Trust anchor
A trust anchor specifies the keystores that contain trusted root certificates. These certificates are used to validate the X.509 certificate that is embedded in the SOAP message. These keystores are used by the following message points to validate the X.509 certificate that is used for digital signature or XML encryption:
- Request consumer, as defined in the ibm-webservices-bnd.xmi file
- Response consumer, as defined in the ibm-webservicesclient-bnd.xmi file when a Web service is acting as a client to another Web service
The keystores are critical to the integrity of the digital signature validation. If the keystores are tampered with, the result of the digital signature verification is doubtful and compromised. Therefore, it is recommended that you secure these keystores. The binding configuration specified for the request consumer in the ibm-webservices-bnd.xmi file must match the binding configuration for the request generator in the ibm-webservicesclient-bnd.xmi file.
The trust anchor is defined as java.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 WAS, the trust anchor is represented as a Java keystore object. The type, path, and password of the keystore are passed to the implementation through the console or by scripting.
Related concepts
Collection certificate store
Overview of platform configuration and default bindings