WAS v8.5 > Reference > Administrator best practices

Default authentication token

Do not use the default authentication token in service provider code. This default token is used by the WebSphere Application Server run-time code only and is authentication mechanism specific.

Any modifications to this token by service provider code can potentially cause interoperability problems. If create an authentication token for custom usage, see Implement a custom authentication token for security attribute propagation for more information.


Change the token factory associated with the default authentication token

When WAS generates a default authentication token, the application server utilizes the TokenFactory class specified using the com.ibm.wsspi.security.token.authenticationTokenFactory property. To modify this property using the dmgr console...

  1. Click Security > Global security.

  2. Under Additional properties, click Custom properties.

The com.ibm.ws.security.ltpa.LTPATokenFactory token factory is the default for this property. The LTPATokenFactory token factory uses the DESede/ECB/PKCS5Padding cipher. This token factory creates an interoperable LTPA (LTPA) token.

If you associate the com.ibm.ws.security.ltpa.LTPAToken2Factory token factory with the com.ibm.wsspi.security.token.authenticationTokenFactory property, the token is Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encrypted. However, you need to weigh the performance against your security needs. You might add additional attributes to the authentication token in the Subject during a login available downstream.

If you need to perform our own signing and encryption of the default authentication token, you must implement the following classes:

Your token factory implementation instantiates (createToken) and validates (validateTokenBytes) your token implementation. We can use the LTPA keys that are passed into the initialize method of the token factory or we can use our own keys. If we use our own keys, they must be the same everywhere to validate the tokens that are generated using those keys. See the API documentation, available through a link on the front page of the information center, for more information on implementing our own custom token factory. To associate your token factory with the default authentication token using the dmgr console...

  1. Click Security > Global security.

  2. Under Additional properties, click Custom properties.
  3. Locate the com.ibm.wsspi.security.token.authenticationTokenFactory property and verify the value of this property matches your custom token factory implementation.
  4. Verify that your implementation classes are put into the install_dir/classes directory so the class loader can load the classes.


Related concepts:

Security attribute propagation


Related


Propagating security attributes among application servers
Implement a custom authentication token for security attribute propagation


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