CASifying Liferay

Question

I think that this is an usual question, but I'm reasking it cause I didn't got a real good question. So, I have Liferay 6.1 CE running on Tomcat 7, and I want to import the users from an LDAP server and then make an SSO with CAS.

In my Portal, I have other application integrated (here also I have a problem with the integration of Alfresco) who need to be logged in also with the credantials from LDAP, this is why I need an SSO solution, like CAS.

How can I face this issue ? is there anyone who could help me fixing all this ? Any information can help me, I have to accomplish all this in two weeks...I hope that everything that I'm asking are feasible.

Thanks & Regards

Answer 1

Liferay provide all necessary infrastructure to resolve your requirement. Look for CAS and LDAP at portal.properties https://github.com/liferay/liferay-portal/blob/master/portal-impl/src/portal.properties and configure this in your portal-ext.properties Liferay: How to configure Liferay Portal

Answer 2

You have two tasks here, importing users from LDAP and authenticating users with CAS. You can configure both from the Control Panel (UI) or the portal-ext.properties file. If you configure using both methods and there's a property conflict, the Control Panel settings take precedence.

Importing users from LDAP isn't difficult (I've done it in both 5.2.3 and 6.1), although importing/not importing the password can be confusing. Try tackling this task first and make sure you're able to authenticate against LDAP. I'd recommend using an authentication chain (multiple means of authentication where if one method fails, a second method will be attempted, and so on). It would be useful to configure it this way in the event of an outage with CAS so you don't have a single point of failure. Note: If you use portal-ext.properties, be sure to read this post and add properties mentioned (even if you aren't going to use them):

ldap.user.custom.mappings.1=
ldap.contact.mappings.1=
ldap.contact.custom.mappings.1=

Regarding authentication against CAS, I've been using it for a couple years on Liferay 5.2.3, and in my experience it's worked very reliably.