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Enable security for the realm

 

Use this topic to enable IBM WAS security. You must enable administrative security for all other security settings to function.

 

Overview

WAS uses cryptography to protect sensitive data and to ensure confidentiality and integrity of communications between WAS and other components in the network. Cryptography is also used by Web services security when certain security constraints are configured for the Web Services application.

WebSphere Application Server uses Java Secure Sockets Extension (JSSE) and Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) libraries in the Software Development Kit (SDK) to perform this cryptography. The SDK provides strong but limited jurisdiction policy files. Unrestricted policy files provide the ability to perform full strength cryptography and to improve performance. WAS provides a SDK 5 that contains strong, but limited jurisdiction policy files. You can download the unrestricted policy files from the following Web site: IBM developer kit: Security information. Complete the following steps to download and install the new policy files:

  1. Click J2SE 5.0

  2. Scroll down the page then click IBM SDK Policy files.

    The Unrestricted JCE Policy files for SDK 5 Web site displays.

  3. Click Sign in and provide your IBM.com ID and password.

  4. Select Unrestricted JCE Policy files for SDK 5 and click Continue.

  5. View the license and click I Agree to continue.

  6. Click Download Now.

  7. Extract the unlimited jurisdiction policy files that are packaged in the ZIP file. The ZIP file contains a US_export_policy.jar file and a local_policy.jar file.

  8. In your WAS installation, go to the $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/security directory and back up your US_export_policy.jar and local_policy.jar files.

  9. Replace your US_export_policy.jar and local_policy.jar files with the two files that you downloaded from the IBM.com Web site.

 

Procedure

  1. Enable administrative security in WAS.

    For more information, see Enabling security. It is important to click Security > Secure administration, applications, and infrastructure. Select an available realm definition from the list, and then click Set as current. Save the configuration to the repository. Verify that the validation that occurs after you click OK on the Security > Secure administration, applications, and infrastructure panel is successful before continuing. If the validation is not successful and you continue with these steps, you risk the server not starting. Re-configure the security settings until validation is successful.

  2. Send a copy of the new configuration to all of the running node agents using the console. If a node agent fails to get the security-enabled configuration, communication with the deployment manager fails, due to a lack of access. The node agent is not security-enabled. To force synchronize a specific node, complete the following steps from the console:

    1. Click System administration > Nodes and select the option next to all the nodes. You do not need to select the deployment manager node.

    2. Click Full resynchronize to verify that the file synchronization has occurred. The message might indicate that the nodes already are synchronized. This message is OK. When synchronization is initiated, verify that the Synchronized status displays for all nodes.

  3. Stop the deployment manager. Manually restart the deployment manager from the command line or service. To stop the deployment manager, click System administration > Deployment manager and click Stop. This action logs you out of the console and stops the deployment manager process.

  4. Restart the deployment manager process.

    To restart the deployment manager process, locate the APP_SERVER_ROOT/bin directory and type startManager.bat or startManager.shAfter the deployment manager initialization is complete, go back into the administrative console to complete this task. Remember that security now is enabled in only the deployment manager. If you enabled SSO, specify the fully qualified domain name of your Web address, for example, http://myhost.domain:port_number/ibm/console. When you are prompted for a user ID and password, type the one that you defined as the administrator ID in the configured user registry.

  5. If the deployment manager does not start after enabling security, disable security using a script and restart. Disable security by issuing the following command from the DeploymentManager/bin directory:

    ./wsadmin.sh -conntype NONE
    
    At the prompt, enter securityoff.

  6. Restart all node agents to make them security enabled. You must have restarted the deployment manager in a previous step before completing this step. If the node agent is security-enabled before the deployment manager is security-enabled, the deployment manager cannot query the node agent for status or give the node agent commands. To stop all node agents...

    1. Go to System administration > Node agents and select the option beside all node agents. Click Restart. A message similar to the following example is displayed at the top of the panel: The node agent on node NODE NAME was restarted successfully.

    2. Alternatively, if you previously did not stop your appservers, restart all of the servers within any given node by clicking System administration > Node agents and by clicking the node agents where you want to restart all the servers. Click Restart all Servers on Node. This action restarts the node agent and any started appservers.

  7. If any node agent fails to restart, perform a manual resynchronization of the configuration. This step consists of going to the physical node and running the client syncNode command. This client logs into the deployment manager and copies all of the configuration files to the node agent. This action ensures that the configuration is security-enabled. If the node agent is started, but is not communicating with the deployment manager, stop the node agent by issuing the stopServer command.



Secure administration, applications, and infrastructure settings

Specify extent of protection wizard settings

Security custom properties

Security custom property collection

Security custom property settings

 

Related concepts


Server and administrative security
Java 2 security

 

Related tasks


Selecting a registry or repository
Configure the LTPA mechanism
Enabling security

 

Related Reference


Java 2 security policy files