PingID MFA

This technote covers the setup, configuration, and monitoring of the ClearPass extension for multi factor authentication with Ping Identity. Without the extension, MFA workflow required ClearPass to proxy the request to Ping Federate which would then validate the source using a RADIUS authentication request before sending request to Ping Identity to trigger push notification. This integration aims to simplify the workflow with the extension making an API call directly to Ping Identity. Thus, removing the dependence on Ping Federate. This integration can be used to enable MFA for TACACS device logins and captive portal workflows.

Pictorial view of the Integration

The diagram below shows a pictorial overview of the components and how they interact with each other. There are mainly two way the integration works:

The first use case is to trigger a push notification for the user assuming that there is a push enabled device enrolled by the user

The second use case is to trigger a push notification to a specific device. Here the extension first uses API calls to fetch details of all devices enrolled by the user and then checks if there is a device which is either marked as primary or at least enabled with push notification and selects the best device to send push notification to.

Software Requirements

The minimum software version required for CPPM is 6.11.0 . At the time of writing, version 6.11.10 is available as the long supported release and 6.12.4 is available as the short supported release. CPPM runs on hardware appliances with pre-installed software or as a Virtual Machine under the following hypervisors. Hypervisors that run on a client computer such as VMware Player are not supported.

• VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) 7.0 U3c and 8.0

• Windows Server 2019 with Hyper‑V and Windows Server 2022 with Hyper‑V.

• KVM on CentOS Stream 8, CentOS Stream 9, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

ClearPass Installation and Deployment Guide

This document assumes your ClearPass environment is already configured and operational. If you require assistance with basic deployment, refer to the following deployment guide:

https://arubanetworking.hpe.com/techdocs/ClearPass/6.11/Installation-Guide/Default.htm

ClearPass Extensions

The integration between ClearPass Policy Manager and external systems is driven through a ClearPass capability known as Extensions, a sub-component of the ClearPass Exchange Integration framework. ClearPass Extensions are micro-services running on top of the base ClearPass platform. These micro-services enable HPE Aruba Networking to deliver new features outside of the main software release cycle and facilitate a faster time to market for specific features and integrations. Configuration and control of ClearPass Extensions is accomplished through the ClearPass Guest GUI, as covered later in this document.

Installing Extension

ClearPass Extensions are easy to install from the ClearPass Extensions Store. In a cluster, ClearPass Extensions can be installed on a subscriber independently of the publisher. Multiple copies of the same extension can be installed if needed as well.

Access to the extension store

Access the Extension Store to download and install ClearPass extensions. The Extension store utilizes the same HPE Passport account credentials used to validate support entitlement in the Software Updates Por- tal. This is configured under Administration > Agents and Software Updates > Software Updates as shown below. Ensure that valid HPE Passport credentials have been entered in these fields to enable Ex- tension download capabilities.

Installing the Extension from Store

Extensions are installed from the extension page in ClearPass Guest, as shown below. Access it from Guest > Administration > Extensions

From here, click on ‘Install Extension’, and the search box below appears.

Enter “Intune” and click on ‘Search’, see the example below.

Click on the extension name and then click “Install.”

In the “Install Extension” dialog box, set the IP address if necessary, as described in section “Extensions and IP address configuration support” below. Do not check the box to start the extension at this time. Click the “Install” button.

In this example, we’ve not entered an IP address for the extension to use, if there is intent to use the extension as an authorization source set this value and ensure its set the same on all nodes where the Extension is deployed.

The extension will download and appear in a “Stopped” state. Notice the options to Start, Delete, Reinstall, Show Logs, and view Configuration. Click on “Configuration” to view settings.

After the extension has been installed, proceed to configure the extension

A copy of the default Extension configuration is shown above, this will need to be modified for your deployment.

Extensions and web proxy support

Extensions support communications with 3^rd parties via a web proxy. This adds incremental proxy functionality. If a proxy is defined in ClearPass Policy Manager, then an extension will inherit that configuration. See later in the document on how to disable the proxy inherited configuration.

Extensions and IP address configuration support

ClearPass uses a non-externally routed IP address range to communicate with the Extension. The default is 172.17.0.0/16. You may configure a different range, if desired. This is especially useful when deploying extensions across nodes within a cluster where there is the requirement for a fixed consistent IP address for the extension across the cluster.

Changing the “Extensions Network Address” range is only necessary if either the ClearPass MGMT or DATA interface are using an IP address in the extension default range of 172.17.x.x/12, or if ClearPass needs to communicate with some external device in that range.

