Assembling secured applications

There are several assembly tools that are graphical user interfaces for assembling enterprise (J2EE) applications. You can use these tools to assemble an application and secure EJB and Web modules in that application. An EJB module consists of one or more beans. You can enforce security at the EJB method level. A Web module consists of one or more Web resources (an HTML page, a JSP file or a servlet). You can also enforce security for each Web resource. You can use an assembly tool to secure an EJB module (Java archive (JAR) file) or a Web module (Web archive (WAR) file) or an application (enterprise archive (EAR) file). You can create an application, an EJB module, or a Web Module and secure them using an assembly tool or development tools like the IBM WebSphere Integration Developer.

Steps for this task

  1. Secure EJB applications using an assembly tool. For more information, see Securing enterprise bean applications in the WebSphere Application Server Information Center.
  2. Secure Web applications using an assembly tool. For more information, see Securing Web applications using an assembly tool in the WebSphere Application Server Information Center.
  3. Add users and groups-to-roles while assembling a secured application using an assembly tool. For more information, see Adding users and groups to roles using an assembly tool in the WebSphere Application Server Information Center.
  4. Map users to RunAs roles using an assembly tool. For more information, see Mapping users to RunAs roles using an assembly tool in the WebSphere Application Server Information Center.
  5. Add the was.policy file to applications. See Adding the was.policy file to applications in the WebSphere Application Server Information Center.
  6. Assemble the application components that you secured using an assembly tool. For more information, see Assembling applications in the WebSphere Application Server Information Center.

Result

After securing an application, the resulting EAR file contains security information in its deployment descriptor. The EJB module security information is stored in the ejb-jar.xml file and the Web module security information is stored in the web.xml file. The application.xml file of the application EAR file contains all the roles that are used in the application. The user and group-to-roles mapping is stored in the ibm-application-bnd.xmi file of the application EAR file.

The was.policy file of the application EAR contains the permissions granted for the application to access system resources protected by Java 2 security.

This task is required to secure EJB modules and Web modules in an application. This task is also required for applications to run properly when Java 2 security is enabled. If the was.policy file is not created and it does not contain required permissions, the application might not be able to access system resources.

What to do next

After securing an application, you can install an application using the administrative console. When you install a secured application, refer to Deploying secured applications in the WebSphere Application Server Information Center to complete this task.

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