Use these steps to configure local
operating system registries.
Before you begin
For detailed information about using the local operating
system user registry, see Local operating system registries.
These steps set up security based on the local operating system user
registry on which WebSphere® Application Server
is installed.
For security
purposes, the WebSphere Application Server provides and
supports the implementation for Windows® operating
system registries, AIX®, Solaris and multiple versions
of Linux® operating systems. The respective operating
system application programming interface (API) are called by the product
processes (servers) for authenticating a user and other security-related
tasks (for example, getting user or group information). Access to
these APIs are restricted to users who have special privileges. These
privileges depend on the operating system and are described below.
In WebSphere Application Server Version 6.1,
you can use an internally-generated server ID because the Security WebSphere Common Configuration Model (WCCM)
model contains a new tag, internalServerId. You do not need to specify
a server user ID and a password during security configuration except
in a mixed-cell environment. See Administrative roles and naming service authorization for more detailed information about the new
internal server ID.
![[Windows]](../../windows.gif)
Consider
the following issues:
- The server ID needs to be different from the Windows machine
name where the product is installed. For example, if the Windows machine name is vicky and
the security server ID is vickyy, the Windows system fails when getting the information
(group information, for example) for user vicky.
- WebSphere Application Server dynamically
determines whether the machine is a member of a Windows system
domain.
- WebSphere Application Server does not support Windows trusted domains.
- If a machine is a member of a Windows domain,
both the domain user registry and the local user registry of the machine
participate in authentication and security role mapping.
- The domain user registry takes precedence over the local user
registry of the machine and can have undesirable implications if users
with the same password exist in both user registries.
- The user that the product processes run under requires the Administrative and Act
as part of the operating system privileges to call the Windows operating system APIs that authenticate
or collect user and group information. The process needs special authority,
which is given by these privileges. The user in this example might
not be the same as the security server ID (the requirement for which
is a valid user in the registry). This user logs into the machine
(if using the command line to start the product process) or the Log
On User setting in the services panel if the product processes have
started using the services. If the machine is also part of a domain,
this user is a part of the Domain Admin group in the domain to call
the operating system APIs in the domain in addition to having the
Act as part of operating system privilege in the local machine.
About this task
The following steps are needed
to perform this task initially when setting up security for the first
time.
Procedure
- Click Security > Global security.
- Under User account repository, select Local operating
system and click Configure.
- Enter a valid user name in the Primary
administrative user name field. This value is the name
of a user with administrative privileges that is defined in the registry.
This user name is used to access the administrative console or used
by wsadmin.
- Click Apply.
- Select either the Automatically
generated server identity or Server identity that is stored
in the repository option. If you select the Server
identity that is stored in the repository option, enter the following
information:
- Server user ID or administrative user on a Version 6.0.x node
- Specify the short name of the account that is chosen in the second
step.
- Server user password
- Specify the password of the account that is chosen in the second
step.
- Click OK.
The administrative
console does not validate the user ID and password when you click OK.
Validation is only done when you click OK or Apply in
the Global security panel. First, make sure that you select Local
operating system as the available realm definition in the User
account repository section, and click Set as current. If security
was already enabled and you had changed either the user or the password
information in this panel, make sure to go to the Global security
panel and click OK or Apply to validate your changes.
If your changes are not validated, the server might not start.
Important: Until you authorize other users to perform administrative
functions, you can only access the administrative console with the
server user ID and password that you specified.
Results
For any changes in this panel
to be effective, you need to save, stop, and start all the product
servers, including deployment managers, nodes and application servers.
If the server comes up without any problems, the setup is correct.
After
completing these steps, you have configured WebSphere Application
Server to use the local operating system registry to identify authorized
users.
What to do next
Complete any remaining steps for enabling
security. For more information, see Enabling security.