Job manager security
When performing a job manager registration process there are a number of WebSphere® Application Server security impacts to consider.
Note: In WebSphere Application
Server Version 7.0, a new style of system management called flexible
management was introduced. It differs from the existing style
of synchronous invocation and response calls through wsadmin or Java™ APIs by offering an asynchronous
job queuing mechanism for administration purposes. At the core of
flexible management is a new administrative process called the job
manager. You can make both application servers registered to
administrative agents and deployment manager servers known to the
job manager through a registration process. After you register the
servers, you can queue administrative jobs directed at the application
servers or deployment managers through the job manager. You can submit
these jobs to a large number of servers over a geographically dispersed
area. There are a number of security considerations you must keep
in mind both during and after the job manager registration process.
Consider the following:
- Security configuration requirements should be kept to a minimum prior to registration.
- Allow an agent or a deployment manager
(dmgr) to be federated
to the job manager with almost any security configuration. Some exceptions
include:
- The administrative agent or deployment manager must have the same administrative security state (either enabled or disabled).
- To enable security after federation, you must enable all administrative agent and deployment manager processes within the same administrative domain, then restart all of the processes at the same time.
- Leverage the creation of a chained certificate to exchange only the long-lived root certificates between an administrative agent, deployment manager and job manager. When a personal certificate expires in either the administrative agent, deployment manager or the job manager, it does not affect trust that was established during federation.
- Use the Rivest Shamir Adleman (RSA) certificate administrative-specific authentication mechanism, which does not rely on shared keys and is the default administrative authentication mechanism for the job manager. The RSA token authentication mechanism is also new to this release of WebSphere Application Server. Read about RSA token authentication mechanism for more information.
- Add a profile Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) to all certificates generated in WebSphere Application Server Version 8.0. This profile UUID is used to authorize requests to extract jobs from the job manager queue.
Job Manager jobs can be associated with caller credentials: either Lightweight Third-Party Authentication (LTPA) or Kerberos, or with specified credentials using a user ID and password). Both are stored with the job. The password is obfuscated using the standard utilities and can be encrypted when the password encryption plug point is enabled. LTPA and Kerberos are refreshed as long as the authentication mechanism allows them to be refreshed.
Job Manager jobs can be associated with caller credentials: either Lightweight Third-Party Authentication (LTPA) or with specified credentials using a user ID and password. Both are stored with the job. The password is obfuscated using the standard utilities and can be encrypted when the password encryption plug point is enabled. LTPA is refreshed as long as the authentication mechanism allows it to be refreshed.
With this service release, Job Manager jobs can be associated with caller credentials: either Lightweight Third-Party Authentication (LTPA) or Kerberos, or with specified credentials using a user ID and password). Both are stored with the job. The password is obfuscated using the standard utilities and can be encrypted when the password encryption plug point is enabled. LTPA and Kerberos are refreshed as long as the authentication mechanism allows them to be refreshed.
- Administrative agent or deployment manager access to FileTransferServlet is performed by sending a valid RSA certificate that is trusted by the job manager and is validated by CertPath.
The required administrative roles for executing flexible management jobs are defined by the underlying administrative commands used by those jobs. For example, the required role for starting and stopping servers is the operator role. The operator role is also required for execution of the flexible management jobs that start and stop servers. The general rules for assigning required administrative roles are:
- Viewing data requires the monitor role.
- Updating data requires the configurator role.
- Managing jobs requires the operator role.
- Registering or un-registering managed nodes requires the administrator role.