Using the Java Authentication and Authorization Service programming model for web authentication

WebSphere® Application Server supports the Java™ Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) declarative security model. You can define the authentication and access control policy using the Java EE deployment descriptor. You can further stack custom login modules to customize the WebSphere Application Server authentication mechanism.

1. Create a new system login JAAS configuration. To access the panel, click Security > Global security. Under Java Authentication and Authorization Service, click System logins.
2. Manually clone the WEB_INBOUND login configuration, and give it a new alias. To clone the login configuration, click New, enter a name for the configuration, click Apply, then click JAAS login modules under Additional properties. Click New and configure the JAAS login module. For more information, see Login module settings for Java Authentication and Authorization Service.
   WebSphere Application Server web container uses the WEB_INBOUND login configuration to authenticate web clients. Changing the WEB_INBOUND login configuration affects all web applications in the cell. You should create your own login configuration by cloning the contents of the WEB_INBOUND login configuration.
3. Select the wsMapDefaultInboundLoginModule login module and click Custom properties. There are two login modules defined in your login configuration: ltpaLoginModule and wsMapDefaultInboundLoginModule.
4. Add a login property name cookie with a value of true. The two login modules are enabled to generate LTPA SSO cookies. Do not add the cookie login option to the original WEB_INBOUND login configuration.
5. Stack your custom LoginModule(s) in the new login configuration (optional).
6. Use your login page for programmatic login by perform a JAAS LoginContext.login using your newly defined login configuration. After a successful login, either the ltpaLoginModule or the wsMapDefaultInboundLoginModule generates an LTPA SSO cookie upon a successful authentication. Exactly which LoginModule generates the SSO cookie depends on many factors, including system authentication configuration and runtime condition (which is beyond the scope of this section).
7. Call the modified WSSubject.setRunAsSubject method to add the subject to the authentication cache. The subject must be a WebSphere Application Server JAAS subject created by LoginModule. Adding the subject to the authentication cache recreates a subject from SSO token.
8. Use your programmatic logout page to revoke SSO cookies by invoking the revokeSSOCookies method from the WSSecurityHelper class.

   The term "cookies" is used because WebSphere Application Server Version 5.1.1 and later support a new LTPA SSO token with a different encryption algorithm but can be configured to generate the original LTPA SSO token for backward compatibility. Note that the subject is still in the authentication cache and only the SSO cookies are revoked.

   Deprecated feature: The revokeSSOCookies(HttpServletRequest, HttpServletResponse) method from the WSSecurityHelper class is deprecated. Use the functionality provided by the Java Servlet-3.0 logout() method. Read Servlet security methods.

Suppose you wrote a LoginServlet.java:

	Import com.ibm.wsspi.security.auth.callback.WSCallbackHandlerFactory;
	Import com.ibm.websphere.security.auth.WSSubject;

	public Object login(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) 
	throws ServletException {

	PrintWriter out = null;
	try {
		out =  res.getWriter();
      res.setContentType("text/html");
	} catch (java.io.IOException e){
		// Error handling
	}

	Subject subject = null;
	try {
	LoginContext lc = new LoginContext("system.Your_login_configuration",
WSCallbackHandlerFactory.getInstance().getCallbackHandler(
userid, null, password, req, res, null));
		lc.login();
		subject = lc.getSubject();
      WSSubject.setRunAsSubject(subject);
	} catch(Exception e) {
		// catch all possible exceptions if you want or handle them separately
		out.println("Exception in LoginContext login + Exception = " +
 e.getMessage());
		throw new ServletException(e.getMessage());
	}

The following is sample code to revoke the SSO cookies upon a programming logout:


The LogoutServlet.java:

	public void logout(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res,
 Object retCreds)  throws ServletException {
		 PrintWriter out =null;
		 try {
		 	out =  res.getWriter();
        res.setContentType("text/html");
		 } catch (java.io.IOException e){
			// Error Handling
		 }
		 try {
		  	WSSecurityHelper.revokeSSOCookies(req, res);
		 } catch(Exception e) {
		 	// catch all possible exceptions if you want or handle them separately
		 	out.println("JAASLogoutServlet: logout Exception = " + e.getMessage());
		 	throw new ServletException(e);
		 }
	 }