Option 3: Failover cookies

The failover cookie is a mechanism for transparently reauthenticating the user and is not actually a mechanism for maintaining sessions. Failover cookies contain encrypted user authentication data that a WebSEAL server can use to validate a user's identity. A failover cookie maintains the following information:

All other session state data, however, is not captured or maintained by failover cookies.

Failover cookie configuration requires the distribution of a shared secret key to all of the WebSEAL servers in the cluster, and requires more configuration than the first two options discussed.

Failover cookies pose a greater security risk than normal session cookies. If an attacker hijacks a session cookie, the session cookie is only valid until the WebSEAL server deletes the associated session. Failover cookies are valid until the lifetime or inactivity timeout in the failover cookie is reached.

Failover cookies do allow the enforcement of session lifetime timeouts, inactivity timeouts, and pkmslogout. Failover cookies can also provide single-signon across multiple WebSEAL clusters in the same DNS domain.

For further information on the failover cookie mechanism, see Failover solutions.

Parent topic: Options for handling failover in clustered environments