PingGateway 2024.9

Gateway guide

This guide shows you how to set up examples that use PingGateway. It is for access management designers and administrators who develop, build, deploy, and maintain PingGateway for their organizations.

This guide assumes familiarity with the following topics:

  • Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), including how clients and servers exchange messages, and the role that a reverse proxy (gateway) plays

  • JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), which is the format for PingGateway configuration files

  • Managing services on operating systems and application servers

  • Configuring network connections on operating systems

  • Managing Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) used to establish HTTPS connections

  • Access management for web applications

Depending on the features you use, you should also have basic familiarity with the following topics:

  • Structured Query Language (SQL) if you use PingGateway with relational databases

  • Configuring AM if you use password capture and replay, or if you plan to follow the OAuth 2.0 or SAML 2.0 tutorials

  • The Groovy programming language if you plan to extend PingGateway with scripts

  • The Java programming language if you plan to extend PingGateway with plugins, and Apache Maven for building plugins

Example installation for this guide

Unless otherwise stated, the examples in this guide assume the following installation:

  • PingGateway accessible on http://ig.example.com:8080 and https://ig.example.com:8443, as described in Quick install.

  • Sample application installed on http://app.example.com:8081, as described in Use the sample application.

  • AM installed on http://am.example.com:8088/openam, with the default configuration.

If you use a different configuration, substitute in the procedures accordingly.

Set up AM

This documentation contains procedures for setting up items in AM that you can use with PingGateway. For more information about setting up AM, refer to the Access Management documentation.

Authenticate a PingGateway agent to AM

From AM 7.3

When AM 7.3 is installed with a default configuration, as described in Evaluation, PingGateway is automatically authenticated to AM by an authentication tree. Otherwise, PingGateway is authenticated to AM by an AM authentication module.

Authentication chains and modules were deprecated in AM 7. When they are removed in a future release of AM, it will be necessary to configure an appropriate authentication tree when you are not using the default configuration.

For more information, refer to AM’s Authentication nodes and trees.

This section describes how to create an authentication tree to authenticate a PingGateway agent to AM. The tree has the following requirements:

  • It must be called Agent

  • Its nodes must pass the agent credentials to the Agent Data Store Decision node.

When you define a tree in AM, that same tree is used for all instances of PingGateway, Java agent, and Web agent. Consider this point if you change the tree configuration.

  1. On the Realms page of the AM admin UI, choose the realm in which to create the authentication tree.

  2. On the Realm Overview page, click Authentication > Trees > Create tree.

  3. Create a tree named Agent.

    The authentication tree designer is displayed, with the Start entry point connected to the Failure exit point and a Success node.

    The authentication tree designer provides the following features on the toolbar:

    Button Usage
    Trees auto layout

    Lay out and align nodes according to the order they are connected.
    Trees full screen

    Toggle the designer window between normal and full-screen layout.
    Trees delete node

    Remove the selected node. Note that the Start entry point cannot be deleted.

  4. Using the Filter bar, find and then drag the following nodes from the Components panel into the designer area:

    • Zero Page Login Collector node to check whether the agent credentials are provided in the incoming authentication request, and use their values in the following nodes.

      This node is required for compatibility with Java agent and Web agent.

    • Page node to collect the agent credentials if they are not provided in the incoming authentication request, and use their values in the following nodes.

    • Agent Data Store Decision node to verify the agent credentials match the registered PingGateway agent profile.

    Many nodes can be configured in the panel on the right side of the page. Unless otherwise stated, do not configure the nodes and use only the default values.

  5. Drag the following nodes from the Components panel into the Page node:

    • Username Collector node to prompt the user to enter their username.

    • Password Collector node to prompt the user to enter their password.

  6. Connect the nodes as follows and save the tree:

    A tree that can be used to authenticate an agent to AM.

Register a PingGateway agent in AM

In AM 7 and later versions, follow these steps to register an agent that acts on behalf of PingGateway.

  1. In the AM admin UI, select the top-level realm, and then select Applications > Agents > Identity Gateway.

  2. Add an agent with the following configuration, leaving other options blank or with the default value:

    • For SSO

    • For CDSSO

    • Agent ID : ig_agent

    • Password : password

    • Agent ID : ig_agent

    • Password : password

    • Redirect URL for CDSSO : https://ig.ext.com:8443/home/cdsso/redirect

    • Login URL Template for CDSSO: Configure this property to direct login to a custom URL instead of the default AM login page.

  3. (Optional - From AM 7.5) Use AM’s secret service to manage the agent profile password. If AM finds a matching secret in a secret store, it uses that secret instead of the agent password configured in Step 2.

    1. In the agent profile page, set a label for the agent password in Secret Label Identifier.

      AM uses the identifier to generate a secret label for the agent.

      The secret label has the format am.application.agents.identifier.secret, where identifier is the Secret Label Identifier.

      The Secret Label Identifier can contain only characters a-z, A-Z, 0-9, and periods (.). It can’t start or end with a period.

    2. Select Secret Stores and configure a secret store.

    3. Map the label to the secret. Learn more from AM’s mapping.

    Note the following points for using AM’s secret service:

    • Set a Secret Label Identifier that clearly identifies the agent.

    • If you update or delete the Secret Label Identifier, AM updates or deletes the corresponding mapping for the previous identifier provided no other agent shares the mapping.

    • When you rotate a secret, update the corresponding mapping.

Set up a demo user in AM

AM is provided with a demo user in the top-level realm, with the following credentials:

  • ID/username: demo

  • Last name: user

  • Password: Ch4ng31t

  • Email address: demo@example.com

  • Employee number: 123

For information about how to manage identities in AM, refer to AM’s Identity stores.

In routes that use AmService, PingGateway retrieves AM’s SSO cookie name from the ssoTokenHeader property or from AM’s /serverinfo/* endpoint.

In other circumstances where you need to find the SSO cookie name, access http://am-base-url/serverinfo/*. For example, access the AM endpoint with curl:

$ curl http://am.example.com:8088/openam/json/serverinfo/*

External tools used in this guide

The examples in this guide use some of the following third-party tools: