Web services - Trust anchors
A trust anchor specifies key stores that contain trusted root certificates that validate the signer certificate. Important distinction between V5.x and v6.x applications
These key stores are used by the request receiver (as defined in the ibm-webservices-bnd.xmi file) and the response receiver (as defined in the ibm-webservicesclient-bnd.xmi file when Web services is acting as client) to validate the signer certificate of the digital signature. The key stores are critical to the integrity of the digital signature validation. If they are tampered with, the result of the digital signature verification is doubtful and comprised. Therefore, it is recommended that you secure these key stores. The binding configuration specified for the request receiver in the ibm-webservices-bnd.xmi file must match the binding configuration for the response receiver in the ibm-webservicesclient-bnd.xmi file.
The trust anchor is defined as javax.security.cert.TrustAnchor in the Java CertPath API. The Java CertPath API uses the trust anchor and the certificate store to validate the incoming X.509 certificate that is embedded in the SOAP message.
The Web services security implementation in WAS supports this trust anchor. In WebSphere Application Server, the trust anchor is represented as a Java key store object. The type, path, and password of the key store are passed to the implementation through the administrative console or by scripting.
See Also
Collection certificate store
Related Tasks
Configure trust anchors using an assembly tool
Configure trust anchors using the administrative console