FIX: A client may be unsuccessful in accessing a Java SSO application published to the web in a Threat Management Gateway 2010 environment

Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:

• You use Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 to publish a Java single sign-on (SSO) application to the web.

• You configure the web publishing rule to do Windows Challenge/Response (NTLM) delegation to the Java SSO application.

• The Java SSO application relies on a JSESSIONID cookie that is set in the second leg of the NTLM handshake. The SSO application uses this cookie to handle the NTLM handshake.

In this scenario, a client may be unsuccessful in accessing the Java SSO application because the application does not successfully handle the NTLM delegation.

Cause

The NTLM delegation in Threat Management Gateway is typically a transparent process, and the client that accesses the site should not be aware that NTLM delegation is occurring on the back end between Threat Management Gateway and the web-published server. Because the NTLM handshake process is transparent to the client, the request is handled by a separate request object, and the cookies that are set are lost. This problem occurs because the Java SSO implementation relies on the JSESSIONID cookie to track the NTLM state and the Java SSO implementation does not successfully handle the NTLM handshake.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, install the hotfix package that is described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

2649961 Rollup 1 for Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) 2010 Service Pack 2To enable this hotfix, follow these steps:

1. Start Notepad. To do this, click Start, click Run, type notepad.exe in the Open box, and then click OK.

2. Paste the following script to a new file in Notepad.

   set curArray = CreateObject("FPC.Root").GetContainingArray()
   Const SE_VPS_GUID = "{143F5698-103B-12D4-FF34-1F34767DEabc}"
   Const SE_VPS_NAME = "EnableNTLMHandshakeCookies"
   Const SE_VPS_VALUE = 1
   Sub SetValue()
       ' Create the root obect.
       Dim root  ' The FPCLib.FPC root object
       Set root = CreateObject("FPC.Root")
   
       'Declare the other objects needed.
       Dim array       ' An FPCArray object
       Dim VendorSets  ' An FPCVendorParametersSets collection
       Dim VendorSet   ' An FPCVendorParametersSet object
   
       ' Get references to the array object
       ' and the network rules collection.
       Set array = curArray 
       Set VendorSets = array.VendorParametersSets
   
       On Error Resume Next
       Set VendorSet = VendorSets.Item( SE_VPS_GUID )
   
       If Err.Number <> 0 Then
           Err.Clear
   
           ' Add the item
           Set VendorSet = VendorSets.Add( SE_VPS_GUID )
           CheckError
           WScript.Echo "New VendorSet added... " & VendorSet.Name
   
       Else
           WScript.Echo "Existing VendorSet found... value- " &  VendorSet.Value(SE_VPS_NAME)
       End If
   
       if VendorSet.Value(SE_VPS_NAME) <> SE_VPS_VALUE Then
   
           Err.Clear
           VendorSet.Value(SE_VPS_NAME) = SE_VPS_VALUE
   
           If Err.Number <> 0 Then
               CheckError
           Else
               VendorSets.Save false, true
               CheckError
   
               If Err.Number = 0 Then
                   WScript.Echo "Done with " & SE_VPS_NAME & ", saved!"
               End If
           End If
       Else
           WScript.Echo "Done with " & SE_VPS_NAME & ", no change!"
       End If
   
   End Sub
   
   Sub CheckError()
   
       If Err.Number <> 0 Then
           WScript.Echo "An error occurred: 0x" & Hex(Err.Number) & " " & Err.Description
           Err.Clear
       End If
   
   End Sub
   SetValue

3. Save the file as a .vbs file. For example, save the file as EnableNTLMHandshakeCookies.vbs.

4. On a Threat Management Gateway server, open a command prompt, and move to the location where you saved the EnableNTLMHandshakeCookies.vbs file that you saved in step 3. Type the following command, and then press Enter:

   Cscript.exe EnableNTLMHandshakeCookies.vbs

This hotfix enables Threat Management Gateway to handle cookies during the NTLM handshake process.

Note To change the functionality back to the default behavior, modify the following line in the script in step 2:

Const SE_VPS_VALUE = 1

Change the value from 1 to 0, and then run the script again.

Status

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

References

For more information about software update terminology, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

824684 Description of the standard terminology that is used to describe Microsoft software updates