Forms based authentication
With Forms based authentication, a logon form is presented to the end-user. This type of authentication form supports both multifactor (nFactor) authentication and Classic authentication.
Ensure the following for the Forms based authentication to work:
The load balancing virtual server must have authentication turnedON.
‘authenticationHost’ parameter must be specified to which the user must be redirected for authentication. The command for configuring the same is as follows:
set lb vs lb1 -authentication on –authenticationhost aaavs-ip/fqdn
Form based authentication is compatible with browser that supports HTML
The following steps walk through how the Forms based authentication works:
The client (browser) sends a GET request for a URL on the TM (load balancing/CS) virtual server.
- The TM virtual server determines that the client has not been authenticated, and sends an HTTP 302 response to the client. The response contains a hidden script that causes the client to issue a GET request for /cgi/tm to the authentication virtual server.
- The client sends GET /cgi/tm containing the target URL to the authentication virtual server.
- The authentication virtual server sends out a redirect to the login page.
- The user sends out its credentials to the authentication virtual server with a POST /doAuthentication.do. Authentication is done by the authentication virtual server.
- If the credentials are correct, the authentication virtual server sends an HTTP 302 response to the cgi/selfauth url on the load balancing server with a one time token (OTP).
- The load balancing server sends HTTP 302 to the client.
The client sends a GET request for their initial URL target URL along with a 32 byte cookie.