Configure Common Secure Interoperability Version 2 outbound authentication

Outbound authentication refers to the configuration that determines the type of authentication that is performed for outbound requests to downstream servers. Several layers or methods of authentication can occur. The downstream server inbound authentication configuration must support at least one choice made in this server outbound authentication configuration. If nothing is supported, the request might go outbound as unauthenticated. This situation does not create a security problem because the authorization run time is responsible for preventing access to protected resources. However, if you choose to prevent an unauthenticated credential from going outbound, you might want to designate one of the authentication layers as required, rather than supported. If a downstream server does not support authentication, then when authentication is required, the method request fails to go outbound.

The following choices are available in the Common Secure Interoperability Version 2 (CSIv2) Outbound Authentication panel. Remember that you are not required to complete these steps in the displayed order. Rather, these steps are provided to help you understand your choices for configuring outbound authentication.

1. Select Identity Assertion (attribute layer). When selected, this server sends an identity token to a downstream server if the downstream server supports identity assertion. When an originating client authenticates to this server, the authentication information supplied is preserved in the outbound identity token. If the client authenticating to this server uses client certificate authentication, then the identity token format is a certificate chain, containing the exact client certificate chain from the inbound socket. The same scenario is true for other mechanisms of authentication. Read the Identity Assertion topic for more information.

2. Select User ID and Password (message layer). This type of authentication is the most typical. The user ID and password (if BasicAuth credential) or authenticated token (if authenticated credential) are sent outbound to the downstream server if the downstream server supports message layer authentication in the inbound authentication panel. Refer to the Message Layer Authentication topic for more information.

3. Select SSL Client certificate authentication (transport layer). The main reason to enable outbound Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) client authentication from one server to a downstream server is to create a trusted environment between those servers. For delegating client credentials, use one of the two layers mentioned previously. However, you might want to create SSL personal certificates for all the servers in your domain, and only trust those servers in your SSL truststore file. No other servers or clients can connect to the servers in your domain, except at the tiers where you want them. This process can protect your enterprise bean servers from access by anything other than your servlet servers. Refer to the SSL Client Certificate Authentication article for more information.

   A server can send multiple layers simultaneously, therefore, an order of precedence rule decides which identity to use. The identity assertion layer has the highest priority, the message layer follows, and the transport layer has the lowest priority. SSL client certificates are only used as the identity for invoking method requests, when that is the only layer provided. SSL client certificates are useful for trust purposes, even if the identity is not used for the request. If only the message layer and transport layer are provided, the message layer is used to establish the identity for authorization. If the identity assertion layer is provided (regardless of what is provided), then the identity from the identity token is always used by the authorization engine as the identity for that request.

Configuring session management

You can choose either stateful or stateless security. Performance is optimum when choosing stateful sessions. The first method request between this server and the downstream server is authenticated. All subsequent requests reuse the session information, including the credential. A unique session entry is defined as the combination of a unique client authentication token and an identity token, scoped to the connection.

ExampleBasicAuth

What to do next

Related tasks

Configuring Common Secure Interoperability Version 2 inbound authentication

Configuring IIOP authentication

Related reference

Identity assertion

Message layer authentication

Secure Sockets Layer client certificate authentication