PingAuthorize

Preparing a Linux environment

For Linux computing environments, complete the required tasks described in this section before initiating a PingAuthorize Server installation.

About this task

Complete the following tasks before you install PingAuthorize Server in a Linux environment:

Steps

  1. Set the file descriptor limit.

  2. Set the maximum user processes.

  3. Disable file system swapping.

  4. Manage system entropy.

  5. Enable the server to listen on privileged ports.

Setting the file descriptor limit

PingAuthorize Server allows for an unlimited number of connections. The following steps describe how to manually increase the file descriptor limit on the operating system.

About this task

If the operating system relies on systemd, see the Linux operating system documentation for instructions on setting the file descriptor limit.

Steps

  1. Display the current fs.file-max limit of the system.

    sysctl fs.file-max

    The fs.file-max limit is the maximum server-wide file limit you can set without tuning the kernel parameters in the proc file system.

  2. Edit the /etc/sysctl.conf file.

    If there is a line that sets the value of the fs.file-max property, make sure that its value is set to at least 1.5 times the per-process limit. If there is no line that sets a value for this property, add the following to the end of the file (100000 is just an example here; specify a value of at least 1.5 times the per-process limit).

    fs.file-max = 100000

  3. Display the current hard limit of the system.

    ulimit -aH

    The open files (-n) value is the maximum number of open files per process limit.

    Verify that its value is set to at least 65535.

  4. Edit the /etc/security/limits.conf file.

    If the file contains lines that set the soft and hard limits for the number of file descriptors, verify that the values are set to 65535. If the properties are absent, add the following lines to the end of the file, before #End of file, inserting a tab between the columns.

    *   soft   nofile   65535
*   hard   nofile   65535

    The number of open file descriptors is limited by the physical memory available to the host. You can determine this limit with the following command.

    cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max

    If the file-max value is significantly higher than the 65535 limit, consider increasing the file descriptor limit to between 10% and 15% of the system-wide file descriptor limit. For example, if the file-max value is 810752, you could set the file descriptor limit to 100000. If the file-max value is lower than 65535, the host is likely not sized appropriately.

  5. Reboot the server.

  6. Verify that the file descriptor limit is set to 65535.

    ulimit -n

  7. For RedHat 7 or later, modify the /etc/security/limits.d/20-nproc.conf file to set limits for the open files and max user processes.

    Add or edit the following lines if they do not already exist.

    * soft nproc 65536
* soft nofile 65536
* hard nproc 65536
* hard nofile 65536
root soft nproc unlimited

Next steps

After the operating system limit is set, use one of the following methods to configure the number of file descriptors that the server uses:

  • Use a NUM_FILE_DESCRIPTORS environment variable.

  • Create a config/num-file-descriptors file with a single line, such as NUM_FILE_DESCRIPTORS=12345.

If these values are not set, the default value of 65535 is used.

This optional step ensures that the server shuts down safely before it reaches the file descriptor limit.

Setting the maximum user processes

Set the maximum user processes higher than the default to improve memory when running multiple servers on a machine.

About this task

On some Linux distributions, such as RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Server/CentOS 6.0 or later, the default maximum number of user processes is set to 1024, which is considerably lower than the same parameter on earlier distributions, such as RHEL/CentOS 5.x. The default value of 1024 leads to some Java virtual machine (JVM) memory errors when running multiple servers on a machine, due to each Linux thread being counted as a user process.

At startup, PingAuthorize Server attempts to raise this limit to 16383 if the value reported by ulimit is less than that number. If the value cannot be set, an error message is displayed. In such a scenario, you must explicitly set the limit in /etc/security/limit.conf, as the following example shows.

* soft nproc 100000
* hard nproc 100000

Steps

  • Set the 1683 value in the NUM_USER_PROCESSES environment variable.

  • Set the 1683 value in config/num-user-processes.

Disabling file system swapping

To disable the file system swapping in PingAuthorize, use vm.swappiness.

About this task

Disable all performance-tuning services, like tuned. If performance tuning is required, perform the following steps to set vm.swappiness:

Steps

  1. Clone the existing performance profile.

  2. Add vm.swappiness = 0 to the new profile’s tuned.conf file in /usr/lib/tuned/profilename/tuned.conf.

  3. Select the updated profile by running tuned-adm profile customized_profile.

Managing system entropy

Entropy is used to calculate random data that the system uses in cryptographic operations.

About this task

Some environments with low entropy might experience intermittent performance issues with SSL-based communication, such as certificate generation. This scenario is more typical on virtual machines but can also occur in physical instances. For best results, monitor the value of kernel.random.entropy_avail in the configuration file /etc/sysctl.conf.

To increase system entropy on a Windows system, move the mouse pointer in circles or type characters randomly into an empty text document.

Steps

  • On a UNIX or Linux system, ensure that rng-tools is installed and run the following command.

    sudo rngd -r /dev/urandom -o /dev/random

  • To check the level of a system entropy on a UNIX or Linux system, run the following command.

    cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail

    Values smaller than 3200 are considered too low to generate a certificate and might cause the system to hang indefinitely.

Enabling the server to listen on privileged ports

To enable PingAuthorize Server to listen on privileged ports as a non-root user, grant capabilities to specific commands.

About this task

Linux systems provide capabilities that grant specific commands the ability to complete tasks that are normally permitted only by a root account. Instead of granting an ability to a specific user, capabilities are granted to a specific command. For convenience, you might enable the server to listen on privileged ports while running as a non-root user.

Steps

  • To assign capabilities to an application, run the setcap command.

    For example, the cap_net_bind_service capability enables a service to bind a socket to privileged ports, which are defined as ports with numbers less than 1024. If Java is installed in /ds/java, and if the Java command to run the server is /ds/java/bin/java, then you can grant the Java binary the cap_net_bind_service capability by running the following command.

    $ sudo setcap cap_net_bind_service=+eip /ds/java/bin/java

    The Java binary requires an additional shared library, libjli.so, as part of the Java installation.

    Because additional limitations are imposed on where the operating system looks for shared libraries to load for commands with assigned capabilities, you must create the file /etc/ld.so.conf.d/libjli.conf with the path to the directory that contains the libjli.so file.

    Example:

    For example, if the Java installation is located in /ds/java, the contents must be as shown in this example.

    /ds/java/lib/amd64/jli

    Run the following command for the change to take effect.

    $ sudo ldconfig -v