Quick Start

Management

Authentication

properties: - properties authentication

<web-app xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">

  <authenticator uri="properties:password-digest=none">
     <init>
       harry=quidditch,user,admin
       draco=mudblood,disabled,user
     </init>
  </authenticator>

</web-app>

<web-app xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">

  <authenticator uri="properties:path=WEB-INF/users.properties"/>

</web-app>

harry=MD5HASH==,user,admin

xml: - xml authentication

<web-app xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">

  <authenticator uri="properties:password-digest=none">
     <init>
       <user name="harry" password="quidditch"/>
     </init>
  </authenticator>

</web-app>

<web-app xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">

  <authenticator uri="properties:path=WEB-INF/users.xml"/>

</web-app>

<users>
  <user name="harry password="MD5HASH==" roles="user,admin"/>
<users>

custom authentication

<web-app xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">

  <authenticator class="com.foo.MyAuthenticator">
    <init>
      <foo>bar</foo>
    </init>
  </authenticator>

</web-app>

package com.foo;

import com.caucho.server.security;

public class MyAuthenticator extends AbstractPasswordAuthenticator {
  private PasswordUser _user;

  public MyAuthenticator()
  {
    _user = new PasswordUser("harry", "quidditch",
                             new String[] { "user" });
  }
192
  public PasswordUser getUser(String userName)
  {
    if (userName.equals(_user.getName()))
      return _user;
    else
      return null;
  }
}

It's also possible to register your custom authenticatr with Resin's uri-based configuration. You'll add a file in the META-INF/services/com.caucho.config.uri named com.caucho.server.security.ServletAuthenticator in the .jar file with the following contents:

foo.my=com.foo.MyAuthenticator

Quick Start

The easiest authenticator to understand is the XmlAuthenticator. It lets you put users and passwords directly in the configuration file. The following example uses "Basic" authentication for login. Basic authentication asks the browser to pop open a window prompting for a username and password. (Basic authentication is discouraged because it is not secure unless you use it with SSL, but it's the easiest example.) The only user defined here is "Harry Potter" and he has the password "quidditch". He also plays the "user" role.

<web-app xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">

  ...

  <authenticator type="com.caucho.server.security.XmlAuthenticator">
    <init>
      <user>Harry Potter:quidditch:user</user>
      <password-digest>none</password-digest>
    </init>
  </authenticator>

  <login-config auth-method="basic"/>

  <security-constraint url-pattern="/users-only/*" role-name="user"/>

  ...

</web-app>

In the above example, the <security-constraint> checks for authorization. Only users playing the "user" role can access the /users-only directory.

Another often used authenticator is the JdbcAuthenticator, which uses usernames, passwords, and roles stored in a database.

<web-app xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">

  ...

  <!-- Resin-specific JdbcAuthenticator -->
  <authenticator type='com.caucho.server.security.JdbcAuthenticator'>
    <init>
      <data-source>test</data-source>
      <password-query>
        SELECT password FROM LOGIN WHERE username=?
      </password-query>
      <cookie-auth-query>
        SELECT username FROM LOGIN WHERE cookie=?
      </cookie-auth-query>
      <cookie-auth-update>
        UPDATE LOGIN SET cookie=? WHERE username=?
      </cookie-auth-update>
      <role-query>
        SELECT role FROM LOGIN WHERE username=?
      </role-query>
    </init>
  </authenticator>

  <login-config auth-method='basic'/>

  <security-constraint url-pattern='/users-only/*' role-name='user'/>

  ...

</web-app>

login-config

Configures the login class. The web.xml configuration describes the configuration in more detail.

The login can be customized by selecting the com.caucho.server.security.AbstractLogin. The type attribute will select that class. More sophisticated applications may want to add their own custom AbstractLogin class to replace the predefined values.

Typically a custom login would only be necessary if the application needed a custom way of extracting credentials from the request.

auth-method

Selects the authentication method.

form-login-config

Configures authentication for forms. The login form has specific parameters that the servlet engine's login form processing understands. If the login succeeds, the user will see the original page. If it fails, she will see the error page.

The form itself must have the action j_security_check. It must also have the parameters j_username and j_password. Optionally, it can also have j_uri and j_use_cookie_auth. j_uri gives the next page to display when login succeeds. j_use_cookie_auth allows Resin to send a persistent cookie to the user to make following login easier.

j_use_cookie_auth gives control to the user whether to generate a persistent cookie. It lets you implement the "remember me" button. By default, the authentication only lasts for a single session.

