Automatically authenticate AD user (who is already logged in on tomcat application) in IIS application

Question

I have two applications. One is running on IIS and second is on Tomcat. Both the applications are authenticating users through active directory. Currently users have to provide their domain, username and password in both the application separately in order to use them.

What I want is - if user logs in Tomcat application using AD details then we will show a button in the application which will open our IIS application in other tab of browser (already done) and in that IIS application this user don't need to login using AD details again (it should be logged in automatically). As he has already used same account to login in another application (Tomcat application).

Is this possible? if yes, please tell me how can I achieve this.

Answer 1

You want Kerberos. Builtin into IIS, Available for Tomcat: http://tomcatspnegoad.sourceforge.net/ (Yes, I am the author of that and it works great in multidomain environment.)

Answer 2

Best to think along some slightly different lines than you currently do:

Attempt to authenticate both Tomcat as well as IIS to a common SSO system - rather than just from one to the other. SSO systems are specifically made to allow this. Neat side effect is that these systems are single-purpose, relatively easy to monitor/protect and they'll be the only ones in touch with your passwords - no application that is using SSO for sign-on needs to know any user's password. So you can't loose any password.

Whatever route you go (Michael-O has suggested Kerberos, I'm not recommending any specific product or protocol), don't try to provide one system's password to the other system. This would inherently introduce security issues.