Argus PEP Server: Configuration

Configuration File

The PEP is configured through the user of the pepd.ini file. This file is a standard INI file with different defined sections. The SERVICE section contains properties related the PEP Server service as a whole and how it listens for incoming requests. The PDP section that control how callouts to the PDP are made. The final section, SECURITY, contains properties that related to various security aspects of the service, the services private key and certificate, for example.

PIP Configuration

Each Policy Information Point (PIP) is configured in its own INI section, referenced in the SERVICE section under the pips property.

The configuration properties needed by each PIP is specific to that given PIP. Some will not require any properties beyond the standard set while other will need addition information.

• See the Policy Information Point documentation for more information:
  • Request Validator PIP
  • OpenSSL Subject Converter PIP
  • gLite Grid Authorization Profile PIP
  • Common XACML Authorization Profile PIP

Obligation Handler Configuration

Each Obligation Handler (OH) is configured in its own INI section, referenced in the SERVICE section under the obligationHandlers property.

The configuration properties needed by each Obligation Handler is specific to that given OH. Some will not require any properties beyond the standard set while other will need addition information.

• See the Obligation Handler documentation for more information:
  • Gridmap Account Mapping Obligation Handler

Basic Configuration Options

SERVICE section

Property	Description	Required?	Default Value
entityID	This is a unique identifier for the PEP. It must be a URI (URL or URN) and the same entity ID should be used for all PEP instances that make up a single logical PEP. If a URL is used it need not resolve to any specific webpage.	Y	None. Recommended value is a URL corresponding to the logical PEP service (e.g. http://pep.example.org).
hostname	This is the hostname or IP address to which the service will bind.	Y	None
port	This is the port to which the service will bind.	N	8154
adminHost	The hostname upon which the service will listen for admin commands.	N	127.0.0.1
adminPort	This is the port upon which the service will listen for admin commands. This port is only available on the localhost (127.0.0.1).	N	8155
adminPassword	This is the password required to accompany admin commands. If unspecified than no password is required to run admin commands.	N	None
pips	This is a space separated list of the INI section names that configure policy information points (PIP) that the PEP will invoke upon the arrival of every request. PIPs are executed in the order listed by this property. See the policy information point documentation for more information.	N	None
obligationHandlers	This is a space separated list of the INI section names that configure obligations handlers that the PEP will use to fulfill obligation requirements sent back by the PDP. See the obligation handler documentation for more information.	N	None

PDP section

Property	Description	Required?	Default Value
pdps	A space separated list of PDP endpoint URLs. Endpoints will be tried in turn until one returns a successful response. This provides limited failover support. If more intelligent failover is necessary or load balancing is required, a dedicated load-balancer/failover appliance should be used.	Y	None
maximumCachedResponses	The maximum number of responses from any PDP that will be cached. Setting this value to 0 (zero) will disable caching. The maximum amount of time a single response is cached is controlled by the cachedResponseTTL property described below.	N	500

SECURITY section

Property	Description	Required?	Default Value
servicePrivateKey	An absolute path to the file containing the unencrypted, PEM-encoded, private key used by this service.	Yes, if requests from the PEP client should be done over HTTPS.	None.
serviceCertificate	An absolute path to the file containing the unencrypted, PEM-encoded, certificate used by this service.	Yes, if requests from the PEP client should be done over HTTPS.	None.
trustInfoDir	An absolute path to the directory that contains standard X.509 trust information, such as the IGTF Trust Anchor Distribution.	Required when connecting to PDPs over HTTPS.	None
enableSSL	Enable HTTPS on the service port (SSL/TLS). The serviceCertificate, servicePrivateKey, and trustInfoDir properties must also be defined in order to use this setting.	N	false
requireClientCertAuthentication	The client must have a valid X.509 client certificate to authenticate to the PEP Server	N	true

Example pepd.ini files

The following example file contain the bare minimum required for a valid PEP configuration file.

[SERVICE]
entityId = https://argus.example.org/pep
hostname = argus.example.org

[PDP]
pdps = https://argus.example.org:8152/authz

[SECURITY]

The following example file contains the bare minimum required for a valid PEP configuration plus the configuration of a couple PIPs. Note how each element in the list pips list of the SERVER section matches the name section configuring the PIP. Also note that the REQVALIDATOR_PIP takes a few additional configuration parameters.

[SERVICE]
entityID = http://argus.example.org/pep
hostname = argus.example.org
pips = REQVALIDATOR_PIP 

[PDP]
pdps = https://argus.example.org:8152/authz https://pdp2.example.org:8152/authz

[SECURITY]
servicePrivateKey = /etc/grid-security/hostkey.pem
serviceCertificate = /etc/grid-security/hostcert.pem
trustInfoDir = /etc/grid-security/certificates
enableSSL = true
requireClientCertAuthentication = true

[REQVALIDATOR_PIP]
parserClass = org.glite.authz.pep.pip.provider.RequestValidatorPIPIniConfigurationParser
validateRequestSubjects = true
validateRequestResources = true
validateRequestAction = true
validateRequestEnvironment = false

Advanced Configuration Options

The following advanced options are available but are unlikely to ever be used by deployers. They are mostly for performing very fine-grained tuning of request/response handling parameters. Incorrectly configuring these can have a very negative impact on performance so deployers should not change these unless they are very sure they understand what the impact will be.

SERVICE section

Property	Description	Required?	Default Value
maximumRequests	The maximum number of requests that will be processed simultaneously. Additional requests will be queued.	N	200
requestQueueSize	The maximum number of requests that will be queued up when all the processing threads are busy. Incoming requests received when all processing threads are busy and the queue is full will receive an HTTP 503 error.	N	500
connectionTimeout	This is the length of time, in seconds, the service will wait for the client to send information before it considers the request timed out.	N	30 seconds
receiveBufferSize	This is the size, in bytes, that will be allocated to the HTTP request buffer.	N	16384 (16kb)
sendBufferSize	This is the size, in bytes, that will be allocated to the HTTP response buffer.	N	16384 (16kb)

PDP section

Property	Description	Required?	Default Value
maximumRequests	The maximum number of simultaneous requests that will be made to the PDP. Additional requests will wait until a free request slot becomes available.	N	200
cachedResponseTTL	The length of time, in seconds, for which a response will be cached.	N	600 seconds (10 minutes)
connectionTimeout	This is the length of time, in seconds, the PDP client will wait for the PDP to send information before it considers the request timed out.	N	30 seconds
receiveBufferSize	This is the size, in bytes, that will be allocated to the PDP client send buffer.	N	16384 (16kb)
sendBufferSize	This is the size, in bytes, that will be allocated to the PDP client request buffer.	N	16384 (16kb)

SECURITY section

Property	Description	Required?	Default Value
trustInfoRefresh	The frequency, in minutes, that the trust material specified by trustInfoDir will be checked for updates.	N	60 (1 hour)