To Configure the base Extension IP subnet within Policy Manager navigate to Administration > Server Manager > Server Configuration [chose your node] Service Parameters [ClearPass system service].

Importing PingID Properties File

First step in the integration is to download pingid.properties file from PingOne Admin portal. The properties file contains the encryption key, token, authenticator URL and idp URL. Depending upon the use case, properties file should be generated with appropriate permissions.

For customers who are looking for the first use case which is to trigger push notification assuming that a push enabled device has been enrolled, only a limited subset of permissions to perform authentication is required. This is preferred in cases where organizations do not want to provide full administrator privileges to the extension.

For customers who are looking for the second use case where push notification is triggered to a specific device, full administrator permissions are needed to fetch user and device details.

Generate a properties file with the appropriate permissions (either authenticate only or administrator) from PingOne admin portal from Setup > Ping ID > Client Integration as described in the following knowledge article:

https://docs.pingidentity.com/r/en-us/pingid/managing-the-pingid-properties-file?tocId=R8fWTALjoREXu1LDjEbbDw

Once the pingid.properties file has been downloaded, upload the same to ClearPass Guest > Configuration > Content Manager > Private Files > Upload New Content as shown below:

Extension Configuration Parameters

After the extension has been installed, proceed to configure ClearPass.

ClearPass Policy Manager Configuration

The final part is the configuration on ClearPass Policy Manager. We need to configure an HTTP authorization source within ClearPass to use the Extension as a ‘real-time’ authorization source.

Click on Next. This will advance to the Primary Tab to provide the connection details.

Set the Base URL as http://ip_of_the_extension/ and pay special attention to HTTP not HTTPS, and the addition of “/” in the path. It is mandated that a Login Username/Password is entered, but it is not used, so this can be set to anything.

Click on “Next”. This will advance you to the Attributes Tab where you need to provide the authorization attributes. Click on “Add More Filters”. Provide a Name for the filter and then a Filter Query. It’s extremely important that the Filter Query is defined correctly. This is the query string that is sent to the Ping ID MFA extension to trigger the push notification. The query is indexed off the username in authentication request. Query also contains the app name attribute which is displayed on the client device while push notification is triggered. Customize the app name in the URL to something that is relevant for your organization. The query also includes authentication status so that push notification is only triggered for successful authentications.

?username=%{Authentication:Username}&app=CPPM%20Admin%20Login&auth_status=%{Authentication:Status}

Next, build out the definitions of the attributes that will be returned from the Filter Query. These attributes can subsequently be used within our policy-evaluation and ultimately the enforcement policy applied. “success” evaluates to true in case of a successful MFA and is used as key to allow/deny/restrict access.

Once the HTTP authorization source is defined, you can use the returned attributes in your policy rules as shown below:

Below we can see the result of a push authorization from Ping Identity and the attributes returned. This data is available to be used in the policy as part of authorization.

Appendix A – Troubleshooting and Support

Here we list some basic troubleshooting steps. If you need any help beyond this, please reach out to HPE Aruba Networking Support.

Check API Access Application Control restrictions

If you’ve previously hardened your ClearPass deployment with Application Access Controls, it’s possible that the Extension will not work. Reviewing the Extension Log might show something like the following after immediately starting the Extension. This likely indicates the ClearPass Application API’s are in place.

Example of Extension authorization failure due to Policy Manager Application Control:

[2020-03-16T15:42:21.083] [INFO] Intune - Server listening on port 80.

[2020-03-16T15:42:21.243] [DEBUG] Intune - Request “GET ‘https://172.17.0.1/api/server/version’” took 51.91ms.

[2020-03-16T15:42:21.245] [DEBUG] Intune - <!DOCTYPE html><html>

<head>

<title>

Error 403 (Forbidden)

</title>

<script language=“javascript”>

function reloadPage() {

var locHref = window.location.protocol + “//” + window.location.hostname;

window.location.href = locHref;

}

</script>

To resolve this issue, add the IP address of the Extension to the list of nodes permitted to access the API by navigating to Administration > Server Manager > Server Configuration {choose your node} > Network

Checking on the Extension Service

The ClearPass Extensions are supported by a system service which must be running.

Restarting this service will affect all deployed and running extensions.

To check on the state of the Extension Service, or to restart the service, go to Administration > Server Manager > Server Configuration > [SERVER] > Service Control. By default this service is automatically started.

