisLoginModule or NtlmLoginModule option, your Firefox users may want to modify their browser settings.  By default, Firefox will prevent automatic login.  Browsing the frevvo SSO URL will cause a windows dialog box to popup requesting login information.  This popup can be avoided by having your users modify their Firefox settings as described below.

  1. In the Firefox address bar type about:config.  This will display all settings for Firefox.  

  2. In the filter box type ntlm and hit the enter key. This will narrow the display items to those pertaining to NTLM authentication.

  3. Double click on the key entry network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted.uris.  This is a comma separated list of trusted servers for which automatic NTLM authentication is enabled.

  4. In the edit box displayed, enter the name of the server you are accessing.  For example, http://frevvoserver.com/.

    1.  If you are using SSL, replace http with https.

  5. Click the OK button.  Firefox should now enable automatic NTLM authentication with the frevvo server.

Configuring Chrome

To configure chrome you need to start the application with following parameter: auth-server-whitelist - <Allowed fully qualified domain name>.

 For example: In Windows,

  1. Click the Start button, All Programs, Accessories, and then click Run. 

  2. In the Open box, type following and click Ok:

    • chrome --auth-server-whitelist="*frevvoserver.com" 

Configuring Safari

No additional configuration is needed.

Configure frevvo.internal.baseurl in frevvo.xml for LDAP SSO

This parameter is needed in frevvo.xml for various activities like accessing the ACL page, publishing templates, resetting tasks etc when using LDAP SSO. Let's say you have a browser signed in via SSO to machine m1 (port 80).  IIS is running on m1 (port 80) redirecting /frevvo/web to frevvo running on m2:8082. The browser submits a form to m1, IIS redirects to m2:8082.  The doc action is a frevvo:// URI which gets resolved to http://m1/frevvo/...  

 POSTs to this URI  but m1 rejects the POST since it is not authenticated.

To avoid situations such as these, set frevvo.internal.baseurl to the actual host:port of the  server. Follow these steps: