JIRA/Confluence with Kerberos SSO

Goal

Users should transparently log in to JIRA/Confluence with AD domain credentials.

Overview

Apache authenticates users using mod_auth_kerb and passes the authenticated username to JIRA/Confluence through an AJP proxy. JIRA/Confluence uses a custom Seraph filter which checks for the remote_user variable set by Apache and logs the user in automatically.

Installation

JIRA

1. Install Jira using the standard install, listening on port 8080

   • Allow port 8080 through the firewall

2. Setup LDAP user directory

   • Test logging in using your AD credentials

3. Setup apache to act as a proxy to Jira using AJP

   • Add this line to the server.xml (/opt/atlassian/jira/conf/server.xml) file, around line 64. It should end up below the existing "Connector" entry.

     <Connector port="8009" redirectPort="8443" enableLookups="false" protocol="AJP/1.3" URIEncoding="UTF-8" tomcatAuthentication="false"/>

   • Check the "jira_proxy.conf" file in examples for the apache configuration.

4. Install mod_auth_kerb and configure it to authenticate against your AD

   • There is plenty of documentation out there on how to do this, I have also included my configuration files in the examples directory. (krb5.conf and smb.conf)
   • Set up a location like /private and test against that. Once Kerberos is authenticating properly there, apply it to the JIRA proxy created in the previous step.

5. Add the jar file (RemoteUserJiraAuth-X.Y.jar) to the WEB-INF/lib/ directory (by default it's /opt/atlassian/jira/atlassian-jira/WEB-INF/lib/)

   • Ensure that you've removed any older versions which may exist.

6. Edit WEB-INF/classes/seraph-config.xml and replace the existing authenticator with the custom one:

   Comment this out:
   <authenticator class="com.atlassian.jira.security.login.JiraSeraphAuthenticator"/>
   Add this below it:
   <authenticator class="anguswarren.jira.RemoteUserJiraAuth"/>

7. Restart JIRA and Apache

8. Check to see if it is now working.

Confluence

Use the JIRA instructions above with the following changes:

1. Use the base path of your Confluence installation rather than JIRA. (/opt/atlassian/confluence by default)

2. If you're running both JIRA and Confluence on the same host, you'll need to use a different port for the AJP connector created in the server.xml file.

3. When you're replacing the authenticator classname in WEB-INF/classes/seraph-config.xml, use these details instead:

   Comment this out:
   <authenticator class="com.atlassian.confluence.user.ConfluenceAuthenticator"/>
   Add this below it:
   <authenticator class="anguswarren.confluence.RemoteUserConfluenceAuth"/>

Notes

Kerberos

Kerberos can be frustrating to configure correctly. Check that DNS is configured correctly, and you have a valid PTR record for the servers IP address. Check that the SPN is valid against the hostname that you are connecting to and that you do not have a duplicate SPN configured in AD. The following code will check for duplicate SPN's

ldapsearch -h dc01.domain.local -x -W -D "administrator@domain.local" \
-b "DC=DOMAIN,DC=LOCAL" 'serviceprincipalname=*' serviceprincipalname | \
grep 'Name:' | sort | uniq -d

To Generate your keytab, the easiest way is to run this command from the linux host after joining the domain.

net ads keytab add HTTP -U administrator

If you are using a virtual server and the name you connect with is not the same as the domain computers name, you will need to generate a keytab for the second hostname. At our site, the computer name is Support01 but we are connecting using jira.domain.local. Authentication will fail if the keytab does not match the hostname/fqdn you connect to. To generate a keytab for another hostname:

1. Create a new user account for the SPN/keytab to be bound with, set the password never to expire.
2. From the windows command line run the following command (replace my values to match your environment)
   • ktpass -princ HTTP/jira.domain.local@DOMAIN.LOCAL -out C:\jira.domain.local.keytab -mapuser jira-kerb@domain.local --pass userspassword
3. Move the keytab to the correct location on the apache host. (specified in the apache config file for your virtual host)

Firefox

Open about:config and change add the JIRA fqdn to 'network.negotiate-auth.trusted-uris'

Internet Explorer & Chrome

First, add the JIRA fqdn to either the Trusted sites or the Intranet zone. Once you have done that, either

• set the security settings for that zone to allow "automatic logon with the current username and password."
• OR, set the security level for the zone to "Low"