Integrating Apache Camel with Apache Syncope - part I

Apache Syncope is an open-source Identity Management solution. A key feature of Apache Syncope is the ability to pull Users, Groups and Any Objects from multiple backend resources (such as LDAP, RDMBS, etc.) into Syncope's internal storage, where they can then be assigned roles, pushed to other backend resources, exposed via Syncope's REST API, etc.

However, what if you wanted to easily perform some custom task as part of the Identity Management process? Wouldn't it be cool to be able to plug in a powerful integration framework such as Apache Camel, so that you could exploit Camel's huge list of messaging components and routing + mediation rules? Well with Syncope 2.0.0 you can do just this with the new Apache Camel provisioning manager. This is a unique and very powerful selling point of Apache Syncope in my opinion. In this article, we will introduce the new Camel provisioning manager, and show a simple example of how to use it.

1) The new Apache Camel provisioning manager

As stated above, a new provisioning manager is available in Apache Syncope 2.0.0 based on Apache Camel. A set of Camel routes are available by default which are invoked when the User, Groups and Any Objects in question are changed in some way. So for example, if a new User is created, then the corresponding Camel route is invoked at the same time. This allows the administrator to plug in custom logic on any of these state changes. The routes can be viewed and edited in the Admin Console by clicking on "Extensions" and then "Camel Routes".

Each of the Camel routes uses a new "propagate" Camel component available in Syncope 2.0.0. This component encapsulates some common logic involved in using the Syncope PropagationManager to create some tasks, and to execute them via the PropagationTaskExecutor. All of the routes invoke this propagate component via something like:

• <to uri="propagate:<propagateType>?anyTypeKind=<anyTypeKind>&options"/>

Where propagateType is one of:

• create
• update
• delete
• provision
• deprovision
• status
• suspend
• confirmPasswordReset

and anyTypeKind is one of:

• USER
• GROUP
• ANY
  

2) The use-case

In this post, we will look at a simple use-case of sending an email to an administrator when a User is created, with some details about the created User in the email. Of course, this could be handled by a Notification Task, but we'll discuss some more advanced scenarios in future blog posts. Also note that a video available on the Tirasa blog details more or less the same use-case. For the purposes of the demo, we will set up a mailtrap account where we will receive the emails sent by Camel.

3) Configure Apache Syncope

Download and install  Apache Syncope (I used the "standalone" download for the purposes of this demo). Before starting Apache Syncope, we need to copy a few jars that are required by Apache Camel to actually send emails. Copy the following jars to $SYNCOPE/webapps/syncope/WEB-INF/lib:

• http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/camel/camel-mail/2.17.3/camel-mail-2.17.3.jar
• http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/sun/mail/javax.mail/1.5.5/javax.mail-1.5.5.jar

Now start Apache Syncope and log on to the admin console. Click on "Extensions" and then "Camel Routes". As we want to change the default route when users are created, click on the "edit" image for the "createUser" route. Add the following information just above the "bean method=" line:

• <setHeader headerName="subject"><simple>New user ${body.username} created in realm ${body.realm}</simple></setHeader> 
• <setBody><simple>User full name: ${body.plainAttrMap[fullname].values[0]}</simple></setBody>
• <to uri="smtp://mailtrap.io?username=<username>&amp;password=<password>&amp;contentType=text/html&amp;to=dummy@apache-recipient.org"/>

Let's examine what each of these statements do. The first statement is setting the Camel header "Subject" which corresponds to the Subject of the Email. It simply states that a new user with a given name is created in a given realm. The second statement sets the message Body, which is used as the content of the message by Camel. It just shows the User's full name, extracted from the "fullname" attribute, as an example of how to access User attributes in the route.

The third statement invokes on the Camel smtp component. You'll need to substitute in the username + password you configured when setting up the mailtrap account. The recipient is configured using the "to" part of the URI. One more change is required to the existing route. As we have overridden the message Body in the second statement above, we need to change the ${body} in the create call to ${exchangeProperty.actual}, which is the saved Body. Click on "save" to save the modified route.

Before creating a User, we need to add a "fullname" User attribute as the route expects. Go to "Configuration" and "Types", and click on the "Schemas" tab. Click on the "+" button under "PLAIN" and add a new attribute called "fullname". Then click on "AnyTypeClasses", and add the "fullname" attribute to the BaseUser AnyTypeClass.

Finally, go to the "/" realm and create a new user, specifying a fullname attribute. A new email should be available in the mailtrap account as follows: