RUG website template and single signon for django

Template and for creating a website in the University of Groningen style, which also helps you to get single sign-on to work.

Getting started

Dependencies

Make sure these packages are installed on the webhost serving your website.

• centos yum install libxml2-devel libxslt-devel python34-devel xmlsec1-devel libmcrypt libmcrypt-devel xmlsec1-openssl
• ubuntu sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libxmlsec1-dev python3-dev

Virtualenv

I would suggest you use a virtualenv, this is a directory which contains the python executables and all python packages, like django, python3-saml, etc.

mkdir rugwebsite && cd rugwebsite
virtualenv --python=/usr/bin/python3.5 venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip3 install -U gunicorn git+ssh://git@git.webhosting.rug.nl:222/p253591/rug-website.git

Settings and X509 certificate

Create a file rugwebsite/settings.py, with settings like these:

import os

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
SECRET_KEY = '....'
DEBUG = True
LOGIN_REDIRECT_URL = '/'

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'bootstrap4',
    'rugwebsite',
)

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.SessionAuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
)

ROOT_URLCONF = 'urls'

TEMPLATES = [
    {
	'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
	'DIRS': [],
	'APP_DIRS': True,
	'OPTIONS': {
	    'context_processors': [
	        'django.template.context_processors.debug',
	        'django.template.context_processors.request',
	        'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
	        'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
	    ],
	},
    },
]

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
	'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
	'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, '..', 'db.sqlite3'),
    }
}

LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'
TIME_ZONE = 'Europe/Amsterdam'
USE_I18N = True
USE_L10N = True
USE_TZ = True

STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static')

SAML_ROUTE = 'sso/saml/'
SAML_REDIRECT = '/'
SAML_USERS_MAP = []

SAML_PROVIDERS = []

Make sure to fill in something random for SECRET_KEY, consult the dango documentation to make sure you're super secure.

Then you can use django-admin to complete the settings with SAML2 metadata, inclusing a private key and x509 certificate. Run the following and append the output to rugwebsite/settings.py

PYTHONPATH=. DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=settings django-admin init-saml2-settings --country NL --city Groningen \
     --organisation 'University of Groningen' --organisation-unit 'Research and Innovation Support' \
     --common-name 'yourwebsite.rug.nl' --state Groningen \
     --support-name 'Research and Innovation Support' --support-email 'ris@list.rug.nl' \
     --technical-name 'Research and Innovation Support' --technical-email 'ris@list.rug.nl' \
     --base-url 'https://yourwebsite.rug.nl' \
     --entity-id 'https://yourwebsite.rug.nl/sso/saml2/metadata?provider=RuG'

You can change these settings if you like. Make sure to choose these correctly for your situation:

• entity-id
• common-name
• base-url, including http or https and a prefix to all paths, make sure base-url + "/sso/saml/metadata?provider=RuG" is a working url.
• support-name, support-email, technical-name, technical-email

Database and static files

Create the database

PYTHONPATH=. DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=settings django-admin migrate

And collect all static files (javascript, css, etc). Recall what the absolute path of rugwebsite/static is.

PYTHONPATH=. DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=settings django-admin collectstatic

Host the website using Gunicorn

Create a rugwebsite/wsgi.py

import os, sys

sys.path.insert(0, 'absolute-path-to/rugwebsite/venv/lib/python3.5/site-packages/')
sys.path.insert(0, 'absolute-path-to/rugwebsite/venv/lib64/python3.5/site-packages/')
sys.path.insert(0, 'absolute-path-to/rugwebsite/')

from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "settings")

application = get_wsgi_application()

You can test-run the website with gunicorn like, but it won't host the static files (javascript, css, etc). Decide on what port it should run, for example 8890.

absolute-path-to/rugwebsite/venv/bin/gunicorn --bind 127.0.0.1:8890 wsgi

you can run this in a sceen, but it might be better to create a service like, in centos you create a /usr/lib/systemd/system/yourwebsite.service like this

[Unit]
Description=your website gunicorn deamon description
After=network.target

[Service]
PIDFile=/run/gunicorn/yourwebsitepid
User=cosmo
Group=cosmo
RuntimeDirectory=gunicorn
WorkingDirectory=absolute-path-to/rugwebsite/
ExecStart=absolute-path-to/rugwebsite/venv/bin/gunicorn --pid /run/gunicorn/yourwebsitepid --bind 127.0.0.1:8890 wsgi
ExecReload=/bin/kill -s HUP $MAINPID
ExecStop=/bin/kill -s TERM $MAINPID
PrivateTmp=true

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

You can start your service using sudo service yourwebsite start (or restart, status, stop, ...)

nginx proxy

You can use nginx to proxy your website, and add https-support (instead of plain http), but also to server the static files efficiently. Make sure nginx is installed and configure the website, for example by creating the /etc/nginx/conf.d/yourwebsite.conf file on centos:

# Make sure the port matches
upstream yourwebsiteupstream {
    server 127.0.0.1:8890;
}

# Forward http to https
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourwebsite.rug.nl;
    return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

server {
    client_max_body_size 64M;
    proxy_connect_timeout       300;
    proxy_send_timeout          300;
    proxy_read_timeout          300;
    send_timeout                300;
    listen              443 ssl;
    server_name         yourwebsite.rug.nl;
    ssl_certificate     /etc/nginx/conf.d/yourwebsite.rug.nl.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/conf.d/yourwebsite.rug.nl.key;
    ssl_protocols       TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
    ssl_ciphers 'ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES128-GCM-SHA256:kEDH+AESGCM:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-DSS-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:AES:CAMELLIA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXPORT:!DES:!RC4:!MD5:!PSK:!aECDH:!EDH-DSS-DES-CBC3-SHA:!EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:!KRB5-DES-CBC3-SHA';
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    ssl_dhparam /etc/nginx/conf.d/dhparams.pem;

    location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
    location /static/ {
        alias absolute-path-to/rugwebsite/static/;
    }

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://yourwebsiteupstream/;
        proxy_set_header Host            yourwebsite.rug.nl;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;

        # This setting is important, it allows SAML2 to verify the provider url, whithout getting into trouble because
        # the https-part is handled by nginx, and hence not seen by the django SAML2 code.
        proxy_set_header X_FORWARDED_PROTO https;
    }
}

Restart nginx to load the settings sudo service nginx restart (or reload, to only reload the settings instaed of a full restart)