The helloworld-mutual-ssl-secured quickstart demonstrates securing a Web application using client certificate authentication with authorization

This example demonstrates the configuration of mutual TLS authentication in WildFly Application Server 35 to secure a war application.

Mutual TLS provides the same security as TLS, with the addition of authentication and non-repudiation of the client authentication, using digital signatures. When mutual authentication is used, the server would request the client to provide a certificate in addition to the server certificate issued to the client. Mutual authentication requires an extra round trip time for client certificate exchange. In addition, the client must obtain and maintain a digital certificate. We can secure our war application deployed over WildFly with mutual(two-way) client certificate authentication and provide access permissions or privileges to legitimate users.

The out of the box configuration for WildFly has one-way TLS enabled by default. This quickstart shows how to configure WildFly with mutual (two-way) TLS authentication in order to secure a WAR application with restricted access.

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The application this project produces is designed to be run on WildFly Application Server 35 or later.

All you need to build this project is Java SE 17.0 or later, and Maven 3.6.0 or later. See Configure Maven to Build and Deploy the Quickstarts to make sure you are configured correctly for testing the quickstarts.

In the following instructions, replace WILDFLY_HOME with the actual path to your WildFly installation. The installation path is described in detail here: Use of WILDFLY_HOME and JBOSS_HOME Variables.

When you see the replaceable variable QUICKSTART_HOME, replace it with the path to the root directory of all of the quickstarts.

This quickstart uses secured application interfaces and requires that you create the following application user to access the running application.

To add the application user, open a terminal and type the following command:

Before you begin, back up your server configuration file.

1. If it is running, stop the WildFly server.

2. Back up the WILDFLY_HOME/standalone/configuration/standalone.xml file.

After you have completed testing this quickstart, you can replace this file to restore the server to its original configuration.

1. Open a terminal and navigate to the root of the WildFly directory.

2. Start the WildFly server with the default profile by typing the following command.

   $ WILDFLY_HOME/bin/standalone.sh 

   Note	For Windows, use the WILDFLY_HOME\bin\standalone.bat script.

1. Create the client certificate, which is used to authenticate against the server when accessing a resource through TLS.

   $ WILDFLY_HOME/bin/jboss-cli.sh --connect --file=configure-client-cert.cli

   Note	For Windows, use the WILDFLY_HOME\bin\jboss-cli.bat script.

The certificate and keystore are now properly configured.

You configure the SSL context and required security domain by running JBoss CLI commands. For your convenience, this quickstart batches the commands into a configure-ssl.cli script provided in the root directory of this quickstart.

1. Before you begin, make sure you do the following:

   • Back up the WildFly standalone server configuration as described above.

   • Start the WildFly server with the standalone default profile as described above.

2. Review the configure-ssl.cli file in the root of this quickstart directory. Comments in the script describe the purpose of each block of commands.

3. Open a new terminal, navigate to the root directory of this quickstart, and run the following command, replacing WILDFLY_HOME with the path to your server:

   $ WILDFLY_HOME/bin/jboss-cli.sh --connect --file=configure-ssl.cli

   Note	For Windows, use the WILDFLY_HOME\bin\jboss-cli.bat script.

   You should see the following result when you run the script.

   The batch executed successfully
   process-state: reload-required

4. Stop the WildFly server.

After stopping the server, open the WILDFLY_HOME/standalone/configuration/standalone.xml file and review the changes.

1. The following key-store was added to the elytron subsystem:

   <key-store name="qsTrustStore">
       <credential-reference clear-text="secret"/>
       <implementation type="JKS"/>
       <file path="server.truststore" relative-to="jboss.server.config.dir"/>
   </key-store>

2. The following trust-manager was added to the elytron subsystem:

   <trust-managers>
       <trust-manager name="qsTrustManager" key-store="qsTrustStore"/>
   </trust-managers>

3. The default ssl-context was updated to reference the trust-manager to enable two-way TLS:

   <server-ssl-contexts>
       <server-ssl-context name="applicationSSC" need-client-auth="true" key-manager="applicationKM" trust-manager="qsTrustManager"/>
   </server-ssl-contexts>

   Note that the https-listener in the undertow subsystem references the applicationSSC server-ssl-context by default.

4. The following realms were added to the elytron subsystem:

   <key-store-realm name="KeyStoreRealm" key-store="qsTrustStore"/>
   
   <aggregate-realm name="QuickstartRealm" authentication-realm="KeyStoreRealm" authorization-realm="ApplicationRealm"/>

   The aggregate-realm defines different security realms for authentication and authorization. In this case, the KeyStoreRealm is responsible for authenticating the principal extracted from the client’s certificate and the ApplicationRealm is responsible for obtaining the roles required to access the application.

