Enabling single sign on for clients via JWT token configuration

Roles: system programmer, system administrator, security administrator

As a system programmer, you can customize how JWT authentication is performed, the service that provides the JWT authentication token, whether it's possible to refresh JWT token and other characteristics of JWT for consumption.

SAF as an Authentication provider

By default, the API Gateway uses z/OSMF as an authentication provider. It is possible to switch to SAF as the authentication provider instead of z/OSMF. The intended usage of SAF as an authentication provider is for systems without z/OSMF. If SAF is used and the z/OSMF is available on the system, the created tokens are not accepted by z/OSMF. Use the following procedure to switch to SAF.

1. Open the zowe.yaml configuration file.
2. Find or add the property components.gateway.apiml.security.auth.provider and set the value to saf.
3. Restart Zowe.

Authentication requests now utilize SAF as the authentication provider. API ML can run without z/OSMF present on the system.

Also see the following properties:

• apiml.security.auth.tokenProperties.expirationInSeconds
  This property is relevant only when the JWT is generated by the API Mediation Layer and specifies to the time before expiration.

• components.gateway.apiml.security.auth.zosmf.ServiceId
  This parameter specifies the z/OSMF service id used as authentication provider. The service id is defined in the static definition of z/OSMF. The default value is zosmf.

Enabling a JWT token refresh endpoint

Enable the /gateway/api/v1/auth/refresh endpoint to exchange a valid JWT token for a new token with a new expiration date. Call the endpoint with a valid JWT token and trusted client certificate. When using the z/OSMF authentication provider, enable API Mediation Layer for PassTicket generation and configure the z/OSMF APPLID.

For more information, see Configure Passtickets

1. Open the file zowe.yaml.

2. Configure the following properties:

   • components.gateway.apiml.security.allowtokenrefresh: true
     Add this property to enable the refresh endpoint.

   • components.gateway.apiml.security.zosmf.applid
     If you use z/OSMF as an authentication provider, provide a valid APPLID. The API ML generates a passticket for the specified APPLID and subsequently uses this passticket to authenticate to z/OSMF. The default value in the installation of z/OSMF is IZUDFLT.

3. Restart Zowe.