Information about users and groups reside in a user registry. In WebSphere Application Server, a user registry authenticates a user and retrieves information about users and groups to perform security-related functions, including authentication and authorization. Implementation is provided to support multiple operating system or operating environment-based user registries (z/OS SAF registry) and most of the major Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)-based user registries. You can use the custom LDAP feature to support any LDAP server by setting up the correct configuration (user and group filters). However, support is not extended to these custom LDAP servers since there are many possibilities that cannot be tested.
The next step in setting up security is to select an authentication mechanism. An authentication mechanism defines rules about security information (for example, whether a credential is forwardable to another Java process), and the format of how security information is stored in both credentials and tokens. Authentication is the process of establishing whether a client is valid in a particular context. A client can be either an end user, a machine, or an application.
An authentication mechanism in WebSphere Application Server typically collaborates closely with a User Registry. The User Registry is the user and groups accounts repository that the authentication mechanism consults with when performing authentication. The authentication mechanism is responsible for creating a credential which is an internal product representation of successfully authenticated client user. Not all credentials are created equal. The abilities of the credential are determined by the configured authentication mechanism.
Although this product provides several authentication mechanisms, only a single active authentication mechanism can be configured at once. The active authentication mechanism is selected when configuring WebSphere global security. WebSphere Application Server for z/OS Version 5 supports the following authentication mechanisms: