(Soft) OATH Tokens: Set up Administratively

First you need to set the OATH token digits.  

Then, AuthLite can easily create a record for an OATH token, associate it to a user, and issue a QR-code to program the Google Authenticator app.

Prerequisites

• AuthLite software installed on domain controllers and (if you are going to administer from a workstation) on that workstation machine.

• Valid license or evaluation key entered.

• Smart phone with Google Authenticator app or other compatible OATH TOTP app that can recognize QR-codes for token programming.

Procedure

• Launch AuthLite Configuration.

• Select the item “Set up an OATH Token”:

• The “Domain Name” box should contain the NETBIOS domain of the user account you wish to associate with this token. Since AuthLite only operates on the domain which it is installed, this should always be the current domain you are joined to.

• In the “Username” box, enter the username (SAM account name, NOT UPN) of the user account you wish to associate with this token.

• Description/Serial is a unique ID for this key to distinguish it in data store. It will also be encoded into the QR code for use in the Google Authenticator app. If you leave this field alone, a value will be generated automatically.

• For Google Authenticator, you MUST leave the interval at 30 seconds. If you do not set this value correctly, your token will not work. Please note this interval does NOT tell how AuthLite how long a code should be “valid for”. If you try to change this setting to make your tokens more lax, you will just break the token record instead of accomplishing what you want. By default a token code should be recognized if you are within about 1 minute in either direction to account for clock differences.

• If this token is going to be used to log on to domain servers or online workstations, choose “Online authentication”. If you are defining an OATH token that will be used for offline workstations  disconnected from the domain, choose “Offline”. A single OATH record cannot do both tasks, because the workstations must know the OATH secret for offline tokens, and this causes them to be less secure than the online tokens.

• If you are using the “New Users” Group feature, then you can select the corresponding checkbox and the user account will automatically be added to the “New Users” group.

• Click the “Set up OATH Token” button.

• If you are NOT using the “New Users” Group feature, then you must manually add this user into one of your AuthLite User Groups.

A QR-code and encoded secret values will now be shown. Now:

• Scan the QR with Google Authenticator on the user's mobile device. Or,

• Connect with the user in a remote screen sharing session so they can see the QR code and scan it. Or,

• Send the Base32 code via SMS to your user's phone, and they can enter it manually into Google Authenticator (this is less secure).

Note: The QR-code and other code readouts should be considered sensitive information, as they contain the shared secret used between the OATH token and AuthLite! Do not email your codes, because the user's email is probably protected by just their password, and this transmits the new secret over a medium controlled only by the old factor, nullifying its security.

Note: simply being an AuthLite User or having a token does not require you to use 2-factor login anywhere.  You need to set up Enforcement too!