I'd like to have my Scala application server find out if it's running inside Heroku or CloudBees or Cloud Foundry or something else. Is there some standard way of finding out which Java hosting provider is currently in use? (if any)
Perhaps the hosting provider's firewall/load-balancer/whatever adds some standard HTTP header that the app server could check? Or perhaps it's possible to do hosting provider specific checks somehow, for the most popular hosting providers?
Background: The app server could then show helpful tips to the server admin that tells him/her how to view the server's log files. This would be useful during the initial setup of the server + database, because then the admin needs to find a certain magic password in the log file, which s/he then uses to get access to the admin interface web pages the very first time (before any admin user exists in the database, see this security question). — The installation would be more user-friendly, if the server could tell the admin exactly how to view the log files (which varies from hosting provider to hosting provider).
In the case of cloudbees there are several ways, none of which are guaranteed to be future proof (given changing containers).
Perhaps what is needed is a standard environment variable to make this doable.
Related
I have written a web application that is, typically, installed internally by customers (based on IIS/MSSQL server).
When a customer wants to provide external access to the application, we offer the following supported scenarios:
Publish the application in their DMZ (pretty standard deployment).
Use our own platform where we host the application in our own cloud infrastructure for them.
However, because I have more and more customers who misunderstand the requirements for publishing an internal application, I would like to add a "one click" way of providing that service.
My idea is to have a reverse proxy installed on the customer's web server that will connect to a cloud server we control. When the application starts, it will connect to our server, authenticate and maintain the connection. When a user wants to use the application, she will use an URL that directs it to our server (say https://myapp.mycompany.org/CustomerID or https://CustomerID.myapp.mycompany.org). The server will then lookup the list of connections from reverse proxy to find the one matching the customer ID and, if found, use that connection to relay the end user connection.
In essence, that is the same thing as what Azure Application proxy or TeamViewer do, only without the need for using Azure AD or TeamViewer.
Is there an existing framework I can use for building such a service ? I know I can write it on my own but that is quite a large development.
For our FTP server, my company has installed FileZilla Server version 0.9.41 beta. The server is working well and we're pleased with it. My question involves account management - FileZilla Server includes an easy-to-use UI for managing user accounts, but I would prefer to handle user accounts with the rest of our customer info, like logins for the company website, notes of the last support issue, and so on. I don't see a way to configure FileZilla Server to accept a different account manager. Is there a plugin architecture that I can code against, or better, modules that I can install that would give me the flexibility I'm looking for? Ideally, I'd be able to configure FileZilla Server with a SQL connection string and CRUD queries, and then manage the account store myself.
There is a XML file called "FileZilla Server.xml" in your program directory. In this file you can edit all relevant options regarding settings and user management of the server.
Don't forget to reload the config with "/reload-config" afterwards.
I'm trying to run a simple ASP.NET application with basic authentication on an IIS server. Interestingly, the authentication works fine on almost all servers except my production server. When I deploy the application on that machine, it keeps prompting me over and over for the credentials. Unfortunately, it is a lab machine that I don't have access to and I'm not able to view the logs either.
It's an IIS 7.5 server running on a Windows 2008 VM server I guess, and the content folder (where the default app is pointing to) is on shared with us (we have write access to that folder and that's how we are deploying our applications).
Outside authentication settings on the server, what other things could be causing the issue? Please advise.
Most probably this is a access permission to resources used by the web application.
The reason you see this repeatedly login prompt is that the account doesn't have the needed permissions.
First you have to determine if you are using impersonation or not.
If you do impersonate, the authenticated accounts need the necessary permissions.
If you don't impersonate, the application pool account needs the necessary permissions.
So what's the needed permissions?
Well, that could be a lot of things, and we don't know the details of your application.
Do you connect to a database?
Then you have to make sure that current account context has the right permissions to connect to the DB.
Do you read images/files from disk?
Then you have to make sure that current account context has the right permissions to access those resources.
If it is file resources that you are accessing, I would recommend you to use Fiddler and determine which path(s) you'll need to address. It will tell you by those 404 errors.
EDIT: Make sure that your app pool account has the needed permissions for this DLL you mention. Where does it fetch this list from? Is it static in the DLL? Where's this DLL located?
Please also check the event logs on the server for any related errors at the time you try to logon.
I have a site i am working on that i would like to display only to a few others for now. Is there anything wrong with setting up windows user names and using windows auth to prompt the user before getting into the development site?
There are several ways, with varying degrees of security:
Don't put it on the internet - put it on a private network, and use a VPN to access it
Restrict access with HTTP authentication (as you suggest). The downside to this is it can interfere with the actual site, if you are using HTTP auth, or some other type of authentication as part of the application.
Restrict access based on remote IP. Just allow the IPs of users you want to be able to access it.