The following is an example of a servlet-standard login page:

<form action='j_security_check' method='POST'>
<table>
<tr><td>User:<td><input name='j_username'>
<tr><td>Password:<td><input name='j_password'>
<tr><td colspan=2>hint: the password is 'quidditch'
<tr><td><input type=submit>
</table>
</form>

authenticator

Specifies a class to authenticate users. This Resin-specific option lets you control your authentication. You can either create your own custom authenticator, or use Resin's JdbcAuthenticator.

The authenticator is responsible for taking the username and password and returning a UserPrincipal if the username and password match.

Users wanting to implement an authenticator should look at the JavaDoc for and . To protect your application from API changes, you should extend AbstractAuthenticator rather than implementing Authenticator directly.

XmlAuthenticator

The XmlAuthenticator (com.caucho.serer.security.XmlAuthenticator), stores the authentication in either an xml file or in the configuration itself.

When configuring the XmlAuthenticator in the resin.conf (or web.xml), each user adds a new configured user. The value contains the username, password, and the roles the user plays.

<authenticator type="com.caucho.server.security.XmlAuthenticator">
  <init>
    <user>Harry Potter:quidditch:user,gryffindor</user>
    <user>Draco Malfoy:pureblood:user,slytherin</user>
    <password-digest>none</password-digest>
  </init>
</authenticator>

Because the plain text passwords in the example above are a serious security issue, most sites will use the password-digest attribute described below to protect the passwords.

The passwords can be specified in a separate *.xml file. The password file looks like:

<authenticator>
  <user name='Harry Potter' password='quidditch' roles='gryffindor'/>
  <user name='Draco Malfoy' password='pureblood' roles='slytherin'/>
</authenticator>

Sites should use password-digest to protect the passwords.

JdbcAuthenticator

The JdbcAuthenticator () asks a backend database for the password matching the user's name. It uses the DataSource specified by the pool-name option, or the JNDI java:comp/env/jdbc/db-pool by default. pool-name refers to a DataSource configured with database.

The following are the attributes for the JdbcAuthenticator:

<web-app xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">

  ...

  <!-- Resin-specific JdbcAuthenticator -->
  <authenticator type='com.caucho.server.security.JdbcAuthenticator'>
    <init>
      <data-source>test</data-source>
      <password-query>
        SELECT password FROM LOGIN WHERE username=?
      </password-query>
      <cookie-auth-query>
        SELECT username FROM LOGIN WHERE cookie=?
      </cookie-auth-query>
      <cookie-auth-update>
        UPDATE LOGIN SET cookie=? WHERE username=?
      </cookie-auth-update>
      <role-query>
        SELECT role FROM LOGIN WHERE username=?
      </role-query>
    </init>
  </authenticator>

  <login-config auth-method='basic'/>

  <security-constraint url-pattern='/users-only/*' role-name='user'/>

  ...

</web-app>

LdapAuthenticator

The LdapAuthenticator () uses jndi to contact an LDAP (or Active Directory) server for authentication purposes.

<web-app xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">

  ...

  <authenticator>
    <type>com.caucho.server.security.LdapAuthenticator</type>
    <init>
      <url>ldap://localhost:389</url>
      <dn-suffix>dc=hogwarts,dc=com</dn-suffix>
      <password-digest>none</password-digest>
    </init>
  </authenticator>

  ...

</web-app>

  <authenticator>
    <type>com.caucho.server.security.LdapAuthenticator</type>
    <init>
      <jndi-env java.naming.factory.initial="com.sun.jndi.ldap.LdapCtxFactory"/>
      <jndi-env java.naming.provider.url="ldap://localhost:389"/>

      <dn-suffix>dc=hogwarts,dc=com</dn-suffix>
      <password-digest>none</password-digest>
    </init>
  </authenticator>

JaasAuthenticator

The JaasAuthenticator () uses a JAAS LoginModule for authentication. The JaasAuthenticator is an adapter that provides the ability to use the large number of JAAS LoginModule's included in the JDK for authentication purposes.

<web-app xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">

  <authenticator type="com.caucho.server.security.JaasAuthenticator">
    <init>
      <login-module>com.sun.security.auth.module.Krb5LoginModule</login-module>
      <init-param>
        <debug>true</debug>
      </init-param>
    </init>
  </authenticator>

</web-app>

import java.util.*;

import javax.security.auth.*;
import javax.security.auth.spi.*;
import javax.security.auth.callback.*;
import javax.security.auth.login.*;

public class TestLoginModule implements javax.security.auth.spi.LoginModule {
  private Subject _subject;
  private CallbackHandler _handler;
  private Map _state;
 
  private String _userName;
  private String _password;

  public void initialize(Subject subject,
                         CallbackHandler handler,
                         Map sharedState,
                         Map options)
   {
     _subject = subject;
     _handler = handler;
     _state = sharedState;

