Role-based security with embedded Tivoli Access Manager

The Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) role-based authorization model uses the concepts of roles and resources. An example is provided here.

	Methods
Roles	getBalance	deposit	closeAccount
Teller	granted	granted
Cashier	granted
Supervisor			granted

In the example of the banking application that is conceptualized in the previous table, three roles are defined: teller, cashier, and supervisor. Permission to perform the getBalance, deposit, and closeAccount application methods are mapped to these roles. From the example, you can see that users assigned the role, Supervisor, can run the closeAccount method, whereas the other two roles are unable to run this method.

The term, principal, within WebSphere Application Sever security refers to a person or a process that performs activities. Groups are logical collections of principals that are configured in WebSphere Application Server to promote the ease of applying security. Roles can be mapped to principals, groups, or both. The entry that is invoked in the following table indicates that the principal or group can invoke any methods that are granted to that role.

	Roles
Principal/Group	Teller	Cashier	Supervisor
TellerGroup	Invoke
CashierGroup		Invoke
SupervisorGroup
Frank: A principal who is not a member of any of the previous groups		Invoke	Invoke

In the previous example, the principal Frank, can invoke the getBalance and the closeAccount methods, but cannot invoke the deposit method because this method is not granted either the Cashier or the Supervisor role.

At the time of application deployment, the Java Authorization Contract for Container (JACC) provider of Tivoli Access Manager populates the Tivoli Access Manager-protected object space with any security policy information that is contained in the application deployment descriptor. This security information is used to determine access whenever the WebSphere Application Server resource is requested.

By default, the Tivoli Access Manager access check is performed using the role name, the cell name, the application name, and the module name. Tivoli Access Manager access control lists (ACLs) determine which application roles are assigned to a principal. ACLs are attached to the applications in the Tivoli Access Manager-protected object space at the time of application deployment. Principal-to-role mappings are managed from the WebSphere Application Server administrative console and are never modified using Tivoli Access Manager. Direct updates to ACLs are performed for administrative security users only. The following sequence of events occur:

1. During application deployment, policy information is sent to the JACC provider of Tivoli Access Manager. This policy information contains permission-to-role mappings and role-to-principal and role-to-group mapping information.

2. The JACC provider of Tivoli Access Manager JACC provider converts the information into the required format, and passes this information to the Tivoli Access Manager policy server.

3. The JACC provider of policy server adds entries to the Tivoli Access Manager-protected object space to represent the roles that are defined for the application and the permission-to-role mappings. A permission is represented as a Tivoli Access Manager-protected object and the role that is granted to this object is attached as an extended attribute.

Related concepts

Authorization providers

Related tasks
Administering security users and roles with Tivoli Access Manager
Configuring Tivoli Access Manager groups