Weblogic doesn't cache LDAP

Question

I have a web application set up using JSF 2.1 and JEE 6 running on a WebLogic 12.1.2 server with an openLDAP for authentication. I've been noticing that loading any page in the app causes multiple BIND requests to LDAP – every single time!

I've read through much of the material and have configured the LDAP provider in Weblogic such that just about any cache I could find is activated. In particular I've set

[x] Cache Enabled
Cache Size: 10240
Cache TTL: 300
GUID Attribute: entryUUID

I've also double-checked that the entryUUID attribute exists. I'm not too knowledgable on either WebLogic or LDAP, but I've read just about any page on configuring the cache, but there's still just as many requests to the LDAP (yes, I've restarted the servers after changes.)

I'd appreciate any help, insights or wild guesses as to what may be the cause or how I can debug this issue further. I'm not too sure which config files to attach, but if there's anything needed I'm happy to provide it.

The LDAP requests all look like this:

# journalctl -u slapd
# … many of these …
Sep 16 23:06:03 server.org slapd[15038]: daemon: read active on 13
Sep 16 23:06:03 server.org slapd[15038]: daemon: epoll: listen=7 active_threads=0 tvp=zero
Sep 16 23:06:03 server.org slapd[15038]: daemon: epoll: listen=8 active_threads=0 tvp=zero
Sep 16 23:06:03 server.org slapd[15038]: conn=1109 op=32 BIND anonymous mech=implicit ssf=0
Sep 16 23:06:03 server.org slapd[15038]: conn=1109 op=32 BIND dn="tpid=NQ00000013,ou=people,dc=de,dc=foobiz,dc=com" method=128
Sep 16 23:06:03 server.org slapd[15038]: conn=1109 op=32 BIND dn="tpid=NQ00000013,ou=people,dc=de,dc=foobiz,dc=com" mech=SIMPLE ssf=0
Sep 16 23:06:03 server.org slapd[15038]: conn=1109 op=32 RESULT tag=97 err=0 text=
Sep 16 23:06:03 server.org slapd[15038]: daemon: activity on 1 descriptor
Sep 16 23:06:03 server.org slapd[15038]: daemon: activity on:

So you have group memberships cached as well as Principal Validator cache? And have you also enabled caches in Security Realms > Providers > Authentication > Performance? — Trent Bartlem
– Trent Bartlem, Commented Sep 19, 2016 at 1:44
Did you check that the application is not re-authenticating the user at each request ? — Emmanuel Collin
– Emmanuel Collin, Commented Sep 19, 2016 at 7:01
Do you have any sort of asserters configured ? How do you take care of SSO ? — Roshith
– Roshith, Commented Sep 19, 2016 at 9:48
Weblogic would cache authenticated Subjects if Weblogic container security is place, meaning protecting resources in web.xml and configuring asserter/authenticator in security realm. But if you are having standalone LDAP code to authenticate on which WL doesn't have any control of , you can't expect it to be cached. — Roshith
– Roshith, Commented Sep 19, 2016 at 11:33

Ingo Bürk · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-19 20:11:19Z

1

I have figured out the issue and WebLogic isn't at fault whatsoever. Our application seems to be using a rather broken concept of calling remote EJBs where it creates its own proxy, stores the JNDI information and executes a JNDI lookup on every method invocation.

Therefore, even caching the bean wouldn't help. Of course this bypasses any caching mechanisms and thus results in multiple LDAP binds with every request.

answered Sep 19, 2016 at 20:11

Ingo Bürk

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