     _userName = (String) _options.get("user");
     _password = (String) _options.get("password");
   }

   public boolean login()
     throws LoginException
   {
     NameCallback name = new NameCallback("");
     PasswordCallback password = new PasswordCallback("", false);
 
     _handler.handle(new Callback[] { name, password });

     if (_userName.equals(name.getName()) && 
         _password.equals(password.getPassword()) {
         _subject.getPrincipals().add(new TestPrincipal(_userName));
       return true;
     }
     else
       return false;
   }

   public boolean abort()
   {
     return true;
   }

   public boolean commit()
   {
     return _subject.getPrincipals().size() > 0;
   }

   public boolean logout()
   {
      return true;
   }
}

<web-app xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">

  <authenticator type="com.caucho.server.security.JaasAuthenticator">
    <init>
      <login-module>example.TestModule</login-module>
      <init-param>
        <user>Harry</user>
        <password>quidditch</password>
      </init-param>
    </init>
  </authenticator>
</web-app>

AuthenticationList

AuthenticatorList () is used to configure more than one authenticator in a list, each authenticator is tried in turn and if the authentication fails the next authenticator in the list is attempted.

  <authenticator type="com.caucho.server.security.AuthenticatorList">
    <init>
      <authenticator resin:type="com.caucho.server.security.XmlAuthenticator">
        <user>admin:NIHlOSafJN2H7emQCkOQ2w==:user,admin</user>
      </authenticator>

      <authenticator resin:type='com.caucho.server.security.JdbcAuthenticator'>
        <data-source>jdbc/users</data-source>
        <password-query>
          SELECT password FROM LOGIN WHERE username=?
        </password-query>
        <cookie-auth-query>
          SELECT username FROM LOGIN WHERE cookie=?
        </cookie-auth-query>
        <cookie-auth-update>
          UPDATE LOGIN SET cookie=? WHERE username=?
        </cookie-auth-update>
        <role-query>
          SELECT role FROM LOGIN WHERE username=?
        </role-query>
      </authenticator>
    </init>
  </authenticator>

  <login-config auth-method='basic'/>

  <security-constraint url-pattern='/users/*' role-name='user'/>
  <security-constraint url-pattern='/admin/*' role-name='admin'/>

Digest passwords

Digest protects passwords

Digest passwords enable an application to avoid storing and even transmitting the password in a form that someone can read.

A digest of a cleartext password is calculated when it is passed through a one-way function that consistently produces another series of characters, digestPassword = digester(username + ":" + realm + ":" cleartextPassword). The function is "one-way" because the digestPassword cannot be used to reverse-engineer the original password.

Digest passwords can be used in two places: storage and transmission. Digest passwords in storage means that the password is stored in a digested form, for example in a database or in a file. Digest passwords in transmission means that the client (usually a web browser) creates the digest and submits the digest password to the web server.

Storing digest passwords is so important for security purposes that the Resin authenticators default to assuming that the passwords are stored in digest form.

The important advantage is that a user's cleartext password is not as easily compromised. Since the password they use (the "cleartext" password) is not stored a malicious user cannot determine the password by gaining access to the database or other backend storage for the passwords.

MD5 digest

Resin's authenticators use "MD5-base64" and a realm "resin" to digest passwords by default. MD5 indicates that the MD5 algorithm is used. base64 is an encoding format to apply to the binary result of MD5.

Some examples are:

In the above example the digest of "harry/quidditch" is different than the digest of "hpotter/quidditch" because even though the password is the same, the username has changed. The digest is calculated with digest(username + ":" + realm + ":" + password), so if the username changes the resulting digest is different.

Calculating a digest

Of course, storing the digest password is a bit more work. When the user registers, the application needs to compute the digest to store it.

Unix users can quickly calculate a digest:

echo -n "user:resin:password" | openssl dgst -md5 -binary | uuencode -m -

The class can be used to calculate a digest.

  import com.caucho.server.security.PasswordDigest;

  ...

  String username = ...;
  String password = ...;
  String realm = "resin";

  PasswordDigest passwordDigest = PasswordDigest();

  String digest = passwordDigest.getPasswordDigest(username, password, realm);

  $username = ...;
  $password = ...;
  $realm = "resin";

  $passwordDigest = new Java("com.caucho.server.security.PasswordDigest");

  $digest = $passwordDigest->getPasswordDigest($username, $password, $realm);

The realm for JdbcAuthenticator and XmlAuthenticator defaults to "resin"; the realm can be specified during configuration:

<authenticator type='com.caucho.server.security.JdbcAuthenticator'>
  <init>
    <password-digest-realm>hogwarts</password-digest-realm>

    ...

