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Retrieving User Roles from an External Data Source

If the static configuration available with CAS is insufficient, you can import external user information, like roles and organization ID, from an external data source. Imported roles are stored in the internal jasperserver database (synchronization); they can be mapped to internal JasperReports Server roles or created as new external roles.

To retrieve external roles, the externalUserDetailsService property in the externalDataSynchronizer bean needs to point to an ExternalUserDetailsService implementation. The sample file includes CasJDBCUserDetailsService, which connects to an external MySQL database. externalUserDetailsService then makes the external data available to externalUserSetupProcessor or mtExternalUserSetupProcessor, which is responsible for mapping the external information and synchronizing it with the database.

The casJDBCUserDetailsService bean is configured with the following properties:

  • dataSource property: Points to external database to query user details
  • usersByUsernameQuery property: SQL query returning a list of user properties for the user name to be processed by externalUserSetupProcessor or mtExternalUserSetupProcessor. The result is returned as a map where keys are the column names in the query.
  • authoritiesByUsernameQuery property: SQL query returning a list of user roles for the user name.

The externalUserSetupProcessor or mtExternalUserSetupProcessor bean has the following properties:

  • defaultInternalRoles property: A list of internal roles assigned to the external user by default.

  • organizationRoleMap property: A list of key/value pairs that map external role names to internal ones. For a commercial JasperReports Server deployment, you need to choose the level at which the role is assigned:

    • To map to an internal role at the organization level, append |* to the name of the internal role, for example, ROLE_EXTERNAL_USER|*. Roles mapped at the organization level do not have administrative privileges.
    • To map to an internal role at the system (null) level, do not modify the internal role name, for example, ROLE_EXTERNAL_ADMINISTRATOR. Roles at the system level are usually reserved for special users like the system administrator and allow access to the repository folders of all organizations.

The following shows how you might configure the externalUserSetupProcessor bean:

<bean id="mtExternalUserSetupProcessor" class="com.jaspersoft.jasperserver.multipleTenancy.security.
    externalAuth.processors.MTExternalUserSetupProcessor"  parent="abstractExternalProcessor">
<property name="organizationRoleMap">
   <map>
    <!-- Example of mapping customer roles to JRS roles -->
    <entry>
      <key>
        <value>ROLE_ADMIN_EXTERNAL_ORGANIZATION</value>
      </key>
      <!-- JRS role that the <key> external role is mapped to-->
      <value>ROLE_ADMINISTRATOR</value>
    </entry>
  </map>
</property>