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System/Architecture Overview

Components

Summary

Before beginning the CAS build and configuration process, you will want to plan out your server environment. Below is how we have things setup - but by no means is the only way.

We at New Paltz have a three-tiered CAS consisting of:

  • Development: This is used exclusively for deploying/configuring/testing CAS itself - no end users use this.
  • Test: This is used for test applications/environments which still need authentication such as Banner Test. Since there are a number of IT staff and end users testing these applications, changes here can still impact users though far less than production.
  • Production: The actual public facing CAS.

Within each tier, you will want one or more servers. We do something similar to the following:

  • Development

    • login6deva
    • login6devb
    • logindev: Public-facing load balanced virtual host

  • Test

    • login6testa
    • login6testb
    • logintest: Public-facing load balanced virtual host

  • Production

    • login6proda
    • login6prodb
    • login6prodc
    • login: Public-facing load balanced virtual host

Each of these servers for us are RHEL 8 hosts, with:

  • 2 virtual CPUs for production, 1 for test/dev
  • 4 GB memory (though you may need more or less depending on load)
  • 25 GB disk

For the official requirements, see the Apereo CAS Installation Requirements document.

I will document both how to set these up manually, as well as my Ansible playbooks which handle deployment (of Apache, Apache Tomcat, and CAS itself).

I've put a copy of my ansible playbooks that are used in this document at: (https://github.com/paulchauvet/ansible-playbooks).