Using Digest with basic authentication or a form login

When using the form login method or the HTTP basic authentication login method, the password submitted is in cleartext. The Resin authenticator will digest the password before comparing it to the value retrieved from storage. The message is transmitted in cleartext but is stored as a digest. This method provides only half of the protection - the password is not protected in transmission (although if the form submit is being done over an SSL connection it will be secure).

Using HTTP digest authentication

The HTTP protocol includes a method to indicate to the client that it should make a digest using the password. The client submits a digest to Resin instead of submitting a cleartext password. HTTP digest authentication protects the password in transmission.

When using HTTP digest, Resin will respond to the browser and ask it to calculcate a digest. The steps involved are:

• Resin provides the client a realm and some other information
• The client obtains a username and password (usually a dialog box with a web browser)
• The client calculates a digest using the username, realm, pasword, and other information supplied by Resin
• The client submits the digest to Resin
• Resin does the same digest calculation as the client did
• Resin compares the submitted digest and the digest it calculated. If they match, the user has been authenticated

The advantage of this method is that the cleartext password is protected in transmission, it cannot be determined from the digest that is submitted by the client to the server.

HTTP digest authentication is enabled with the <auth-method> child of the <login-config> configuration tag.

<login-config>
  <auth-method>DIGEST</auth-method>
</login-config>

Disabling the use of password-digest

Although it is not advised, Resin's authenticators can be configured to use passwords that are not in digest form.

<authenticator>
  <type>com.caucho.server.security.XmlAuthenticator</type>
  <init>
     <password-digest>none</password-digest>
     <user>harry:quidditch:user</user>
  </init>
</authenticator>

Compatibility

Authenticators are not defined by the Servlet Specification, so the ability to use passwords stored as a digest depends upon the implementation of the Authenticator that the application server provides. MD5-base64 is the most common form of digest, because it is the default in HTTP digest authentication.

The use of <auth-method>DIGEST<auth-method> is defined in the Servlet Specification and implemented in most application servers.

Single Signon

Single signon for virtual hosts

The basis for establishing client identity is the JSESSIONID cookie. If single signon is desired for virtual hosts, Resin must be configured to notify the browser of the proper domain name for the cookie so that the same JSESSIONID cookie is submitted by the browser to each virtual host.

The authenticator is placed at the cluster level so that it is common to all virtual hosts. The cookie-domain is placed in a web-app-default at the cluster level so that it is applied as the default for all webapps in all virtual hosts.

<resin xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">
  <cluster id="app-tier>
    <http port="8080"/>

    <authenticator type="com.caucho.server.security.XmlAuthenticator">
      ...
    </authenticator>

    <web-app-default>
      <session-config>
        <enable-url-rewriting>false</enable-url-rewriting>
        <cookie-domain>.hogwarts.com</cookie-domain>
      </session-config>
    </web-app-default>


    <host id="gryffindor.hogwarts.com">
      ...
    </host>

    <host id="slytherin.hogwarts.com">
      ...
    </host>
  </server>
</resin>

Because of the way that browsers are restricted by the HTTP specification from submitting cookies to servers, it is not possible to have a single signon for virtual hosts that do not share some portion of their domain name. For example, "gryffindor.com" and "slytherin.com" cannot share a common authentication.

Custom Login

Security Constraints

security-constraint

Selects protected areas of the web site. Sites using authentication as an optional personalization feature will typically not use any security constraints. Sites using authentication to limit access to certain sections of the website to certain users will use security constraints.

Security constraints can also be custom classes.

<web-app>
  ...
<security-constraint>
  <web-resource-collection>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
  </web-resource-collection>
  <auth-constraint role-name='user'/>
</security-constraint>
  ...
</web-app>

web-resource-collection

Specifies a collection of areas of the web site.

auth-constraint

Requires that authenticated users fill the specified role. In Resin's JdbcAuthenticator, normal users are in the "user" role. Think of a role as a group of users.

<security-constraint>
  <auth-constraint role-name='webdav'/>

  <web-resource-collection>
    <url-pattern>/webdav/*</url-pattern>
  </web-resource-collection>
</security-constraint>

ip-constraint

Allow or deny requests based on the ip address of the client. ip-constraint is very useful for protecting administration resources to an internal network. It can also be useful for denying service to known problem ip's.

