Date post: | 05-Dec-2014 |
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Caleb RaceyNewcastle UniversityUK http://gfivo.ncl.ac.uk
Studies in Advanced Access Management
Context: Who Am I
• Team Leader Middleware team, Newcastle University
• 8 years experience of Systems Admin for Web• 5 years working on SSO issues • 4 years with shibboleth• 1 year with grouper
Context: Newcastle university
• UK University • 4,700 staff 17,000 students • Research Intensive• Medical School • Centralised IT service
Context: identity experiences
No central directory No central identity sourceIdentity management is adhocDeployment by advocacy rather than policyLarge mature shibboleth deployment
10% of entities registered in UK federationShib used more internally than externally
Context: What is grouper
• System for managing group information• Collaborative effort from internet2
• API for managing groups– Supports “group math”– Uses subject API
• UI + webservice + shell interfaces onto API
http://middleware.internet2.edu/dir/groups/grouper/
Newcastle’s grouper deployment
GFIVO: JISC funded 2 year project
Agenda• What problem are we trying to solve• What we hope to gain • Why we want grouper• What we are doing• Lessons learned
1/4
What problem are we trying to solve
Access control to systemsTargeted Information flow:
• the right information to the right people.Mess of group information in apps
• most have their own group management• same groups replicated many times (differently)– duplication of effort– valuable business information inaccessible– User confusion
Growing federated nature of identity and applicationsShib has exposed our weak ID management
What do we hope to gain
TechnicallyCentralised reusable group managementLower app development timesBetter user experienceConsistency in serviceGreater control for helpdesk
Intangibles Greater user awareness of:
access control personal identity information Democratisation access control
Why we want grouper
• Group info key to identity management in HE• Mature Developed by people active in group
management for years• Good Community of developers/users• Supports multiple user interfaces• Understands fragmented identity stores• Federateable (via shib)• Good licence (apache licence)
What we are doing
Incremental phased role out strategyFederated use case from day 1Setup loosely coupled raft of applications
No LDAPNo Signet
Where is existing group information
• SAP ERP system • VLEs (blackboard, plone, moodle, coursework)• Email lists• Web site (Myprofiles)• Paper in offices• Reading lists• Library systems (aleph)• Sharepoint• Nowhere
• Face book!
Use cases (Phase I)
Research support:• Research Wikis (federated)• Blogs• Email lists (federated)• Sakai research platform (federated)Teaching and learning:• Podcasting of lectures (federated)• Teaching wikisInternal:
monitoring via nagios + munindocumentation wikis
Potential Use cases (Phase II??)
• Staff profile structuring– Web publishing– Research assessment– Teaching assessment
• Shared File system control• Door control • Provisioning to Google Apps• Reading lists• Information portal
1/2
1st round: Simple integration via gsh
Grouper Shell (gsh)• Command line interface onto grouper API• Usage pattern familiar to systems administrators • No user interaction (no need for further education)• Good for replacing existing adhoc database based systems Easy first stepPeople can use grouper without knowing ithttp://gfivo.ncl.ac.uk/sampleGroups.php
2nd Round: Webservices
Web service interface onto grouper API (more later)Group management in the app Management in the access denied page (403 page)Simple user interface solving one problem
Gives control back to application developerMaybe Sympa integration?http://www.sympa.org/contribs/apache_authsympa
3rd Round: Grouper UI
Current phaseDeploy grouper UI
3rd phase because:Grouper UI is complex to deploy
– Was Technology demonstrator – Recently revamped (thanks to penn)
• Grouper UI is complex to develop– Heavily abstracted– Heavily configurable
Grouper webservices
New addition to grouper • In grouper 1.3RC1• Thanks Chris Hyzer for code contribution• Based on Apache Axis• SOAP and REST styles• SOAP supports basic authentication+ WS-
Security support
WS-Security
• Provided by Apache Rampart • Support for WS-security + WS-trust• WS-sec = Auth via:
– username/password– Kerberos– SAML– x509
• Enables integration with .NET and SAP, Java WS-security based stacks, PHP also supported
• May enable advanced SAML, WS-Sec, WS-trust usecases (shib2??, Grid stuff??)
3/4
Lessons Learned: Benefits
Enables All levels of user• Grouper UI for Power users
– Librarians, administrators, PAs• Simple interface via webservices for users
– Staff, students • Webservices for developers on non java platforms
– .NET, SAP, Python, PHP, Sympa• Grouper API for java developers• Grouper shell for Systems Admins
Lessons learned: benefits
Grouper fills large pre-existing gapGrouper allows coherent interface onto incoherent
data architecture People like access controlled appsFederated use emerges from internal use
Lessons Learned: requirements
Skill sets prerequisites :Java systems admin (tomcat etc)Internal data architecture shell scriptingWS usenot struts
Technical prerequisites: Free standing mysql server (others supported)Data Loader Tomcat serverSSO (shib preferable)
Lessons Learned: Issues
Issues Avoided:• Naming convention debates
– People are irrational about names– People will argue about hierarchy structure endlessly– The people who care most about structure are most
powerful– Avoided by not exposing naming hierarchy….yet
Issues Encountered:• Users don’t grasp the concepts:- stems, groups, indirect
membership • solutions:
introduce them slowly avoid use when possibleUI redesign (thanks Penn)
Lessons Learned: Issues
• Getting data from data stores– Need for data loader
• Shib resolver reusable?• Deprovisioning?
• Need for fast updating
• Grouper comes from an enterprise LDAP directory mindset
• No one understands LDAP • AD admins don’t even know AD = LDAP
• Shib took 4 years, will grouper?
ANY QUESTIONS?
http://gfivo.ncl.ac.uk/resources.php