Enable federated security | HCL Digital Experience

You can use the Configuration Wizard to configure HCL Portal to use a federated LDAP for security. Use the following information to get familiar with the information you must provide in the wizard and the configuration procedure that it generates.

Configuration Wizard

The primary Configuration Wizard options are based on your target configuration topology, such as a stand-alone server or a cluster. The federated security option is included with both Set Up a Stand-alone Server and Set Up a Cluster. For the stand-alone server topology, run the federated security option after database transfer. For the cluster topology, run the federated security option after you create the cluster, but before you add more nodes.

Validation

For this configuration option, the wizard can connect to your LDAP directory and validate the information that you enter in the wizard. By default, validation is enabled. On the Security Settings panel, you can choose to turn validation on or off by selecting Yes or No to the Validate LDAP user registry entries option. Select No if you know that your parameters are correct and that your LDAP server is unavailable at the time of creating your instructions.

Two types of validation are performed when you select to validate settings including field syntax and LDAP connection validations. The syntax validation, for example, checks that you entered a valid port number in the range of 1 to 65535. The connection validation, for example, checks that a connection can be made to your LDAP server.

Enabling validation is recommended because it can prevent a possible failure by validating your entries in the wizard before you run the configuration. The LDAP settings including the Repository ID, Host name, Port, Bind DN, Bind password, Base DN, Administrator group DN, Administrator DN, and Administrator password are all validated before the wizard creates your instructions to run the configuration. Review the following worksheet section to see which fields are required based on your selections in the wizard.

Worksheet

When you set up the federated security, you answer questions about your wanted configuration. Some fields apply to all federated security configurations. Some fields are required based on your environment. The remaining fields are advanced and do not apply to most configurations.

Minimal required fields

The following table lists the fields that are unique to the LDAP configuration. You might be prompted for additional information about system or user IDs and passwords that you defined during the portal installation process.
Attention: The Enable Federated Security option modifies the wimconfig.xml file. Make a backup copy of this file before you run any of the configuration tasks.
wp_profile_root/config/cells/CellName/wim/config/wimconfig.xml
Table 1. Minimal required fields
Field Label Property Your Value
LDAP Repository ID federated.ldap.id
LDAP host name federated.ldap.host
LDAP port federated.ldap.port
Bind DN
Restriction: The following parameters must be unique to your environment:
  • PortalAdminId: this parameter is the user ID that you enter in the Administrator user ID field during the installation
  • Bind DN
  • Administrator DN from LDAP
 federated.ldap.bindDN
Bind password federated.ldap.bindPassword
Table 2. Optional fields
Field Label Property Your Value
Base DN
Note: This field is optional. However, it is recommended that you enter a Base DN that matches your LDAP settings. If you are using a Domino LDAP, and you do not have a Base DN defined, then you can leave this field blank.
 federated.ldap.baseDN

Use an administrator from your LDAP

If you select to use an administrator from your LDAP server, then you must provide additional information about the LDAP group and ID.

Table 3. Use an administrator and administrator group in your LDAP
Field Label Property Your Value
Administrator group DN from LDAP newAdminGroupId
Administrator DN from LDAP
Restriction: The following parameters must be unique to your environment:
  • PortalAdminId: this parameter is the user ID that you enter in the Administrator user ID field during the installation
  • Bind DN
  • Administrator DN from LDAP
 newAdminId
Administrator password from LDAP newAdminPw
Default parent for group

 groupParent
Default parent for PersonAccount personAccountParent

Advanced fields

Click Advanced on the Customize Values page to see the advanced properties. Default values are provided for advanced fields that are required.

Table 4. Advanced files
Field Label Property Your Value
LDAP group objectclasses federated.ldap.et.group.objectClass
LDAP group objectclasses for creating groups federated.ldap.et.group.objectClassForCreate
LDAP group search bases federated.ldap.et.group.searchBases
LDAP PersonAccount objectclasses federated.ldap.et.personaccount.objectClasses
LDAP PersonAccount objectclasses for creating users federated.ldap.et.personaccount.objectClassesForCreate
LDAP search bases for the PersonAccount federated.ldap.gm.personaccount.searchBases
Group dummy member federated.ldap.gm.dummyMember
Group member attribute federated.ldap.gm.groupMemberName
Group object class federated.ldap.gm.objectClas
GM member attribute scope federated.ldap.gm.scope
Membership attribute name federated.ldap.gc.name
GC member attribute scope federated.ldap.gc.scope
Certificate filter federated.ldap.certificateFilter
Certificate map mode federated.ldap.certificatMapMode
Group RDN attribute groupRdnProperties
PersonAccount RDN attribute personAccoutnRdnProperties
Application server SSL configuration federated.ldap.sslConfiguration