<security-constraint>
  <web-resource-collection>
    <url-pattern>/admin/*</url-pattern>
  </web-resource-collection>

  <ip-constraint>
    <allow>192.168.17.0/24</allow>
  </ip-constraint>
</security-constraint>

The /24 in the ip 192.168.17.0/24 means that the first 24 bits of the ip are matched - any ip address that begins with 192.168.17. will match. The usage of /bits is optional.

<security-constraint>
  <ip-constraint>
    <deny>205.11.12.3</deny>
    <deny>213.43.62.45</deny>
    <deny>123.4.45.6</deny>
    <deny>233.15.25.35</deny>
    <deny>233.14.87.12</deny>
  </ip-constraint>

  <web-resource-collection>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
  </web-resource-collection>
</security-constraint>

Be careful with deny - some ISP's (like AOL) use proxies and the ip of many different users may appear to be the same ip to your server.

If only deny is used, then all ip's are allowed if they do not match a deny. If only allow is used, then an ip is denied unless it matches an allow. If both are used, then the ip must match both an allow and a deny

user-data-constraint

Restricts access to secure transports, i.e. SSL.

<security-constraint>
  <user-data-constraint>
    <transport-guarantee>CONFIDENTIAL</transport-guarantee>
  </user-data-constraint>

  <web-resource-collection>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
  </web-resource-collection>
</security-constraint>

The default behaviour is for Resin to rewrite any url that starts with "http:" by replacing the "http:" part with "https:", and then send redirect to the browser.

If the default rewriting of the host is not appropriate, you can set the <secure-host-name> for the host:

  <host id='...'>
    <secure-host-name>https://hogwarts.com</secure-host-name>

 ...

  <host id='...'>
    <secure-host-name>https://hogwarts.com:8443</secure-host-name>

  ...

transport-guarantee

Restricts access to secure transports, i.e. SSL.

constraint

Defines a custom constraint. The custom constraint specifies a resin:type which extends . Bean-style initialization is used to initialize the constraint.

...
<security-constraint>
  <constraint resin:type="example.CustomConstraint>
    <init>
      <policy>strict</policy>
    </init>
  </constraint>
  <web-resource-collection url-pattern='/*'/>
</security-constraint>
...

Custom Security Constraints

Protecting static files from viewing by anyone

Place files in WEB-INF

Place files in WEB-INF or a subdirectory of WEB-INF. Any files in WEB-INF or it's subdirectories will automatically be protected from viewing.

Security constraint requiring role nobody

Use a security constraint that requires a role that nobody will ever have.

<web-app>
  ...
  <!-- protect all .properties files -->
  <security-constraint>
    <web-resource-collection>
      <url-pattern>*.properties</url-pattern>
    </web-resource-collection>
    <auth-constraint role-name='nobody'/>
  </security-constraint>

  <!-- protect the config/ subdirectory -->
  <security-constraint>
    <web-resource-collection>
      <url-pattern>/config/*</url-pattern>
    </web-resource-collection>
    <auth-constraint role-name='nobody'/>
  </security-constraint>
  ...
</web-app>

A servlet that returns a 403 error

Use a simple servlet that returns a 403 error, which means "Forbidden". Resin provides the servlet which is useful for this:

<web-app>
  ...
  <servlet>
    <servlet-name>forbidden</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>com.caucho.servlets.ErrorStatusServlet</servlet-class>
    <init>
      <status-code>403</status-code>
    </init>
  </servlet>

  <servlet-mapping url-pattern="*.properties" servlet-name="forbidden"/>
  <servlet-mapping url-pattern="/config/*" servlet-name="forbidden"/>
  ...
</web-app>

Or you could implement your own servlet:

package example.servlets;

import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;

import java.io.IOException;

/**
 * Respond with a 403 error
 */
public class Forbidden extends GenericServlet {
  public void service(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response)
    throws ServletException, IOException
  {
    HttpServletResponse res = (HttpServletResponse) response;
    res.sendError(403);
  }
}

What SSL provides

Encryption

SSL provides encryption of the data traffic betweeen a client and a server. When the traffic is encrypted, an interception of that traffic will not reveal the contents because they have been encrypted - it will be unusable nonsense.

SSL uses public key cryptography. Public key cryptography is based upon a pair of keys, the public key and the private key. The public key is used to encrypt the data. Only the corresponding private key can successfully decrypt the data.

For example, when a browser connects to Resin, Resin provides the browser a public key. The browser uses the public key to encrypt the data, and Resin uses the private key to decrypt the data. For this reason, it is important that you never allow anyone access to the private key, if the private key is obtained by someone then they can use it to decrypt the data traffic.

Encryption is arguably the more important of the security meausures that SSL provides.

