Integrating Apache Camel with Apache Syncope - part II

A recent blog post introduced the new Apache Camel provisioning manager that is available in Apache Syncope 2.0.0. It also covered a simple use-case for the new functionality, where the "createUser" Camel route is modified to send an email to an administrator when a User is created, with some details about the created User in the email. In this post, we will look at a different use-case, where the Camel provisioning manager is used to extend the functionality offered by Syncope.

1) The use-case

Apache Syncope stores users in internal storage in a table called "SyncopeUser". This table contains information such as the User Id, name, password, creation date, last password change date, etc. In addition, if there is an applicable password policy associated with the User realm, a list of the previous passwords associated with the User is stored in a table called "SyncopeUser_passwordHistory":

As can be seen from this screenshot, the table stores a list of Syncope User Ids with a corresponding password value. The main function of this table is to enforce the password policy. So for example, if the password policy states that a user can't change back to a password for at least 10 subsequent password changes, this table provides the raw information that is needed to enforce the policy.

Now, what if the administrator wants a stronger audit trail for User password changes other than what is provided by default in the Syncope internal storage? In particular, the administrator would like a record of when the User changes a password. The "SyncopeUser" table only stores the last password change date. There is no way of seeing when each password stored in the "SyncopeUser_passwordHistory" table was changed. Enter the Camel provisioning manager...

2) Configure Apache Syncope

Download and install  Apache Syncope (I used the "standalone" download for the purposes of this demo). Start Apache Syncope and log on to the admin console. First we will create a password policy. Click on "Configuration" and then "Policies". Click on the "Password" tab and then select the "+" button to create a new policy. Give a description for the policy and then select a history length of "10".

Now let's create a new user in the default realm. Click on "realms" and hit the "edit" button. Select the password policy you have just created and click "Finish". This means that all users created in this realm will have the applicable policy applied to them. Now click on the "User" tab and the "+" button to add a new user called "alice". Click on "Password Management" and enter a password for "alice". Now we have a new user created, we want to be able to see when she updates her password from now on.

Click on "Extensions" and "Camel Routes". Find the "updateUser" route (might not be on the first page) and edit it. Create a new Camel "filter" (as per the screenshot below) just above the "bean method=" line with the following content:

• <simple>${body.password} != null</simple>
• <setHeader headerName="CamelFileName"><simple>${body.key}.passwords</simple></setHeader>
• <setBody><simple>New password '${body.password.value}' changed at time '${date:now:yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ}'\n</simple></setBody>
• <to uri="file:./?fileExist=Append"/>

So what we are doing here is to audit the password changes for a particular user, by writing out the password + Timestamp to a file associated with that user. Let's examine what each of these statements do in turn. The first statement is the filter condition. It states that we should execute the following statements if the password is not null. The password will only be non null if it is being changed. So for example, if the user just changes a given attribute and not the password, the filter will not be invoked.

The second statement sets the Camel Header "CamelFileName" to the format of "<user.id>.passwords". This header is used by the Camel File component as the file name to write out to. The third statement sets the exchange Body (the file content) to show the password value along with a Timestamp. Finally, the fourth statement is an invocation of the Camel File component, which appends the exchange Body to the given file name. 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.

Now let's update the user "alice" and set a new password a couple of times. There should be a new file in the directory where you launched Tomcat containing the audit log for password changes for that particular user. With the power of Apache Camel, we could audit to a database, to Apache Kafka, etc etc.