Cora SeQuence Authentication Methods

V9.x and later

Overview

Authentication  is the process used to verify the identity of a person, service, or device that wants to access data, resources, or applications. Authentication validates the identity and establishes a trust relationship for further interactions. There are several authentication methods, depending on network settings, operating system, and connection types.

Authentication scenarios

There are mainly three authentication scenarios. 

• Human to machine communication: users need to provide credentials to access Cora SeQuence resources.
• External services to Cora SeQuence: external services or applications need to authenticate themselves to consume Cora SeQuence resources.   
• Cora SeQuence to external services: Cora SeQuence needs to authenticate itself to consume external services.

Human to machine authentication

In this scenario, the authentication process can be configured to use username and password, or with single-sign on (SSO). Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication process that allows a user to sign in once and access several applications.

Version	Protocols/methods	Description	SSO support
Earlier than 8.0	Windows Authentication	Process to prove the authenticity of a user or service attempting to access Windows.	Kerberos and NTLM
Earlier than 8.0	WS-Federation	With this method, a Security Token Service (STS) in one trust domain provides authentication information to an STS in another trust domain when there is a trust relationship between the two domains. NOTE Support ended since V9.6
8.5	SAML 2.0	XML-based protocol that uses security tokens containing assertions to pass information about a principal (usually an end user) between a SAML authority, named an Identity Provider, and a SAML consumer, named a Service Provider.	SSO configuration supports SP and IDP-initiated Single Sign-On POST Binding flow.
8.6.2	OpenID Connect	Authentication layer on top of the OAuth 2.0 protocol. With OpenID Connect, clients verify the identity of end-users based on the authentication performed by an authorization server, and obtain basic profile information about the connecting end-user in an interoperable and REST-like manner.	Authorization Code Flow only
Earlier than 8.0	Username/Password	Cora SeQuence built-in authentication method.  -- only for  unsecured development environment -- only for post installation procedures to configure Sequence users for example.	Non-SSO
Earlier than 8.0	Basic	Authentication scheme built onto the HTTP protocol. The client sends the user name and password as unencrypted base64 encoded text.	Non-SSO
Earlier than 8.0	Anonymous	Process that allows a user to log in to a website without credentials.	Non-SSO
Earlier than 8.0	Custom	Authentication methods configured to match specific customer or service requirements.	Non-SSO

External services to Cora SeQuence 

Cora SeQuence to external services

Activity	Windows	OAUTH 2.0	User/pass.	Basic	Custom	On-behalf-of Flow
Azure Service Bus					Shared Access Signature and Access Control Service
ADSS		(Azure AD)
Database Listener					Authentication is part of the specific database connection string.
Email
Email Listener
HTTP Consumer						V9.8.3 and later
REST Consumer
WCF Consumer
Web Service Consumer
File Writer
SAP RFC Consumer
CRM activities

V8.6.2 and earlier

Overview

Authentication  is the process used to verify the identity of a person, service, or device that wants to access data, resources, or applications. Authentication validates the identity and establishes a trust relationship for further interactions. There are several authentication methods, depending on network settings, operating system, and connection types.

Authentication scenarios

There are mainly three authentication scenarios. 

• Human to machine communication: users need to provide credentials to access Cora SeQuence resources.
• External services to Cora SeQuence: external services or applications need to authenticate themselves to consume Cora SeQuence resources.   
• Cora SeQuence to external services: Cora SeQuence needs to authenticate itself to consume external services.

Human to machine authentication

In this scenario, the authentication process can be configured to use username and password, or with single-sign on (SSO). Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication process that allows a user to sign in once and access several applications.

Version	Protocols/methods	Description	SSO support
Earlier than 8.0	Windows Authentication	Process to prove the authenticity of a user or service attempting to access Windows.	Kerberos and NTLM
Earlier than 8.0	WS-Federation	With this method, a Security Token Service (STS) in one trust domain provides authentication information to an STS in another trust domain when there is a trust relationship between the two domains.
8.5	SAML 2.0	XML-based protocol that uses security tokens containing assertions to pass information about a principal (usually an end user) between a SAML authority, named an Identity Provider, and a SAML consumer, named a Service Provider.	SSO configuration supports SP and IDP-initiated Single Sign-On POST Binding flow.
8.6.2	OpenID Connect	Authentication layer on top of the OAuth 2.0 protocol. With OpenID Connect, clients verify the identity of end-users based on the authentication performed by an authorization server, and obtain basic profile information about the connecting end-user in an interoperable and REST-like manner.	Authorization Code Flow only
Earlier than 8.0	Username/Password	Cora SeQuence built-in authentication method.  -- only for  unsecured development environment -- only for post installation procedures to configure Sequence users for example.	Non-SSO
Earlier than 8.0	Basic	Authentication scheme built onto the HTTP protocol. The client sends the user name and password as unencrypted base64 encoded text.	Non-SSO
Earlier than 8.0	Anonymous	Process that allows a user to log in to a website without credentials.	Non-SSO
Earlier than 8.0	Custom	Authentication methods configured to match specific customer or service requirements.	Non-SSO

External services to Cora SeQuence 

Cora SeQuence to external services

Activity	Windows	OAUTH 2.0	User/pass.	Basic	Custom
Azure Service Bus					Shared Access Signature and Access Control Service
Database Listener					Authentication is part of the specific database connection string.
Email Listener
HTTP Consumer
REST Consumer
WCF Consumer
Web Service Consumer
File Writer
SAP RFC Consumer
CRM activities