Server Authentication

SSL also provides the ability for a client to verify the identity of a server. This is used to protect against identity theft, where for example a malicious person imitates your server or redirects client traffic to a different server while pretending to be you.

Server authentication uses the signature aspect of public key cryptography. The private key is used to sign messages, and the public key is used to verify the signature. With SSL, the validity of signatures depends upon signing authorities. Signing authorites (also called certificate authorities) are companies who have generated public keys that are included with browser software. The browser knows it can trust the signing authority, and the signing authority signs your SSL certificate, putting its stamp of approval on the information in your certificate.

For example, after you generate your public and private key, you then generate a signing request and send it to a signing authority. This signing request contains information about your identity, this identity information is confirmed by the signing authority and ultimately displayed to the user of the browser. The signing authority validates the identity information you have provided and uses their private key to sign, and then returns a certificate to you. This certificate contains the identity information and your public key, verified by the signing authority, and is provided to the browser. Since the browser has the public key of the signing authority, it can recognize the signature and know that the identity information has been provided by someone that can be trusted.

OpenSSL

Linking to the OpenSSL Libraries on Unix

On Unix systems, Resin's libexec/libresinssl.so JNI library supports SSL using the OpenSSL libraries. Although the ./configure script will detect many configurations, you can specify the openssl location directly:

resin> ./configure --with-openssl=/usr/local/ssl

Obtaining the OpenSSL Libraries on Windows

On Windows systems, the resinssl.dll includes JNI code to use OpenSSL libraries (it was in resin.dll in versions before 3.0). All you need to do is to obtain an OpenSSL binary distribution and install it.

Resin on Windows is compiled against the GnuWin32 binary, you can obtain an installation package here.

Once you have run the installation package, you can copy the necessary dll libraries into $RESIN_HOME:

C:\> cd %RESIN_HOME%
C:\resin-3.0> copy "C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\libssl32.dll" .\libssl32.dll
C:\resin-3.0> copy "C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\libeay32.dll" .\libeay32.dll

Preparing to use OpenSSL for making keys

You can make a keys/ subdirectory of $RESIN_HOME to do your work from and as a place to store your generated keys.

unix> cd $RESIN_HOME
unix> mkdir keys
unix> cd keys

win> cd %RESIN_HOME%
win> mkdir keys
win> cd keys

Using OpenSSL requires a configuration file. Unix users might find the default configuration file in /usr/ssl/openssl.cnf or /usr/share/ssl/openssl.cnf. Windows users may not have received one with their package.

Either way, it can be valuable to make your own openssl.cnf that is used just for generating the keys to use with Resin. You can use the following as a template for a file $RESIN_HOME/keys/openssl.cnf. You may want to fill in the _default values so you don't have to type them in every time.

[ req ]
 default_bits            = 1024
 distinguished_name      = req_distinguished_name

[ req_distinguished_name ]
 C                      = 2 letter Country Code, for example US
 C_default              =
 ST                     = State or Province
 ST_default             =
 L                      = City
 L_default              =
 O                      = Organization Name
 O_default              =
 OU                     = Organizational Unit Name, for example 'Marketing'
 OU_default             =
 CN                     = your domain name, for example www.hogwarts.com
 CN_default             =
 emailAddress           = an email address
 emailAddress_default   =

Creating a private key

Create a private key for the server. You will be asked for a password - don't forget it! You will need this password anytime you want to do anything with this private key. But don't pick something you need to keep secret, you will need to put this password in the Resin configuration file.

unix> openssl genrsa -des3 -out gryffindor.key 1024
win>  "C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\openssl.exe" \
         genrsa -des3 -out gryffindor.key 1024

Creating a certificate

OpenSSL works by having a signed public key that corresponds to your private key. This signed public key is called a certificate. A certificate is what is sent to the browser.

You can create a self-signed certificate, or get a certificate that is signed by a certificate signer (CA).

unix> openssl req -config ./openssl.cnf -new -key gryffindor.key \
        -x509 -out gryffindor.crt
win> "C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\openssl.exe" req -config ./openssl.cnf \
         -new -key gryffindor.key -x509 -out gryffindor.crt

unix> openssl req -new -config ./openssl.cnf -key gryffindor.key \
      -out gryffindor.csr
win> "C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\openssl.exe" req -new \
      -config ./openssl.cnf  -key gryffindor.key -out gryffindor.csr

resin.conf - Configuring Resin to use your private key and certificate

The OpenSSL configuration has two tags <certificate-file> and <certificate-key-file>. These correspond exactly to mod_ssl's SSLCertificateFile and SSLCertificateKeyFile. So you can use the same certificates (and documentation) from mod_ssl for Resin.

