InfoCenter Home >
5: Securing applications -- special topics >
5.8: Single Sign-On >
5.8.4: Troubleshooting SSO configurations

5.8.4: Troubleshooting SSO configurations

This article describes common problems in configuring single sign-on between WebSphere Application Server and Domino and suggests possible solutions. The problems include the following:

Failure to save the Domino Web SSO Configuration document

The client must be able to find Domino Server documents for the participating SSO Domino servers. The Web SSO Configuration document is encrypted for the servers that you specify, so the home server indicated by the client's location record must point to a server in the Domino domain where the participating servers reside. This ensures that lookups can find the public keys of the servers.

If you receive a message that states that one or more of the participating Domino servers cannot be found, then those servers will not be able to decrypt the Web SSO Configuration document or perform SSO.

When the Web SSO Configuration document is saved, the status bar indicates how many public keys were used to encrypt the document by finding the listed servers, authors, and administrators on the document.

Domino server console fails to load the Web SSO Configuration document upon Domino HTTP server startup

During configuration of SSO, the Server document is configured for Multi-Server in the Session Authentication field. Therefore, the Domino HTTP server tries to find and load a Web SSO Configuration document during startup. The Domino server console reports the following if a valid document is found and decrypted:
HTTP: Successfully loaded Web SSO Configuration.

If a server cannot load the Web SSO Configuration document, SSO does not work. Such a server reports the following message:
HTTP: Error Loading Web SSO configuration. Reverting to single-server session authentication.

Make sure that there is only one Web SSO Configuration document in the Web Configurations view of the Domino Directory and in the $WebSSOConfigs hidden view. You cannot create more than one, but additional documents can be inserted during replication.

Check the hidden view $WebSSOConfigs as follows:

  1. From a Lotus Notes client, select File --> Database --> Open.
  2. In the Open Database dialog, either type the Domino server name and press Enter or select the Domino server from the list.
  3. Type the value names.nsf for the FileName field, located at the bottom of the Open Database dialog box. Do not press Enter. Instead, hold the the shift and control keys down and click Open on the dialog box. This opens the Domino Directory with all the hidden views exposed.
  4. At the bottom of the view list, click $WebSSOConfigs and ensure there is only one document in this view. If there are more than one, delete them all and re-create the Web SSO Configuration document.

If there is only one Web SSO Configuration document, another condition that can elicit the same error message is that the public key of the Server document does not match the public key in the ID file. In this case, attempts to decrypt the Web SSO Configuration document fail and the error message is generated.

This situation can occur when the ID file is created multiple times but the Server document is not updated correctly. Usually, there is an error message displayed on the Domino Server Console that states that the public key does not match the server ID. If this happens, then SSO does not work because the document is encrypted with a public key for which the server does not possess the corresponding private key.

To correct a key-mismatch problem, do the following:

  1. Copy the public key from the server ID file and paste it into the Server document.
  2. Re-create the Web SSO Configuration document.

Authentication fails when accessing a protected resource

If a Web user is repeatedly prompted for a user ID and password, SSO is not working because either the Domino or WebSphere security server is not able to authenticate the user with the LDAP server. Check the following possibilities:

  • Verify that the LDAP server can be accessed from the Domino server machine. Use the TCP/IP ping utility to verify TCP/IP connectivity and that the host machine is running.
  • Verify that the LDAP user is defined in the LDAP directory. Use the ldapsearch utility to confirm that the user ID exists and that the password is correct. For example, the following command, entered as a single line, can be run from the OS/400 Qshell, a UNIX shell, or a Windows DOS prompt:
    % ldapsearch -D "cn=John Doe, ou=Rochester, o=IBM, c=US" -w mypassword
    -h myhost.mycompany.com -p 389
    -b "ou=Rochester, o=IBM, c=US" (objectclass=*)
    (The percent character (%) indicates the prompt and is not part of the command.)
    A list of directory entries is expected. Possible error conditions and causes follow:
    • No such object: This error indicates that the directory entry referenced by either the user's DN value, which is specified after the -D option, or the base DN value, which is specified after the -b option, does not exist.
    • Invalid credentials: This error indicates that the password is invalid.
    • Can't contact LDAP server: This error means that the host name or port specified for the server is invalid or that the LDAP server is not running.
    • An empty list means that the base directory specified by the -b option does not contain any directory entries.
  • If you are using the user's short name (or user ID) instead of the Distinguished Name, ensure that the directory entry is configured with the short name. For a Domino Directory, this is the Short name/UserID field of the Person document. For other LDAP directories, this is the userid property of the directory entry.
  • If Domino authentication fails when using an LDAP directory other than Domino Directory, verify the configuration settings of the LDAP server in the Directory Assistance document in the Directory Assistance database. Also verify that the Server document refers to the correct Directory Assistance document.
    The following LDAP values specified in the Directory Assistance document must match the values specified for the user registry in the WebSphere administrative domain:
    • Domain name
    • LDAP host name
    • LDAP port
    • Base DN
    Additionally, the rules defined in the Directory Assistance document must refer to the base DN of the directory containing the directory entries of the users.
    Note   You can trace the Domino server's requests to the LDAP server by adding the following line to the server's notes.ini file:
    webauth_verbose_trace=1
    After restarting the Domino server, trace messages are displayed in the Domino server's console as Web users attempt to authenticate to the Domino server.

