Develop programmatic logins with the JAAS Service

 

Before you begin

Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) represents the strategic API for authentication, replacing the CORBA programmatic login APIs

WebSphere Application Server provides some extension to JAAS:

  • To set up the environment for thin client applications to access remote resources on a server see CosNaming (CORBA Naming interface)

  • If the application uses custom JAAS login configuration, verify that it is properly defined.

  • Some of the JAAS APIs are protected by Java 2 Security permissions. If these APIs are used by application code, verify that these permissions are added to the application was.policy file.

  • Enhanced model to J2EE resources for authorization checks. Due to a design oversight in JAAS V1.0, the javax.security.auth.Subject.getSubject() method does not return the Subject associated with the thread of execution inside a...

    java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged()

    ...code block. This can present an inconsistent behavior, which might have undesirable effects. The com.ibm.websphere.security.auth.WSSubject provides a workaround to associate a Subject to a thread of execution. The...

    com.ibm.websphere.security.auth.WSSubject

    ...extends the JAAS model to J2EE resources for authorization checks. If the Subject associates with the thread of execution within the...

    com.ibm.websphere.security.auth.WSSubject.doAs()

    ...method or if the...

    com.ibm.websphere.security.auth.WSSubject.doAsPrivileged()

    ...code block contains product credentials, the Subject is used for J2EE resources authorization checks.

  • User Interface support for defining new JAAS login configuration. One can configure JAAS login configuration in the administrative console and store it in the WebSphere Common Configuration Model. Applications can define a new JAAS login configuration in the administrative console and the data is persisted in the configuration repository (stored in the WebSphere Common Configuration Model). However, WAS still supports the default JAAS login configuration format (plain text file) provided by the JAAS default implementation. If there are duplication login configurations defined in both the WebSphere Common Configuration and the plain text file format, the one in the WebSphere Common Configuration takes precedence. There are advantages to defining the login configuration in the WebSphere Common Configuration:

  • Application support for programmatic authentication. WAS provides JAAS login configurations for applications to perform programmatic authentication to the WebSphere security run time. These configurations perform authentication to the WebSphere-configured authentication mechanism (Simple WebSphere Authentication Mechanism (SWAM) or Lightweight Third Party Authentication (LTPA)) and user registry (Local OS, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) or Custom) based on the authentication data supplied. The authenticated Subject from these JAAS login configurations contains the required Principal and Credentials that the WebSphere security run time can use to perform authorization checks on J2EE role-based protected resources. Here are the JAAS login configurations provided by the WebSphere Application Server:

    • WSLogin JAAS login configuration. A generic JAAS login configuration can use Java clients, client container applications, servlets, JSP files, and EJB components to perform authentication based on a user ID and password, or a token to the WebSphere security run time. However, this does not honor the CallbackHandler specified in the client container deployment descriptor.

    • ClientContainer JAAS login configuration. This JAAS login configuration honors the CallbackHandler specified in the client container deployment descriptor. The login module of this login configuration uses the CallbackHandler in the client container deployment descriptor if one is specified, even if the application code specified one CallbackHandler in the LoginContext. This is for a client container application.

      A Subject authenticated with the previously mentioned JAAS login configurations contains a com.ibm.websphere.security.auth.WSPrincipal principal and a com.ibm.websphere.security.cred.WSCredential credential. If the authenticated Subject is passed in com.ibm.websphere.security.auth.WSSubject.doAs() or the other doAs() methods, the product security run time can perform authorization checks on J2EE resources based on the Subject com.ibm.websphere.security.cred.WSCredential.

  • Customer-defined JAAS login configurations. We can define other JAAS login configurations to perform programmatic authentication to your authentication mechanism. See the Configuring application logins for Java Authentication and Authorization Service article for details. For the product security run time to perform authorization checks, the subjects from these customer-defined JAAS login configurations must contain the required principal and credentials.

  • Naming requirements for programmatic login on a pure Java client. When programmatic login occurs on a pure Java client and the property com.ibm.CORBA.validateBasicAuth equals true, it is necessary for the security code to know where the SecurityServer resides. Typically, the default InitialContext is sufficient when a java.naming.provider.url property is set as a system property or when the property is set in the jndi.properties file. In other cases it is not desirable to have the same java.naming.provider.url properties set in a system wide scope. In this case, there is a need to specify security specific bootstrap information in the sas.client.props file. The following steps present the order of precedence for determining how to find the SecurityServer in a pure Java client:

 

Procedure

  1. Use the sas.client.props file and look for the following properties: 

    com.ibm.CORBA.securityServerHost=myhost.mydomain
com.ibm.CORBA.securityServerPort=mybootstrap port

    If you specify these properties, you are guaranteed that security looks here for the SecurityServer. The host and port specified can represent any valid WebSphere host and bootstrap port. The SecurityServer resides on all server processes and therefore it is not important which host or port you choose. If specified, the security infrastructure within the client process look up the SecurityServer based on the information in the sas.client.props file.

  2. Place the following code in your client application to get a new InitialContext(): 

    ...
   import java.util.Hashtable;
   import javax.naming.Context;
   import javax.naming.InitialContext;
   ...
   
// Perform an InitialContext and default lookup prior to logging
// in so that target realm and bootstrap host/port can be 
// determined for SecurityServer lookup.
   
Hashtable env = new Hashtable();
env.put(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY, "com.ibm.websphere.naming.WsnInitialContextFactory");
env.put(Context.PROVIDER_URL, "corbaloc:iiop:myhost.mycompany.com:2809");
Context initialContext = new InitialContext(env);
Object obj = initialContext.lookup("");

programmatic login code goes here.
    Complete this step prior to executing any programmatic login. It is in this code that you specify a URL provider for your naming context, but it must point to a valid WAS within the cell that you are authenticating to. This allows thread specific programmatic logins going to different cells to have a single system-wide SecurityServer location.

  3. Use the new default InitialContext() method relying on the naming precedence rules. These rules are defined in the article, Example: Getting the default initial context.

 

See also:

:
Example: Programmatic logins
Programmatic login
Using PolicyTool to edit policy files
Configuring the was.policy file
Security: Resources for learning