The full set of parameters is in the port configuration.

...
<http port="443">
  <openssl>
    <certificate-file>keys/gryffindor.crt</certificate-file>
    <certificate-key-file>keys/gryffindor.key</certificate-key-file>
    <password>my-password</password>
  </openssl>
</http>

Testing

Secure? <%= request.isSecure() %>

unix$ openssl s_client -connect www.some.host:443 -prexit

Certificate Chains

A certificate chain is used when the signing authority is not an authority trusted by the browser. In this case, the signing authority uses a certificate which is in turn signed by a trusted authority, giving a chain of [your certificate] <--- signed by ---- [untrusted signer] <---- signed by ---- [trusted signer].

The Resin config parameter <certificate-chain-file> is used to specify a certificate chain. It is used to reference a file that is a concatenation of:

1. your certificate file
2. the intermediate (untrusted) certificate
3. the root (trusted) certificate.

The certificates must be in that order, and must be in PEM format.

$ cat your_domain.crt ComodoSecurityServicesCA.crt GTECyberTrustRoot.crt > chain.txt

<http port="443">
  <openssl>
    <certificate-key-file>keys/your_domain.key</certificate-key-file>
    <certificate-file>keys/your_domain.crt</certificate-file>        
    <certificate-chain-file>keys/chain.txt</certificate-chain-file>
    <password>test123</password>
  </openssl>
</http>

JSSE

Install JSSE from Sun

This section gives a quick guide to installing a test SSL configuration using Sun's JSSE. It avoids as many complications as possible and uses Sun's keytool to create a server certificate.

Resin's SSL support is provided by Sun's JSSE. Because of export restrictions, patents, etc, you'll need to download the JSSE distribution from Sun or get a commercial JSSE implementation.

More complete JSSE installation instructions for JSSE are at http://java.sun.com/products/jsse/install.html.

1. First download Sun's JSSE.
2. Uncompress and extract the downloaded file.
3. Install the JSSE jar files: jsse.jar, jnet.jar, and jcert.jar. You can either put them into the CLASSPATH or you can put them into $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/ext. Since you will use "keytool" with the new jars, you need to make them visible to keytool. Just adding them to resin/lib is not enough.
4. Register the JSSE provider (com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.Provider). Modify $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/security/java.security so it contains something like:

   security.provider.1=sun.security.provider.Sun
   security.provider.2=com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.Provider
   

   Adding the JSSE provider allows "keytool" to create a key using the RSA algorithm.

Create a test server certificate

The server certificate is the core of SSL. It will identify your server and contain the secret key to make encryption work.

• Sun's keytool
• A self-signed certificate using open_ssl
• A test certificate from Thawte
• A production certificate from one of the certificate authorities (Verisign, Thawte, etc)

In this case, we're using Sun's keytool to generate the server certificate. Here's how:

resin1.2.b2> mkdir keys
resin1.2.b2> keytool -genkey -keyalg RSA -keystore keys/server.keystore
Enter keystore password:  changeit
What is your first and last name?
  [Unknown]:  www.caucho.com
What is the name of your organizational unit?
  [Unknown]:  Resin Engineering
What is the name of your organization?
  [Unknown]:  Caucho Technology, Inc.
What is the name of your City or Locality?
  [Unknown]:  San Francisco
What is the name of your State or Province?
  [Unknown]:  California
What is the two-letter country code for this unit?
  [Unknown]:  US
Is <CN=www.caucho.com, OU=Resin Engineering,
  O="Caucho Technology, Inc.", L=San Francisco, ST=California, C=US> correct?
  [no]:  yes

Enter key password for <mykey>
        (RETURN if same as keystore password):  changeit

Currently, the key password and the keystore password must be the same.

resin.conf

The Resin SSL configuration extends the http configuration with a few new elements.

<resin xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">
  <server>

    <http port="8443">
     <jsse-ssl>
       <key-store-type>jks</key-store-type>
       <key-store-file>keys/server.keystore</key-store-file>
       <password>changeit</password>
     </jsse-ssl>
    </http>

    ...

  </http-server>
</caucho.com>

Testing JSSE

With the above configuration, you can test SSL with https://localhost:8443. A quick test is the following JSP.