Extensions and web proxy / firewall whitelisting

If ClearPass Policy Manager has been configured with a proxy, it’s still possible that domain whitelists are required, the same for some datacenter firewall to allow the installation of Extensions. Some enterprise customers maintain a whitelist of domain that are allowed to transit the proxy/firewall. The underlying docker configuration process uses standard docker registry access to pull images (hosted in docker hub). In general, the following hosts are used:

This is all also geo dependent to some degree and based on various AWS services, so AWS redirects and geo location services will vary. Finally, this all runs via standard HTTPS (port 443).

Extension Logs/Enable Debugging

If you have a requirement to access and view the logs from the Extension, you can turn on different logging levels from the Extension GUI. Adjust the logLevel to ‘DEBUG’ and restart the extension as shown below.

Logs can then be viewed from the ‘Show Logs’.

Remember after changing the logging level, as with any extension configuration change the extension will need to be restarted for this change to take effect.

Accessing the extension logs using ‘Collect Logs’ system function

In addition to viewing the logs as shown above, logs can also be collected and examined via the Policy Manager Collect Logs system function (Administration > Server Manager > Server Configuration > [Select SERVER] > Collect Logs). This is extremely useful should you have a need to call for technical assistance.

If the support team needs to investigate a system issue, one of the items they regularly ask for is the system logs to aid with their diagnostic investigation. By default the “logLevel” is set to INFO, but TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL can also be set as required. Any of the levels will display the information for the selected state and lower; if INFO is selected, it will show messages for INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL.

After the logs have been collected, downloaded and expanded, you can locate the extension logs in the following location in the folder structure PolicyManagerLogs > extension > your-extension-id as shown below. Note the file-name is the same as the running instance ID of the extension.

Monitoring extension statistics

There is a way to monitor extension’s critical resource statistics with the configurable parameter added as part of the extension’s configuration. To enable extension statistics set the “enableStats” parameter to true. Remember a restart of the extension is need to activate the change anytime the config is modified.

To navigate to statistics page, click Show Details.

This will show statistics similar to the following:

Monitoring authorization performance

Since we are authorizing against an external system, it could be relevant to monitor the performance of these transactions as you setup and deploy. If you suspect there is a performance issue, ClearPass provides a way to monitor the authorization processing time. The graph below shows an example of this data, navigate to Monitoring > Live Monitor > System Monitor [click on ClearPass Tab, then select [Authorization]….

Appendix B – Considerations for Installing in a Cluster

Extensions are not synced between ClearPass cluster members, and thus must be installed on each member separately.

Some Extensions can run in two modes: Periodic Sync Mode and Authorization Source Mode.

Periodic Sync Mode

If you are configuring the extension to poll external system periodically and utilize the resulting ClearPass Endpoint database during endpoint Authorization, then you only need to install the extension on one cluster member, often the publisher.

You may wish to install the extension on a second cluster member as a backup, but remember that both extensions will individually be updating the endpoint database. You may want to stagger the updates between the two extensions, for example, Subscriber1 updates at the top of the hour and Subscriber2 updates at 30 minutes after the hour.

Also, in this mode there is no need to explicitly enter an IP address during installation. The defaults will suffice and ClearPass will select an IP in the range specified in the server configuration.

HTTP Authorization Source Mode

In this mode we configure an HTTP Auth source that results in a HTTPS call to external system during endpoint authorization. In this deployment model the extension must be installed on every cluster node that process authentications. Also in this scenario every cluster member’s extension must be set to the exact same IP address during installation time, as the HTTP Auth source configuration is propagated globally across all cluster members.

For example, if the extension IP range is 172.17.0.0/16, we would set the extension to 172.17.0.5 on every cluster member during installation of the extension.

While we normally want to avoid duplicate IP addresses in a network, this is not a concern with ClearPass extensions. Each ClearPass node communicates internally only with its own extension, and this traffic is not routed outside of ClearPass.

Subscriber nodes support the same ability as publishers to install an Extension from the Extension store.

Appendix C – endpoint sync schedule settings

The syncSchedule and similar scheduling parameters sets how often ClearPass executes certain actions like syncing or pushing endpoints. This setting is based on a slightly modified version of the CRON job scheduler found in Unix-like operating systems. It can be used to schedule jobs to run periodically at fixed times, dates or intervals.

A ‘cron’ is a job scheduler. Any scheduled task is called a ‘cron job’. The syntax for a cron job schedule is as follows:

In our use of the cron scheduler, we’ve dropped the use of the last instruction ≤command to execute> and use only the time/date functions, see below for a number of examples of scheduling a sync process.