Authorization fails accessing a protected resource

After authenticating successfully, if a Web user is shown an authorization error message, security is not configured correctly. Check the following possibilities:

  • For Domino databases, verify that the user is defined in the access-control settings for the database. Refer to the Domino Administrative documentation for the correct way to specify the user's DN. For example, for the DN cn=John Doe, ou=Rochester, o=IBM, c=US, the value on the access-control list must be set as John Doe/Rochester/IBM/US.
  • For resources protected by WebSphere Application Server, verify that the security permissions are set correctly.
    • If granting permissions to selected groups, make sure that the user attempting to access the resource is a member of the group. For example, you can verify the members of the groups by using the following URL to display the directory contents: Ldap://myhost.mycompany.com:389/ou=Rochester, o=IBM, c=US??sub
    • If you have changed the LDAP configuration information (host, port, and base DN) in a WebSphere Application Server administrative domain since the permissions were set, the existing permissions are probably invalid and need to be re-created.

SSO fails when accessing protected resources

If a Web user is prompted to authenticate each time he or she accesses a resource, SSO is not configured correctly. Check the following possibilities:

  1. Both WebSphere Application Server and Domino must be configured to use the same LDAP directory. The HTTP cookie used for SSO stores the full Distinguished Name (DN) of the user, for example, cn=John Doe, ou=Rochester, o=IBM, c=US, and the DNS domain.
  2. If the Domino Directory is being used, Web users must be defined by hierarchical names. For example, update the User name field in the Person document to include names of this format as the first value: John Doe/Rochester/IBM/US.
  3. URLs issued to Domino and WebSphere application servers configured for SSO must specify the full DNS server name, not just the host name or TCP/IP address. For browsers to be able to send cookies to a group of servers, the DNS domain must be included in the cookie, and the DNS domain in the cookie must match the URL. (This is why cookies cannot be used across TCP/IP domains.)
  4. Domino and WebSphere Application Server must be configured to use the same DNS domain. Verify that the DNS domain value is exactly the same, including capitalization. The DNS domain value can be found on the Configure Global Security Settings panel of the WebSphere administrative console and in the Web SSO Configuration document of a Domino server. If you make a change to the Domino Web SSO Configuration document, replicate the modified document to all Domino servers participating in SSO.
  5. Clustered Domino servers must have the host name populated with the full DNS server name in the Server document for Domino ICM (Internet Cluster Manager) to redirect to cluster members using SSO. If this field is not populated, by default, ICM redirects URLs to clustered Web servers by using only the host name. It cannot send the SSO cookie because the DNS domain is not included in the URL.
    To correct the problem, do the following:
    1. Edit the Server document.
    2. Select the Internet Protocols -- > HTTP tab.
    3. Enter the server's full DNS name in the Host names field.
  6. If a port value for an LDAP server was specified for a WebSphere Application Server administrative domain, the Domino Web SSO Configuration document must be edited and a backslash character (\)must be inserted into the value of the LDAP Realm field before the colon character (:). For example, replace myhost.mycompany.com:389 with myhost.mycompany.com\:389.

Go to previous article: Verifying SSO between WebSphere and Domino Go to next article: z/OS interoperability

 

 
Go to previous article: Verifying SSO between WebSphere and Domino Go to next article: z/OS interoperability