For testing purposes or during development it might be convenient to create self-signed certificates. To get started, execute the following command to create a certificate:

$ keytool -genkey -alias dataflow -keyalg RSA -keystore dataflow.keystore \
          -validity 3650 -storetype JKS \
          -dname "CN=localhost, OU=Spring, O=Pivotal, L=Kailua-Kona, ST=HI, C=US"  
          -keypass dataflow -storepass dataflow

Then add the following to your application.yml file:

server:
  port: 8443
  ssl:
    enabled: true
    key-alias: dataflow
    key-store: "/your/path/to/dataflow.keystore"
    key-store-type: jks
    key-store-password: dataflow
    key-password: dataflow

This is all that’s needed for the Data Flow Server. Once you start the server, you should be able to access it via https://localhost:8443/. As this is a self-signed certificate, you will hit a warning in your browser, that you need to ignore.

This issue also is relevant for the Data Flow Shell. Therefore additional steps are necessary to make the Shell work with self-signed certificates. First, we need to export the previously created certificate from the keystore:

$ keytool -export -alias dataflow -keystore dataflow.keystore -file dataflow_cert -storepass dataflow

Next, we need to create a truststore which the Shell will use:

$ keytool -importcert -keystore dataflow.truststore -alias dataflow -storepass dataflow -file dataflow_cert -noprompt

Now, you are ready to launch the Data Flow Shell using the following JVM arguments:

$ java -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword=dataflow \
       -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=/path/to/dataflow.truststore \
       -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStoreType=jks \
       -jar spring-cloud-dataflow-shell-1.1.0.M1.jar

	Tip
	In case you run into trouble establishing a connection via SSL, you can enable additional logging by using and setting the javax.net.debug JVM argument to ssl.

Don’t forget to target the Data Flow Server with:

dataflow:> dataflow config server https://localhost:8443/

By default Spring Boot allows you to only specify one single user. Spring Cloud Data Flow also supports the listing of more than one user in a configuration file, as described below. Each user must be assigned a password and one or more roles:

security:
  basic:
    enabled: true
    realm: Spring Cloud Data Flow
dataflow:
  security:
    authentication:
      file:
        enabled: true                                                 
        users:                                                        
          bob: bobspassword, ROLE_ADMIN                               
          alice: alicepwd, ROLE_VIEW, ROLE_CREATE

	Important
	As of Spring Cloud Data Flow 1.1, roles are not supported, yet (specified roles are ignored). Due to an issue in Spring Security, though, at least one role must be provided.

Spring Cloud Data Flow also supports authentication against an LDAP server (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), providing support for the following 2 modes:

When the LDAP authentication option is activated, the default single user mode is turned off.

In direct bind mode, a pattern is defined for the user’s distinguished name (DN), using a placeholder for the username. The authentication process derives the distinguished name of the user by replacing the placeholder and use it to authenticate a user against the LDAP server, along with the supplied password. You can set up LDAP direct bind as follows:

security:
  basic:
    enabled: true
    realm: Spring Cloud Data Flow
dataflow:
  security:
    authentication:
      ldap:
        enabled: true                                                 
        url: ldap://ldap.example.com:3309                             
        userDnPattern: uid={0},ou=people,dc=example,dc=com            

The search and bind mode involves connecting to an LDAP server, either anonymously or with a fixed account, and searching for the distinguished name of the authenticating user based on its username, and then using the resulting value and the supplied password for binding to the LDAP server. This option is configured as follows:

security:
  basic:
    enabled: true
    realm: Spring Cloud Data Flow
dataflow:
  security:
    authentication:
      ldap:
        enabled: true                                                 
        url: ldap://localhost:10389                                   
        managerDn: uid=admin,ou=system                                
        managerPassword: secret                                       
        userSearchBase: ou=otherpeople,dc=example,dc=com              
        userSearchFilter: uid={0}                                     

	Tip
	For more information, please also see the chapter LDAP Authentication of the Spring Security reference guide.

If your OAuth2 provider supports the Password Grant Type you can start the Data Flow Shell with:

$ java -jar spring-cloud-dataflow-shell-1.1.0.M1.jar \
  --dataflow.uri=http://localhost:9393 \
  --dataflow.username=my_username --dataflow.password=my_password

	Note
	Keep in mind that when authentication for Spring Cloud Data Flow is enabled, the underlying OAuth2 provider must support the Password OAuth2 Grant Type, if you want to use the Shell.

From within the Data Flow Shell you can also provide credentials using:

dataflow config server --uri http://localhost:9393 --username my_username --password my_password

Once successfully targeted, you should see the following output:

dataflow:>dataflow config info
dataflow config info

╔═══════════╤═══════════════════════════════════════╗
║Credentials│[username='my_username, password=****']║
╠═══════════╪═══════════════════════════════════════╣
║Result     │                                       ║
║Target     │http://localhost:9393                  ║
╚═══════════╧═══════════════════════════════════════╝