Nested or dynamic group support

If you need nested group support, then the wizard provides default values for some of the advanced fields. The default values are based on your LDAP server selection. You must click Advanced to see the fields if you want to verify the defaults. Nested or dynamic group support fields include Group member attribute, Membership attribute name, LDAP group objectclasses, and GC member attribute scope.

Enabling federated security

After you answer questions and provide information about your LDAP, the wizard generates a custom configuration procedure.

About this task

Depending on your environment, the wizard generates a configuration process. The following steps reflect all possible steps in the configuration process. The steps do not represent a literal configuration. The steps are provided as a reference.

If you click View Step Command, you can see the task and properties that are associated with each step in the wizard.

Procedure

  1. Manual Step: Retrieve the SSL certificate from the SSL port.
    Condition
    Select to configure SSL enabled LDAP.
    ConfigEngine task
    None
    Note: The following steps are required for environments that leverage Java 1.8, such as HCL Portal Version 9.0 environments. The following steps assume a clustered environment with a Deployment Manager, however, also perform in a stand-alone environment.
    1. On the Deployment Manager, go to the /AppServer/java/8.0/bin directory.

  2. Create a backup of the HCL Portal profile before modifying cell security.
    Note: The backup is created in /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/cw_profile/.
    Condition
    None
    ConfigEngine task
    None
  3. Validate your LDAP server settings.
    Condition
    None
    ConfigEngine task
    validate-federated-ldap
  4. Add an LDAP user registry to the default federated repository.
    Condition
    None
    ConfigEngine task
    wp-create-ldap
    recycle-dmgr-if-cluster
  5. Register the WebSphere Application Server scheduler tasks.
    Condition
    None
    ConfigEngine task
    stop-portal-server
    start-portal-server
    reregister-scheduler-tasks
  6. Replace the file-based HCL Portal and WebSphere Application Server users and groups with users and groups from your LDAP server.
    Condition
    Select to use an administrator and administrator group that is stored in your LDAP.
    ConfigEngine task
    wp-change-portal-admin-user
    wp-change-was-admin-user
  7. Update the user registry where new users and groups are stored.
    Condition
    None
    ConfigEngine task
    wp-set-entitytypes
  8. Recycle the servers after a security change.
    Condition
    None
    ConfigEngine task
    recyle-servers-after-security-change
  9. Update the search administration user.
    Condition
    Select to use an administrator and administrator group that is stored in your LDAP.
    ConfigEngine task
    start-portal-server
    action-fixup-after-security-change-portal-wp.search.webscanner
  10. After you change the security model, the servers need to be restarted. Restart the portal server.
    Condition
    None
    ConfigEngine task
    recycle-servers-after-security-change
    start-portal-server
  11. Verify that all defined attributes are available in the configured LDAP user registry.
    Condition
    None
    ConfigEngine task
    wp-validate-federated-ldap-attribute-config
  12. Manual Step: Update the appropriate MemberFixerModule.properties file with the values for your LDAP users.
    Condition
    Select to use an administrator and administrator group that is stored in your LDAP.
    ConfigEngine task
    None
  13. Run the member fixer tool.
    Condition
    Select to use an administrator and administrator group that is stored in your LDAP.
    ConfigEngine task
    run-wcm-admin-task-member-fixer
  14. Restart the HCL Portal Server.
    Condition
    None
    ConfigEngine task
    stop-portal-server
    start-portal-server
  15. Manual Step: Map attributes to ensure proper communication between HCL Portal and the LDAP server.
    Condition
    None
    ConfigEngine task
    None

What to do next

If you are setting up a stand-alone server environment, you can now explore your site. If you want to shorten your portal URL for search engine optimization benefits, complete the Modify Site URLs for Search Engine Optimization configuration option.

If you are setting up a clustered environment and want to shorten your portal URL for search engine optimization benefits, complete the Modify Site URLs for Search Engine Optimization configuration option next. You can also use the Create an Additional Cluster Node option to add more nodes to your cluster. Your security updates to the primary node are applied to the nodes that you add to your cluster.