Per-User Auth Plugin Requirements

bp per-user-auth-plugin-reqs

Keystone should be able to support the ability to require (on a per-user basis) the authentication plugins (the ones supported in the keystone server) that are required to authenticate.

Problem Description

In many services (web or otherwise) it is possible to require certain users to utilize different authentication methods. This is currently not the case in Keystone. Keystone has the ability to support multiple authentication types (such as password, totp, x509, etc). Keystone cannot require that a user (or even a group of users) must utilize a specific (or a combination of) plugin for authentication; the use of any of the plugins (in isolation) is sufficient to provide authentication.

Proposed Change

Keystone will support the ability to require (on a per-user basis) certain authentication plugins as required to provide authentication. This means that a user can be required to use a grouping of auth plugins (e.g. must use either “password AND totp” OR “x509” OR “password AND one-time-backup-code”). If a user does not have a rule (or set of rules, in the case of logical ORs) configured, the current default of “any single auth plugin configured in keystone.conf” will continue to work.

The rules will be represented in JSON:

{
    "required_auth_plugins": [
        ["password", "totp"],
        ["x509"],
        ["password", "one-time-backup"]
    ]
}

The value of these required plugins will be added as a new table referenced in the user object via ORM relationships. The database schema will utilize a blob type (serialized as JSON) for the ruleset.

In the case that a required plugin is configured but is not enabled in the Keystone.conf, that part of the rule is simply ignored (e.g. “password AND totp” is the rule, but keystone.conf only has “password” enabled, “totp” will simply be ignored as a requirement for authentication purposes for any/all users).

If there is only one plugin “required” for a user and that plugin is disabled keystone will fall back to the default behavior of “any one plugin configured is sufficient”.

The authentication request will conform to the current keystone standard for multiple auth-plugin forms:

{
    "auth": {
        "identity": {
            "methods": [
                "password",
                "totp"
            ],
            "password": {
                "user": {
                    "id": "0ca8f6",
                    "password": "secretsecret"
                }
            },
            "totp": {
                "user": {
                    "id": "0ca8f6",
                    "passcode": "011011"
                }
            }
        },
        "scope": {
            "domain": {
                "id": "1789d1"
            }
        }
    }
}

If insufficient auth plugins are supplied a HTTP 401 with a JSON response indicating insufficient auth parameters will be returned to the requestor. This response will be the same regardless of correct-ness of any of the values passed to the authentication plugins. The plugins required for a given request will be compared to the plugin data supplied will be compared prior to validating the data supplied to the plugins.

Longer term, more fluid auth work-flows such as supplying user, then password, then OTP (across multiple pages) may be developed utilizing temporary auth tokens that allow stepping through the workflow. However, these have potential to leak secure information (existence of user, validation of password, etc) if improperly implemented/handled.

A self-service API (similar to password change) will be required to enable the enforcement rules for a given user. update-user could be used by an admin to make the change directly.

Alternatives

Utilizing an external IDP via Federated Authentication can add in MFA style support if the IDP (such as “FreeIPA”) supports the concept of MFA natively.

It is possible to add many more forms of auth plugins which have business logic encoded in them. An example would be a password+totp plugin that would strip the TOTP from the end of the password if the user has a credential with the TOTP type, essentially making TOTP+Password required, but allowing the current work-flow that is in use today. The downside is that the auth-plugins would need to be extremely logic heavy as more auth methods are created instead of allowing for a rule-set to manage which auth-plugins are required.

Security Impact

This adds in optional security features, allowing different authentication security levels on a per user basis.

Notifications Impact

NONE

Other End User Impact

End users would need to auth with the required auth-plugins specified in the rules for that user if rules are enabled.

Performance Impact

Authentication may see a slight slowdown as more than one auth plugin will need to be processed. Overall performance should remain about the same as today.

Other Deployer Impact

Deployers wishing to enforce use of multiple auth-types will need to create the users with the new rules (and/or update current users). If the deployer does not want users to update the auth-plugin requirements, policy will need to be updated to deny access to the new self-service auth-plugin-requirements API.

Developer Impact

No significant impact.

Implementation

Assignee(s)

Primary assignee(s):

Morgan Fainberg <mdrnstm> Adrian Turjak <adriant-y>

Other contributors:

N/A

Work Items

  • Implement database migration to add new column for users

  • Support requiring the auth-types specified in the new “required_auth_plugins” attribute when authenticating.

  • Implement self-service API for updating required auth plugins

  • Write Documentation (API-REF) about the updated forms of authentication and new self-service API.

  • Add support to keystoneclient for self-service API

  • Add support to keystoneauth for better handling insufficient auth-types supplied.

  • Ensure keystoneauth supports multiple auth plugins at once.

  • Work with Horizon and Openstackclient Teams to ensure support for new multiple-auth-types are handled with a good UI/UX.

Dependencies

No External Dependencies.

Documentation Impact

Documentation for new APIs and new auth functionality will be required.

References

No external references