Secure? <%= request.isSecure() %>

User Experiences with JSSE

M:\keys>keytool -genkey -keyalg RSA -alias myserverkeypair \
                -storepass YourPasswordHere -keystore private.keystore
What is your first and last name?
  [Unknown]:  www.myserver.com
What is the name of your organizational unit?
  [Unknown]:  Foo Dept
What is the name of your organization?
  [Unknown]:  Bar
What is the name of your City or Locality?
  [Unknown]:  Paris
What is the name of your State or Province?
  [Unknown]:  France
What is the two-letter country code for this unit?
  [Unknown]:  FR
Is <CN=www.myserver.com, OU=Foo Dept, O=Bar, L=Paris,
                ST=France, C=FR> correct?
  [no]:  yes
 
Enter key password for <myserverkeypair>
        (RETURN if same as keystore password):

M:\keys>keytool -list -v -alias myserverkeypair -storepass YourPasswordHere \
                -keystore private.keystore
Alias name: myserverkeypair
Creation date: Fri Aug 11 23:07:53 CEST 2000
Entry type: keyEntry
Certificate chain length: 2
Certificate[1]:
Owner: CN=www.myserver.com, OU=Foo Dept, O=Bar, L=Paris, ST=France, C=FR
Issuer: CN=Thawte Test CA Root, OU=TEST, O=Thawte, ST=FOR TESTING, C=ZA
Serial number: 69f12
Valid from: Fri Aug 11 23:00:07 CEST 2000 until: Mon Sep 11 23:00:07 CEST 2000
Certificate fingerprints:
         MD5:  41:84:55:8C:A1:85:28:DA:B0:5A:47:D6:5B:D2:ED:41
         SHA1: 61:DE:DB:E6:7C:3C:AD:90:63:9B:20:E0:FF:3B:02:3A:60:EB:B4:82
Certificate[2]:
Owner: CN=Thawte Test CA Root, OU=TEST, O=Thawte, ST=FOR TESTING, C=ZA
Issuer: CN=Thawte Test CA Root, OU=TEST, O=Thawte, ST=FOR TESTING, C=ZA
Serial number: 0
Valid from: Thu Aug 01 02:00:00 CEST 1996 until: Thu Dec 31 22:59:59 CET 2020
Certificate fingerprints:
         MD5:  5E:E0:0E:1D:17:B7:CA:A5:7D:36:D6:02:DF:4D:26:A4
         SHA1: 39:C6:9D:27:AF:DC:EB:47:D6:33:36:6A:B2:05:F1:47:A9:B4:DA:EA

<resin xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">
    <security-provider id='com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.Provider'/>
 
<!-- declare a new HTTP server on port 443 (standard port for HTTPS),
      - with SSL enabled -->
 
<server>
  <!-- the http port -->
  <http port="80"/>

  <!-- the srun port, read by both JVM and plugin -->
  <cluster>
    <srun host='localhost' port='6802'/>
  </cluster>
 
  <http port=443>
    <jsse-ssl>
      <key-store-type>jks</key-store-type>
      <key-store-file>file://m:/keys/private.keystore</key-store-file>
      <password>YourPasswordHere</password>
    </jsse-ssl>
  </http>

Security Manager

java.policy

The security manager determines a policy that applies to the current virtual machine. The security manager is controlled by policy file's.

The simplest way to change the policy is to change one of the default policy file's. There are two default policy files that are used by the JDK:

${java.home}/lib/security/java.policy
${user.home}/.java.policy

An additional policy file can be set using the java.security.policy system property at the command line:

unix$ bin/httpd.sh -Djava.security.policy=file:/path/to/java.policy
win$ bin/httpd.exe -Djava.security.policy=file:/path/to/java.policy

The resulting policy for the virtual machine is the union of all granted permissions in all policy files.

java.policy syntax

A useful resource is Sun's documentation about security, in particular the policy permissions and policy file syntax files are useful.

Each web-app automatically has permissions to read, write and delete any file under the web-app's directory, including WEB-INF. It also has read permission for the classpath, including <classpath> from the <host> and <server> contexts.

#
# Permissions allowed for everyone.
#
grant {
  permission java.util.PropertyPermission "*", "read";
  permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "accessClassInPackage.*";
  permission java.net.SocketPermission "mysql.myhost.com:3306" "connect";
  permission java.io.FilePermission "/opt/resin/xsl/*", "read";
};

#
# Give the system and Resin classes all permissions
#
grant codeBase "file:${'${'}resin.home}/lib/-" {
	permission java.security.AllPermission;
};

grant codeBase "file:${'${'}java.home}/lib/-" {
	permission java.security.AllPermission;
};

grant codeBase "file:${'${'}java.home}/jre/lib/-" {
	permission java.security.AllPermission;
};

#
# Give a specific web-app additional permissions.
#
grant codeBase "file:/opt/web/webapps/ejb/WEB-INF/-" {
	permission java.io.FilePermission "/opt/web/doc/*", "read";
};