However, what if you wanted to easily perform some custom task as part of the Identity Management process? Wouldn't it be cool to be able to plug in a powerful integration framework such as Apache Camel, so that you could exploit Camel's huge list of messaging components and routing + mediation rules? Well with Syncope 2.0.0 you can do just this with the new Apache Camel provisioning manager. This is a unique and very powerful selling point of Apache Syncope in my opinion. In this article, we will introduce the new Camel provisioning manager, and show a simple example of how to use it.
1) The new Apache Camel provisioning manager
As stated above, a new provisioning manager is available in Apache Syncope 2.0.0 based on Apache Camel. A set of Camel routes are available by default which are invoked when the User, Groups and Any Objects in question are changed in some way. So for example, if a new User is created, then the corresponding Camel route is invoked at the same time. This allows the administrator to plug in custom logic on any of these state changes. The routes can be viewed and edited in the Admin Console by clicking on "Extensions" and then "Camel Routes".
Each of the Camel routes uses a new "propagate" Camel component available in Syncope 2.0.0. This component encapsulates some common logic involved in using the Syncope PropagationManager to create some tasks, and to execute them via the PropagationTaskExecutor. All of the routes invoke this propagate component via something like:
- <to uri="propagate:<propagateType>?anyTypeKind=<anyTypeKind>&options"/>
- create
- update
- delete
- provision
- deprovision
- status
- suspend
- confirmPasswordReset
- USER
- GROUP
- ANY
In this post, we will look at a simple use-case of sending an email to an administrator when a User is created, with some details about the created User in the email. Of course, this could be handled by a Notification Task, but we'll discuss some more advanced scenarios in future blog posts. Also note that a video available on the Tirasa blog details more or less the same use-case. For the purposes of the demo, we will set up a mailtrap account where we will receive the emails sent by Camel.
3) Configure Apache Syncope
Download and install Apache Syncope (I used the "standalone" download for the purposes of this demo). Before starting Apache Syncope, we need to copy a few jars that are required by Apache Camel to actually send emails. Copy the following jars to $SYNCOPE/webapps/syncope/WEB-INF/lib:
- http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/camel/camel-mail/2.17.3/camel-mail-2.17.3.jar
- http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/sun/mail/javax.mail/1.5.5/javax.mail-1.5.5.jar
- <setHeader headerName="subject"><simple>New user ${body.username} created in realm ${body.realm}</simple></setHeader>
- <setBody><simple>User full name: ${body.plainAttrMap[fullname].values[0]}</simple></setBody>
- <to uri="smtp://mailtrap.io?username=<username>&password=<password>&contentType=text/html&to=dummy@apache-recipient.org"/>
The third statement invokes on the Camel smtp component. You'll need to substitute in the username + password you configured when setting up the mailtrap account. The recipient is configured using the "to" part of the URI. One more change is required to the existing route. As we have overridden the message Body in the second statement above, we need to change the ${body} in the create call to ${exchangeProperty.actual}, which is the saved Body. Click on "save" to save the modified route.
Before creating a User, we need to add a "fullname" User attribute as the route expects. Go to "Configuration" and "Types", and click on the "Schemas" tab. Click on the "+" button under "PLAIN" and add a new attribute called "fullname". Then click on "AnyTypeClasses", and add the "fullname" attribute to the BaseUser AnyTypeClass.
Finally, go to the "/" realm and create a new user, specifying a fullname attribute. A new email should be available in the mailtrap account as follows:
