WebSphere Application Server extends the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) security role-based access control to protect the product administrative and naming subsystems.
Administrative console
Four administrative roles are defined to provide degrees of authority needed to perform certain WebSphere Application Server administrative functions from either the administrative console or the system management scripting interface. The authorization policy is only enforced when global security is enabled. The four administrative security roles are defined in the following table:
Role | Description |
Monitor | An individual or group that uses the monitor
role has the least amount of privileges. A monitor can complete the following
tasks:
|
Configurator | An individual or group that uses the configurator
role has the monitor privilege plus the ability to change the WebSphere Application
Server configuration. The configurator can perform all the day-to-day configuration
tasks. For example, a configurator can complete the following tasks:
|
Operator | An individual or group that uses the operator
role has monitor privileges plus ability to change the run time state. For
example, an operator can complete the following tasks:
|
Administrator | An individual or group that uses the administrator
role has the operator and configurator privileges plus additional privileges
that are granted solely to the administrator role. For example, an administrator
can complete the following tasks:
|
When WebSphere Application Server global security is enabled, the administrative subsystem role-based access control is enforced. The administrative subsystem includes security server, user registry, and all the Java Management Extensions (JMX) MBeans. When security is enabled, both the administrative console and the administrative scripting tool require users to provide the required authentication data. Moreover, the administrative console is designed so the control functions that display on the pages are adjusted according to the security roles that a user has. For example, a user who has only the monitor role can see only the non-sensitive configuration data. A user with the operator role can change the system state.
If
an LDAP or Custom Registry is specified, you must ensure that customization
provided to facilitate using Local OS is removed. You must delete pre-configured
WebSphere Configuration Group and Administrator identity from the console
group and console users respectively.
The server identity specified when enabling global security is automatically mapped to the administrative role.
You can add or remove users and groups to or from the administrative roles from the WebSphere Application Server administrative console. However, a server restart is required for the changes to take effect. A best practice is to map a group, rather than specific users, to administrative roles because it is more flexible and easier to administer. By mapping a group to an administrative role, adding or removing users to or from the group occurs outside of WebSphere Application Server and does not require a server restart for the change to take effect.
In addition to mapping users or groups, you can map a special-subject to the administrative roles. A special-subject is a generalization of a particular class of users. The AllAuthenticated special subject means that the access check of the administrative role ensures that the user making the request has at least been authenticated. The Everyone special subject means that anyone, authenticated or not, can perform the action, as if security is not enabled.
When global security is enabled, WebSphere Application Servers run under the server identity that is defined under the active user registry configuration. Although it is not shown on the administrative console and in other tools, a special Server subject is mapped to the administrator role. The WebSphere Application Server run-time code, which runs under the server identity, requires authorization to runtime operations. If no other user is assigned administrative roles, you can log into the administrative console or to the wsadmin scripting tool using the server identity to perform administrative operations and to assign other users or groups to administrative roles. Because the server identity is assigned to the administrative role by default, the administrative security policy requires the administrative role to perform the following operations:
When enabling security, you can assign one or more users and groups to administrative roles. For more information, see Assigning users to naming roles. However, before assigning users to naming roles, configure the active user registry. User and group validation depends on the active user registry. For more information, see Configuring user registries.
Naming service authorization
CosNaming security offers increased granularity of security control over CosNaming functions. CosNaming functions are available on CosNaming servers such as the WebSphere Application Server. They affect the content of the WebSphere Application Server name space. There are generally two ways in which client programs result in CosNaming calls. The first is through the JNDI interfaces. The second is with CORBA clients invoking CosNaming methods directly.
Four security roles are introduced :
Additionally, a Server special-subject is assigned to all the four CosNaming roles by default. The Server special-subject provides a WebSphere Application Server server process, which runs under the server identity, access to all the CosNaming operations. Note that the Server special-subject does not display and cannot be modified through the administrative console or other administrative tools.
Users, groups, or the special subjects AllAuthenticated and Everyone can be added or removed to or from the naming roles from the WebSphere Application Server administrative console at any time. However, a server restart is required for the changes to take effect. A best practice is to map groups or one of the special-subjects, rather than specific users, to naming roles because it is more flexible and easier to administer in the long run. By mapping a group to a naming role, adding or removing users to or from the group occurs outside of WebSphere Application Server and does not require a server restart for the change to take effect.
The CosNaming authorization policy is only enforced when global security is enabled. When global security is enabled, attempts to do CosNaming operations without the proper role assignment result in an org.omg.CORBA.NO_PERMISSION exception from the CosNaming Server.
In WebSphere Application Server Version 4.0.2, each CosNaming function is assigned to only one role. Therefore, users who are assigned the CosNamingCreate role cannot query the name space unless they have also been assigned CosNamingRead. And in most cases a creator needs to be assigned three roles: CosNamingRead, CosNamingWrite, and CosNamingCreate. The CosNamingRead and CosNamingWrite roles assignment for the creator example are included in the CosNamingCreate role. In most of the cases, WebSphere Application Server administrators do not have to change the roles assignment for every user or group when they move to this release from a previous one.
Although the ability exists to greatly restrict access to the name space by changing the default policy, unexpected org.omg.CORBA.NO_PERMISSION exceptions can occur at run time. Typically, J2EE applications access the name space and the identity they use is that of the user that authenticated to WebSphere Application Server when they access the J2EE application. Unless the J2EE application provider clearly communicates the expected Naming roles, use caution when changing the default naming authorization policy.