5. The following principal-decoder and security-domain were added to the elytron subsystem:

   <x500-attribute-principal-decoder name="QuickstartDecoder" attribute-name="cn"/>
   
   <security-domain name="QuickstartDomain" default-realm="QuickstartRealm" permission-mapper="default-permission-mapper" principal-decoder="QuickstartDecoder">
       <realm name="QuickstartRealm" role-decoder="groups-to-roles"/>
   </security-domain>

   The x500-attribute-principal-decoder creates a new Principal from the CN attribute of the X500Principal obtained from the client’s certificate. This new principal is supplied to the security realms and is also the principal returned in methods like getUserPrincipal and getCallerPrincipal.

6. The following http-authentication-factory was added to the elytron subsystem:

   <http-authentication-factory name="quickstart-http-authentication" http-server-mechanism-factory="global" security-domain="QuickstartDomain">
       <mechanism-configuration>
           <mechanism mechanism-name="CLIENT_CERT"/>
       </mechanism-configuration>
   </http-authentication-factory>

   It defines the security domain that will handle requests using the CLIENT_CERT HTTP mechanism.

7. The following application-security-domain was added to the undertow subsystem:

   <application-security-domains>
       <application-security-domain name="client_cert_domain" http-authentication-factory="quickstart-http-authentication"/>
   </application-security-domains>

   It maps the client_cert_domain from the quickstart application to the http-authentication-factory shown above, so requests made to the application go through the configured HTTP authentication factory.

To test the TLS configuration, start WildFly and access: https://localhost:8443

If it is configured correctly, you should be asked to trust the server certificate.

Before you access the application, you must import the client.keystore.P12, which holds the client certificate, into your browser.

1. Make sure WildFly server is started.

2. Open a terminal and navigate to the root directory of this quickstart.

3. Type the following command to build the quickstart.

   $ mvn clean package

4. Type the following command to deploy the quickstart.

   $ mvn wildfly:deploy

This deploys the helloworld-mutual-ssl-secured/target/helloworld-mutual-ssl-secured.war to the running instance of the server.

You should see a message in the server log indicating that the archive deployed successfully.

If mutual TLS is configured properly and the WAR application is secured, you will be able to access the application only if the DN of client certificate, for example client.keystore.p12, is same as the one defined in app-roles.properties file. Otherwise, it will result in an HTTP error status code of 403 Access Denied/Forbidden.

The application will be running at the following URL: https://localhost:8443/helloworld-mutual-ssl-secured

A page displaying the caller principal and the client certificate used for mutual TLS should be visible:

This quickstart includes integration tests, which are located under the src/test/ directory. The integration tests verify that the quickstart runs correctly when deployed on the server.

Follow these steps to run the integration tests.

1. Make sure WildFly server is started.

2. Make sure the quickstart is deployed.

3. Type the following command to run the verify goal with the integration-testing profile activated.

   $ mvn verify -Pintegration-testing -Dserver.dir=__WILDFLY_HOME__

When you are finished testing the quickstart, follow these steps to undeploy the archive.

1. Make sure WildFly server is started.

2. Open a terminal and navigate to the root directory of this quickstart.

3. Type this command to undeploy the archive:

   $ mvn wildfly:undeploy

You can restore the original server configuration using either of the following methods.

• You can run the restore-configuration.cli script provided in the root directory of this quickstart.

• You can manually restore the configuration using the backup copy of the configuration file.

1. Run the CLI script to restore client cert configuration:

   $ WILDFLY_HOME/bin/jboss-cli.sh --connect --file=restore-client-cert.cli

2. Open a terminal and navigate to the WildFly server configuration directory:

   $ cd WILDFLY_HOME/standalone/configuration/

   Note	For Windows, use the WILDFLY_HOME\bin\standalone.bat script.

3. Remove the client.keystore.P12, clientCert.crt, and server.truststore files that were generated for this quickstart.

After you are done with this quickstart, remember to remove the certificate that was imported into your browser.

Instead of using a standard WildFly server distribution, you can alternatively provision a WildFly server to deploy and run the quickstart. The functionality is provided by the WildFly Maven Plugin, and you may find its configuration in the quickstart pom.xml:

When built, the provisioned WildFly server can be found in the target/server directory, and its usage is similar to a standard server distribution, with the simplification that there is never the need to specify the server configuration to be started.

Follow these steps to run the quickstart using the provisioned server.

1. Make sure the server is provisioned.

   $ mvn clean package

2. Add the quickstart user:

   $ target/server/bin/add-user.sh -a -u 'quickstartUser' -p 'quickstartPwd1!' -g 'JBossAdmin'

3. Start the WildFly provisioned server, using the WildFly Maven Plugin start goal.

   $ mvn wildfly:start 

4. Type the following command to run the integration tests.

   $ mvn verify -Pintegration-testing 

5. Shut down the WildFly provisioned server.

   $ mvn wildfly:shutdown

This quickstart is not compatible with WildFly for OpenShift.