How to secure a MobileFirst adapter for backend process?

Question

We have MobileFirst adapter with a wl_unprotected security test to use it from backend process.

We applied following solution to protect it calling through normal URL

• Security Team Restricted URL to be invoked from Outside client application.

Is there any better solution which could be applied to secure this adapter?

Answer 1

There is a very good article in the IBM MobileFirst Platform Developers Center Blog about how to do just that. Protecting adapter procedures for backend access https://developer.ibm.com/mobilefirstplatform/2015/02/04/protect-adapter-backend/

Please go to the article for more details, but here is a summary of the article.

You could use Basic HTTP Authentication to protect that adapter. Update your authenticationConfig.xml file with the securityTest, realm and loginModule as shown below:

authenticationConfig.xml

  <securityTests>
    <!-- your other security tests -->
    <customSecurityTest name="BackendAccessSecurity">
     <test realm="BackendAccessRealm" isInternalUserID="true"/>
    </customSecurityTest>
  </securityTests>

  <realms>
    <!-- your other realms -->
    <realm name="BackendAccessRealm" loginModule="BackendAccessLogin">
      <className>com.worklight.core.auth.ext.BasicAuthenticator</className>
      <parameter name="basic-realm-name" value="Private"/>
    </realm>
  </realms>
  <loginModules>
    <!-- your other login modules -->
    <loginModule name="BackendAccessLogin">
      <className>com.sample.auth.ConfiguredIdentityLoginModule</className>
      <parameter name="username-property" value="backend.username"/>
      <parameter name="password-property" value="backend.password"/>
    </loginModule>
  </loginModules>

worklight.properties

##
# Backend access credentials
##
backend.username=user
backend.password=password

ConfiguredIdentityLoginModule.java

  @Override
  public void init(Map<String, String> options) throws MissingConfigurationOptionException {
    String usernameProperty = options.remove(USERNAME_PROPERTY_CONF);
    if (usernameProperty == null) throw new MissingConfigurationOptionException(USERNAME_PROPERTY_CONF);
    String passwordProperty = options.remove(PASSWORD_PROPERTY_CONF);
    if (passwordProperty == null) throw new MissingConfigurationOptionException(PASSWORD_PROPERTY_CONF);
    super.init(options);

    WorklightConfiguration conf = WorklightConfiguration.getInstance();
    configuredUsername = conf.getStringProperty(usernameProperty);
    configuredPassword = conf.getStringProperty(passwordProperty);

    if (configuredUsername == null || configuredUsername.length() == 0) {
      throw new IllegalStateException("ConfiguredIdentityLoginModule cannot resolve property " + usernameProperty + ". Please check project configuration properties.");
    }

    if (configuredPassword == null || configuredPassword.length() == 0) {
      throw new IllegalStateException("ConfiguredIdentityLoginModule cannot resolve property " + usernameProperty + ". Please check project configuration properties.");
    }

  }

  @Override
  public boolean login(Map<String, Object> authenticationData) {
    populateCache(authenticationData);
    return configuredUsername.equals(username) && configuredPassword.equals(password);
  }

Finally, protect your adapter with the BackendAccessSecurity.