• Schedule a sync to run at 2am daily:- 0 2 * * *

• Schedule a sync to run twice a day at 5am and 5pm:- 0 5,17 * * *

• Schedule a sync to run on every Sunday at 5pm:- 0 17 * * sun

• Schedule a sync to run every 30 minutes:- */30 * * * *

• Schedule a sync to run at 5pm on selected days:- 0 17 * * sun,fri

You can see from the above that the scheduling process is extremely flexible, alternatively https://crontab.guru/ is a great page for learning more about CRON scheduling.

Appendix D – Extension performance optimizations

Extensions are a critical part of ClearPass deployments today and with the increased dependency on extension interactions that involve periodic polling or real-time lookups, here are some of the best practice recommendations around optimizing overall performance when using extensions:

• If the extension is used to periodically poll external systems and populate endpoint repository, ensure that it is not installed in all the nodes in the cluster. Ideally these type of extensions should only be installed on the publisher node since only publisher node can add endpoint entries to the database. For redundancy, it can be installed on another additional node but it is recommended to stagger the polling interval so that both do not attempt to poll and update endpoint database at the same time.

  Example: 0 * * * *, This cron job runs at minute 0 of every hour (e.g., 00:00, 01:00, 02:00, etc.).

    30 * * * *, This cron job runs at minute 30 of every hour (e.g., 00:30, 01:30, 02:30, etc.).
  

• If the extension is used for looking up attributes from external systems in real time during authentication, it should be installed in all the nodes handling authentication. Note that the context server config is replicated from the publisher. When using extension for real time lookup, ensure that the extension has the same IP address in all the cluster nodes.

• If the extension is expected to do both real-time lookup and periodic polling, ensure that polling is enabled only on the publisher while the extension in subscribers can have the polling disabled by setting the “enableSyncAll” attribute to false.

     "enableSyncAll": false,
  

• Some 3rd party systems support fetching delta updates vs fetching all of the device information every polling cycle. The extensions that support fetching delta updates are: Workspace ONE Crowdstrike Falcon Microsoft Intune Mosyle SentinelOne Service Now

  For these extensions, the syncUpdatedOnly attribute should be set to true in extension config so that the number of DB updates in ClearPass is minimized

    "syncUpdatedOnly": true,
  

  For extensions that do not support syncUpdatedOnly, ensure that the sync interval is not aggressive. We recommend syncing at most twice a day and that too during off peak hours whenever a full sync is performed.

• Some 3rd party systems can be very noisy in terms of attribute updates. There could be certain attributes that keep changing every sync interval like “Free Memory in Bytes”, “Last Check in Time” etc. There is no value in updating endpoints when such trivial attributes change for the device. Hence it is recommended to use “ignoreEndpointDifferences” attribute in extension configuration to ignore change in attributes that you do not care about in terms of ClearPass policies.

  You can review the Audit Viewer in ClearPass under Monitoring > Audit Viewer to see what attributes are being updated for endpoints to check if there are unnecessary updates.

  Sample for JAMF extension:

    "ignoreEndpointDifferences": "Last Update, Report Date UTC, Last Contact Time UTC, Last Inventory Update UTC, Last Reported IP, IP Address",
  

  Default for Microsoft Intune extension:

    "ignoreEndpointDifferences": "Last Sync Date Time, Free Storage Space in Bytes",
  

• To further optimize the number of endpoints being updated in ClearPass, you can specify which attributes are being used in the ClearPass policies so that only changes to those attributes would trigger an update to the endpoint. This is done by listing out the specific attributes under endpointAttributes in extension configuration.

  Sample for JAMF extension:

    "endpointAttributes": "Group names, MDM Enabled, Managed, Remote Managed, Supervised, Serial Number",
  

• Setup extension to restart unless it was intentionally stopped. A restart policy can be defined in extension configuration to ensure that the extension starts up automatically after server reboots and such. Restart policy of “unless-stopped” would ensure the extension always starts up unless it was manually stopped.

  “restartPolicy”: “no” — The extension will not be automatically restarted after the server is restarted.

  “restartPolicy”: “always” — The extension will always be restarted after the server is restarted.

  “restartPolicy”: “unless-stopped” — The extension will be restarted unless it was stopped prior to the server restart, in which case it will maintain that state.

  “restartPolicy”: “on-failure:N” — If the extension fails to restart, the value for “N” specifies the number of times the extension should try to restart. If you do not provide a value for “N”, the default value will be “0”.

  The “restartPolicy” parameter is not present by default in extension configurations. When it is not present, if the system is restarted a default policy is applied to the extension to maintain the state it was in before the restart. If the “restartPolicy” parameter is added to the configuration but later removed, the extension will then revert to the default restart policy.