Before you begin
Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) is a feature in WebSphere Application Server. JAAS is a collection of WebSphere Application Server strategic authentication APIs and replaces the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) programmatic login APIs.
If you do not want to use the Proxy LoginModule module, you can place the LoginModule module in the jre/lib/ext directory. However, this action is not recommended due to the security risks.
A new JAAS login configuration can be added and modified using the administrative console. The changes are saved in the cell-level security document and are available to all managed application servers. An application server restart is required for the changes to take effect at run time.
Steps for this task
Click Apply to save changes and to add the extra node name that precedes the original alias name. Clicking OK does not save the new changes in the security.xml file.
If you place the login module within the EAR file, the login module is accessible by the specific application only.
If you place the login module in the shared library, you must specify which applications can access the module. For more information on shared libraries, see Managing shared libraries.
If you place the JAAS login module in the Java extensions directory, the login module is available to all applications.
Although the Java extensions directory provides the greatest availability for the login module, place the login module in an application EAR file. If other applications need to access the same login module, consider using shared libraries.
WebSphere Application Server supports the default JAAS login configuration format, which is a plain text file, that is provided by the JAAS default implementation. However, a tool is not provided that edits plain text files in this format. You can define the JAAS login configuration in the plain text file, which is located in the install_root/properties/wsjaas.conf file. Any syntax errors can cause the incorrect parsing of the plain JAAS login configuration text file. This problem can cause other applications to fail.
set JAAS_LOGIN_CONFIG=-Djava.security.auth.login.config=%install_root%\properties\wsjaas_client.confIf the launchClient.bat file is not used to invoke the Java client program, verify that the appropriate JAAS configuration file is passed to the Java virtual machine with the -Djava.security.auth.login.config flag.
Result
A new JAAS login configuration is created or an old JAAS login configuration is removed. An enterprise application can use a newly created JAAS login configuration without restarting the application server process.However, new JAAS login configurations that are defined in the install_root/properties/wsjaas.conf file, do not refresh automatically. Restart the application servers to validate changes. These JAAS login configurations are specific to a particular node and are not available for other application servers running on other nodes.
What to do next
Create new JAAS login configurations that are used by enterprise applications to perform custom authentication. Use these newly defined JAAS login configurations to perform programmatic login.Related concepts
Programmatic login
Related tasks
Developing programmatic logins with the Java Authentication and Authorization
Service
Managing shared libraries