Deploying the IAM VOMS attribute authority

Instructions on how to deploy and configure the IAM VOMS attribute authority micro-service

The IAM VOMS attribute authority

The IAM VOMS attribute authority (AA) provide backward-compatible VOMS support for a Virtual Organization managed with IAM.

Deployment architecture

VOMS AA deployment

The VOMS attribute authority can access the IAM database and encode IAM groups and other attributes in a standard VOMS attribute certificate. This means in practice that IAM can act both as an OAuth/OpenID Connect authorization server and as a VOMS server for a given organization. TLS termination and client VOMS atttribute certificate parsing and validation is delegated to an NGINX VOMS module, which can de deployed as a sidecar service that just protects the VOMS AA or also in front of the IAM backend application. The two scenarios are depicted above.

In order to deploy a VOMS attribute authority, you can use the following docker images:

cnafsd/nginx-httpg-voms, for the NGINX VOMS module (which replaces OpenResty VOMS)
indigoiam/voms-aa:v1.8.4, for the VOMS AA service

Deployment from packages is not currently supported for the VOMS attribute authority.

NGINX VOMS module configuration

The NGINX VOMS module requires:

IGTF trust anchors properly configured; see the EGI trust anchors container container
the vomsdir folder, with the VOMS LSC configuration generated starting from the VOMS attribute authority X.509 credential

VOMS LSC configuration

Let’s assume that the IAM VOMS AA will answer on voms.test.example for the VO example.vo, to generate the LSC you need to get the subject and issuer of the VOMS AA X.509 credential and put them in a file named as the fully qualified domain name of the VOMS attribute authority with the .lsc extension.

The following command does exactly that (X509_VOMS_DIR can be set to any directory where you have writing privileges):

> mkdir -p ${X509_VOMS_DIR}/example.vo
> openssl x509 -in voms_local_io.cert.pem -noout -subject -issuer -nameopt compat | \
  gsed -e 's/^subject=//' -e 's/^issuer=//' > \
  ${X509_VOMS_DIR}/example.vo/voms.test.example.lsc

For an example nginx configuration, see the VOMS AA docker compose configuration.

VOMS AA configuration

The VOMS AA is a spring boot application that shares the persistence layer implementation with IAM, and as such can inspect the IAM database.

An example configuration for the VOMS AA service is given below, with comments to explain the meaning of the parameters:

server:
  address: 0.0.0.0 # bind on all IP addresses
  port: 8080 # listen on port 8080
  use-forward-headers: true # assume you're behind a reverse proxy

  # change the default http header size limit to accomodate VOMS information passed
  # down by the ngx-voms server
  max-http-header-size: 16000


spring:
  main:
    banner-mode: "off"

  jpa:
    open-in-view: true

  ## Database connection parameters
  datasource:
    dataSourceClassName: com.mysql.jdbc.jdbc2.optional.MysqlDataSource
    url: jdbc:mysql://${IAM_DB_HOST}:${IAM_DB_PORT:3306}/${IAM_DB_NAME}?useLegacyDatetimeCode=false&serverTimezone=UTC&useSSL=false
    username: ${IAM_DB_USERNAME}
    password: ${IAM_DB_PASSWORD}

  flyway:
    enabled: false

voms:
  tls:
    # The VOMS AA certificate
    certificate-path: /certs/hostcert.pem

    # The VOMS AA certificate key
    private-key-path: /certs/hostkey.pem

    # Where to look for X.509 trust anchors
    trust-anchors-dir: /etc/grid-security/certificates

    # How often should trust anchors (and CRLs) be refreshed
    # The default value is 86400
    trust-anchors-refresh-interval-secs: 14400
  aa:
    # The VOMS attribute authority host
    host: voms.example

    # The VOMS attribute authority port. Note that this is the port on
    # the reverse proxy, not the local service port
    port: 443

    # The VOMS VO name
    vo-name: ${VOMS_AA_VO}

    # Use FQAN legacy encoding, i.e.,
    # /voms/Role=NULL/Capability=NULL
    # instead of
    # /voms
    # The default value is false
    use-legacy-fqan-encoding: true

    # The VOMS proxy lifetime in seconds
    # The default value is 12 hours
    max-ac-lifetime-in-seconds: 43200

    # The optional group label
    # The default value is wlcg.optional-group
    # This option specify the label to be assigned for custom VOMS roles.
    # E.g.: "pilot" is a subgroup of the "vo-name" IAM group. If it is made
    # "optional group" in IAM via the dedicated button, users belonging to
    # it can request the "pilot" VOMS role.
    optional-group-label: voms.role

For an example configuration, see the VOMS AA docker compose file.

Last modified April 22, 2024: Replace OpenResty with the NGINX VOMS module (2251652)