Trust anchor

A trust anchor specifies the key stores that contain trusted root certificates. These certificates are used to validate the X.509 certificate that is embedded in the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) message. These key stores 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 key stores are critical to the integrity of the digital signature validation. If the key stores are tampered with, the result of the digital signature verification is doubtful and compromised. Therefore, it is recommended that you secure these key stores. 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 application programming interface (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 Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) message. The Web services security implementation in WebSphere Application Server 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.

Related concepts
Collection certificate store