Use a custom hostname. Have it on a public IP, but don't publish the hostname. This means make an entry in your HOSTS file (or configure your own DNS server, if possible) so that "blah.mysite.com" goes to the site, but that is not available on the internet. Obviously you'd only make the site accessible when using that hostname (and not the IP).
That depends on what you mean by "best": for example, do you mean "easiest" or "most secure"?
The best way might be to have it on a private network, which you attach to via VPN.
I do this frequently. I use Hamachi to allow them to access my dev box so they can see whats going on. they have access to it when they want , and/or when I allow. When they are done I evict them from my Hamachi network and change the password.
Hamachi is a software VPN. Heres a link to Hamachi - AKA LogMeIn
Hamachi
They have a free version which works quite well.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with Windows auth. There are couple of (not too big) drawbacks, though:
your website auth scheme is different from the final product.
you are giving them more access to the box they really need.
you automatically reimaging the machine and redeploying the website is more complex, as you have to automate the windows account creation.
I would suggest two alternatives:
to do whatever auth you plan on doing in the final website and make sure all pager require auth
do a token cookie based auth - send them a link that sets a particular token in a cookie and in your website code add quick check for that token before you even go to the regular user auth
If you aren't married to IIS, and you need developers to be able to change the content, I would consider Apache + SSL + WebDav (aka Web Folders). This will allow you to offer a secure sandbox where developers can change and view the content without having user accounts on the server.
This setup requires some knowledge of Apache so it only makes sense if you are already using Apache or if you frequently need to provide outsiders access to your web server.
First useful link I found on the topic: http://pascal.thivent.name/2007/08/howto-setup-apache-224-webdav-under.html
Why don't you just set up an NTFS user and assign it to the website (and remove anonymous access)
I heard that on Windows you can login from a web browser to the web server without going through the usual login entering username and password but using instead the credentials from Windows directly, using the NTLM protocol.
How is this achieved? Does the web server need to support some additional authentication?
Update: I'm asking for a generic web server, not just IIS. How to do that on Apache for instance?
The webserver just needs to be configured to support Windows authentication (which will be NTLM, or - better - Kerberos if both client and server are W2K or later). I believe that IIS or Apache can be configured to do that.
The browser also has to support this - at least IE does so (not sure about the others, it may be possible). edit: looks like firefox has some support for this too, and safari on MacOS
edit: for details on apache, google modules for NTLM authentication. Kerberos modules also exist. as per other answers, this really only works on an Intranet - not just because the browser needs to be in an Intranet zone (only applies to IE), but because any intervening firewall will typically stop this working, and because the necessary interdomain trusts will probably not exist. It's also a bit trickier to make work if the apache server is on UNIX, and especially if you also have Kerberos servers on UNIX in the mix, but still possible.
It will only be seamless in a specific situation; namely the webserver needs to support NTLM (for example, IIS), and it needs to be in a zone that the client is configured to trust (The "Intranet Zone" in IE parlance, unless the end user has tweaked their settings)
If your webserver and client pc's are on a network secured by Active Directory or similar, you can set 'Windows Integrated Security' in IIS on the web server for the website which automatically logs in all I.E clients (That are allowed).
As stated previously, NTLM is typically used if your back end is Windows Managed (MS Active Directory). However, there are also modules available for Apache that will tie into this: mod_ntlm.
Since this is it's own protocol, it is required that the browser is able to understand this protocol and reply to the authentication challenges. I don't know which browsers support this off hand, but my assumption would be that most do.
From my experience, kerberos is more of a prefered method, but I have not worked with it much, so unfortunately, I don't have much advise as far as that goes.
On a side note, I recall reading somewhere that the JRE also has ways of tying into NTLM on your web server in order to obtain identity information for the authenticated user. As stated previously, .NET has support for this as well.
Also, Firefox does not support NTLM by default but it can be configured using the following tut: http://www.crossedconnections.org/w/?p=89
If you set the IIS settings to require authentication then your users will need to log in to access the page. They then have any rights (if not an interface) to anything on that server that they would if they logged in the normal way (from the console).
Other than this, I am not sure what you are referring to.
Yes this is possible. It is often used in intranet applications where users are. windows uses NTLM or Kerberos to authorize the user against a central service, typically Active Directory on the windows platform. On the .NET platform the current user information can be accessed through the System.Threading.Thread.CurrentPrincipal.Identity instance.
You might also want to look into Jespa. It seems a little bit more straight forward than Kerberos but provides good ntlm sso capabilities.
I was looking for more information about Kerberos (because NTLM, even v2, become deprecated with AD 2008), and I found this article, explaining how make it work with Apache (as you mentionned it).
http://blog.scottlowe.org/2006/08/10/kerberos-based-sso-with-apache/
This question is probably outdated (or at least solved), but if it can help someone ...