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P4 Server Administration Documentation | 2025.2

# Single sign-on and auth-check-sso triggers

## Client script and server script

Triggers of type `auth-check-sso` fire when standard users run the `p4 login` command. Two scripts are run: a client-side script is run on the user’s workstation, and its output is passed (in plaintext) to the P4 Server, where the server-side script runs.

Client-side script | Server-side script
--- | ---
On the user’s client workstation, a script (whose location is specified by the `P4LOGINSSO` environment variable) is run to obtain the user’s credentials or other information verifiable by the P4 Server. `P4LOGINSSO` contains: the name of the client-side script zero or more of the following trigger variables, passed as parameters to the script: `%user%` `%serverAddress%` `%P4PORT%` For example,
     $ export P4LOGINSSO="/path/to/sso-client.sh %user% %serverAddress% %P4PORT%"
Where `%user%` is the P4 Server client user, `%serverAddress%` is the address of the target P4 Server, and `%P4PORT%` is an intermediary between the client and the server. | On the server, the output of the client-side script is passed to the server-side script as standard input. The server-side script specified in the trigger table runs, and the server returns an exit status of 0 if successful. With a multi-server configuration in which a proxy or broker acts as an intermediary between the client and the server: the `%serverAddress%` variable holds the address/port of the server the `%P4PORT%` variable holds the port of the intermediary. The script decides what to do with this information.

## p4 login behavior with auth-check-sso trigger

The table below describes the behavior of p4 login when a trigger of type auth-check-sso is in place.

Depending on the configuration and environment:

- The `P4LOGINSSO` client-side script is executed, performing customizable SSO operations, potentially without user interaction.
- The user is prompted to authenticate by password. This is a fallback if no client-side P4LOGINSSO script is configured.
- The user's login attempt is rejected until a valid P4LOGINSSO script is configured in the user's environment.

Version 2018.2 introduced two configurables that change the default behavior:

- auth.sso.allow.passwd allows a user whose password is stored in the database (db.user) to fall back to password authentication if P4LOGINSSO is not configured.
- auth.sso.nonldap allows a user whose AuthMethod is set to perforce on an LDAP-enabled server to make use of P4LOGINSSO. See Defining authentication for users.

If P4LOGINSSO is set:

|  | Not LDAP-Enabled | LDAP-Enabled
--- | --- | --- | ---
auth.sso.allow.passwd | auth.sso.nonldap | db.user only | auth-check trigger | 'perforce' + LDAP enabled | 'ldap' + LDAP enabled
0 | 0 | P4LOGINSSO fires | Password requested | P4LOGINSSO fires
1 | P4LOGINSSO fires
1 | 0 | Password requested
1 | P4LOGINSSO fires

If P4LOGINSSO is not set:

|  | Not LDAP-Enabled | LDAP-Enabled
--- | --- | --- | ---
auth.sso.allow.passwd | auth.sso.nonldap | db.user only | auth-check trigger | 'perforce' + LDAP enabled | 'ldap' + LDAP enabled
0 | 0 | Login rejected | Password requested | Password requested | Password requested
1 | Login rejected
1 | 0 | Password requested | Password requested | Password requested | Password requested
1

Example: Interaction between client-side and server-side scripts

What follows is a trivial example. For a substantial example and a step by step walk-through for both Linux and Windows, see the Perforce Knowledge Base article, Setting up Single Sign-On (P4LOGINSSO).

An `auth-check-sso` trigger fires whenever users run `p4 login`. The system administrator might add the following line to the trigger table to specify the script to run on the server:

    sample13  auth-check-sso  auth  "serverside.sh %user%"

and each end user sets the following environment variable on their client:

    export P4LOGINSSO=/usr/local/bin/clientside.sh %serverAddress%

When the user attempts to log on, the `P4LOGINSSO` script runs on the user’s workstation:

Copy

    ##!/bin/bash
    # clientside.sh - a client-side authentication script
    #
    # if we use %serverAddress% in the command-line like this:
    #    p4 -E P4LOGINSSO=clientside.sh %serverAddress%
    # then this script receives the serverAddress as $1, and the user
    # can use it for multiple connections to different P4 Servers.
    #
    # In this example, we simulate a client-side authentication process
    # based on whether the user is connecting to the same P4 Server
    # as is already configured in the user's environment.
    # (We also output debugging information to a local file.)

    input_saddr=$1

    env_saddr=`p4 info | grep "Server address" | awk '{printf "%s", $3}'`

    if test "$input_saddr" == "$env_saddr"
      then
        # User is connected to the server specified by P4PORT - pass
        echo "sso pass"; echo pass "$input_saddr" >> debug.txt; exit 0
      else
        # User is attempting to connect to another server - fail
        echo "no pass"; echo fail "$input_saddr" >> debug.txt; exit 1
    fi

If the user is connected to the same P4 Server as specified by `P4PORT` (that is, if the server address passed from the server to this script matches the server that appears in the output of a plain `p4 info` command), client-side authentication succeeds. If the user is connected to another P4 Server (for example, by running `p4 -p host:port login` against a different P4 Server), client-side authentication fails.

The server-side script is as follows:

Copy

    #!/bin/bash
    #
    # serverside.sh - a server-side authentication script
    #

    if test $# -eq 0
      then
        echo "No user name passed in.";
        exit 1;
    fi

    read msg </dev/stdin

    if test "$msg" == ""
      then
        echo "1, no stdin"
        exit 1
    fi

    if test "$msg" == "sso pass"
      then
        exit 0
      else
        exit 1
    fi

In a more realistic example, the end user’s `P4LOGINSSO` script points to a `clientside.sh` script that contacts an authentication service to obtain a token of some sort. The client-side script then passes this token to P4 Server’s trigger script, and `serverside.sh` uses the single-signon service to validate the token.

In this example, `clientside.sh` merely checks whether the user is using the same connection as specified by `P4PORT`, and the output of `clientside.sh` is trivially checked for the string "`sso pass`"; if the string is present, the user is permitted to log on.

## Optional auth-invalidate trigger

The optional auth-invalidate trigger type is fired when a user's ticket is explicitly invalidated by p4 logout. This trigger can propagate the logout to an authentication systems that is external to P4. For example, the trigger can be used between the SAML SSO agent and the identity provider (IdP ).

For an auth-invalidate trigger:

%user% -- the user's username

%fullname% -- the user's fullname

%email% -- the user's email address

%host% -- the host IP address of the ticket being invalidated or all-hosts for p4 logout -a

%2fa% -- true if the multi factor authentication status was reset, false if the user doesn't use multi factor authentication and only2fa for p4 logout -2

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