Logging in Liferay user without password

Question

I need to login the user in Liferay by authenticating against an external system. However, I still need to have a valid Liferay session. So, I need to login to Liferay by

1. Asking the username/password from the user
2. Use them to authenticate against the external system.
3. Use just the username (not the password) to authenticate against the Liferay login.
4. Log the user in , if the external system login is successful.

I did few things:

1. Auto login
2. Hooks to UserLocalService.authenticateByScreenName override
3. auth.pipeline pre and check = false
4. LoginFilter .

These did not work. Here is an explanation of these approaches. The idea is to include //Call external system to authenticate will be included if these methods work. Please correct where I m making the mistake and if some approach is better compared to other.

1. Autologin:

a. Set portal-ext.properties

 auto.login.hooks=com.poc.AutoLoginFil

b. Create a class

public class AutoLoginFilter implements AutoLogin {

    public AutoLoginFilter() {
        super();
    }

    @Override
    public String[] login(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse arg1) throws AutoLoginException {

//Call external system to authenticate 
        User user =  UserLocalServiceUtil.getUserByScreenName(company.getCompanyId(), login);
         credentials[0] = String.valueOf(user.getUserId());

        credentials[1] = "undefined";
        credentials[2] = Boolean.TRUE.toString();

            return credentials;
    }
}

c. Deploy the plugin project, restart the server and go to http: //localhost:8080/web/guest/home . This should log in as joebloggs

This did not work

2. Hooks to UserLocalService.authenticateByScreenName override

a. In liferay-hook.xml

<service>
        <service-type>
            com.liferay.portal.service.UserLocalService
        </service-type>
        <service-impl>
            com.test.UserService
        </service-impl>
    </service>

b. Extend UserLocalServiceWrapper and use the custom class.

public class UserService  extends  UserLocalServiceWrapper
{

@Override
    public int authenticateByScreenName(long companyId, String screenName, String password, Map headerMap, Map parameterMap, Map resultsMap)
    {
//Call external system to authenticate 
        String name = "";
        log.info(screenName);
        return SUCCESS;
    }

}

When I login, it should work with any password. It does not.

3. auth.pipeline pre and check = false

a. In portal-ext.properties

auth.pipeline.enable.liferay.check=false
auth.pipeline.pre=com.test.AutoLoginCustom

b. Then, in

public class AutoLoginCustom implements AutoLogin
{

@Override
public String[] login(HttpServletRequest arg0, HttpServletResponse arg1)
            throws AutoLoginException {

@Override
    public String[] login(HttpServletRequest arg0, HttpServletResponse arg1)
{
//Call external system to authenticate 
  credentials[0] = "joebloggs";

        credentials[1] = "undefined";
        credentials[2] = Boolean.TRUE.toString();

            return credentials;
}

c. Deploy the project and restart the server. Go to http://localhost:8080/web/guest/home. Login using username and different password. It does not login. It does not even hit the debug point in the AutoLoginCustom java.

4. LoginFilter In the liferay-hook.xml,

<servlet-filter>
        <servlet-filter-name>Login</servlet-filter-name>
        <servlet-filter-impl>com.test.AutoLoginFilter</servlet-filter-impl>
    </servlet-filter>

In AutoLoginFilter

public class AutoLoginFil implements Filter
{

    @Override
    public void doFilter(ServletRequest arg0, ServletResponse arg1,
            FilterChain arg2) throws IOException, ServletException {

//Call external system to authenticate 
        log.debug("doFilter");

    }
}

The debug filter is not called.

Is there mistakes in any of these approaches and if yes, what is it and is there a different approach to do this? I had already looked at the following references.

How do I use autologin in liferay?

Liferay - AutoLogin + Authenticator - Get Credentials From Request Header

Answer 1

I did some more playing around and i was able to figure out way to solve this.

The answer for
2. Hooks to UserLocalService.authenticateByScreenName override

Step 1:

<service>
        <service-type>
            com.liferay.portal.service.UserLocalService
        </service-type>
        <service-impl>
            com.test.UserService
        </service-impl>
    </service>

Step 2:

Extend UserLocalServiceWrapper and use the custom class.

public class UserService  extends  UserLocalServiceWrapper
{

@Override
    public int authenticateByScreenName(long companyId, String screenName, String password, Map headerMap, Map parameterMap, Map resultsMap)
    {
//Call external system to authenticate 

        if(externalAuthenticationSuccess)
        {
          return Authenticator.SUCCESS;
       }
       else
       {
         return Authenticator.FAILURE; 
       } 

}

This works, when deployed.

This was not working when I posted the question because:

1. I had Tomcat in the Servers. I deployed the project before making this change.
2. Once I made the update, I used the Liferay Plugin and deployed using Right Click Project -> Liferay-> deploy.
3. I was using the breakpoint in the code to see if it will catch it during login.
4. This was not caught because the Eclipse IDE I was using needs the project deployed through ReDeploy under Server and not the Liferay Plugin command.

When I deployed using the Eclipse Tomcat Server as well, it caught the breakpoint.

The answer to

3. auth.pipeline pre and check = false

   In portal-ext.properties

   auth.pipeline.enable.liferay.check=false auth.pipeline.pre=com.test.CustomAuthenticator

   public class CustomAuthenticator implements Authenticator
   {
       @Override
       public int authenticateByScreenName(long companyId, String screenName, String password,
               Map<String, String[]> headerMap, Map<String, String[]> parameterMap) throws AuthException {
   
   
   
       //Call external system to authenticate 
       if(externalAuthenticationSuccess)
       {
           return Authenticator.SUCCESS;
       }
       else
       {
           return Authenticator.FAILURE; 
       } 
   
   
       }
   }
   

This works too, but it worked only in JBoss, not in Tomcat. I deployed the portal-ext.properties in

TOMCAT_HOME\webapps\ROOT\WEB-INF\classes

In JBoss EAP, it is under Liferay_Home. It might not have picked up the property in Tomcat, but did in JBoss.

The other possible solutions posted in the question might work too, but I did not explore everything to find the mistakes in the configuration.

If there is any comment or question about these solutions, please post and I ll be happy to provide further step. Thank you.