Principal Providers

Fedora Principal Providers allow a Fedora repository to pull in user security and role designations from other sources (e.g. LDAP).

Principal Providers are implemented as servlet filters that are added to the Shiro filter chain between the initial authentication filter (ServletContainerAuthFilter) and the final authorization filter (WebACFilter).

Different derivatives of the PrincipalProvider class can be initialized differently, either through credential files, information sent via HTTP header, or by connecting to external information sources such as LDAP.

Configuration

Container Roles Principal Provider

ContainerRolesPrincipalProvider is a PrincpalProivder that obtains its set of principals from web.xml.

1. Enable this provider by setting the configuration property fcrepo.auth.principal.roles.enabled to true.
2. Set fcrepo.auth.principal.roles.list to a comma separated list of roles
3. Update your web.xml auth-constraint element to contain your custom roles

For example, your fcrepo.properties file might look like this:

fcrepo.auth.principal.roles.enabled=true
fcrepo.auth.principal.roles.list=fedoraUser,fedoraAdmin,tomcat-role-1,tomcat-role-2

And your web.xml would be updated to look like this:

<web-app>
  ...
  <security-constraint>
    ...
    <auth-constraint>
      <role-name>fedoraUser</role-name>
      <role-name>fedoraAdmin</role-name>
      <role-name>tomcat-role-1</role-name>
      <role-name>tomcat-role-2</role-name>
    </auth-constraint>
  </securty-constraint>
</web-app>

HTTP Header Principal Provider

HttpHeaderPrincipalProvider is a Principal Provider that obtains its initial set of principals from HTTP header requests.

1. Enable this provider by setting the configuration property fcrepo.auth.principal.header.enabled to true.
2. Set fcrepo.auth.principal.header.name to the name of the header that contains the principals
3. Set fcrepo.auth.principal.header.separator to the character that is used to separate multiple principals in the header

For example, your fcrepo.properties file might look like this:

fcrepo.auth.principal.header.enabled=true fcrepo.auth.principal.header.name=x-principal-header
fcrepo.auth.principal.header.separator=,

Delegate Header Principal Provider

DelegateHeaderPrincipalProvider is a Principal Provider that uses the On-Behalf-Of HTTP header to switch the user principal to the principal given in the header. This switch is only performed if the authenticated user has the fedoraAdmin container role.

This provider is enabled by default. To disable it, set fcrepo.auth.principal.delegate.enabled to false.