Sun OpenSSO Enterprise Policy Agent 3.0 User's Guide for J2EE Agents

Web Agents

Web agents control access to content on web servers and proxy servers. The content that web agents can protect include a multitude of services and web resources based on policies configured by an administrator. When a user points a browser to a URL deployed on a protected web or proxy server, the agent intercepts the request and validates the user’s session token, if any exists. If the token’s authentication level is insufficient (or none exists), the appropriate Authentication Service is called for a login page, prompting the user for (further) authentication. The Authentication Service verifies that the user credentials are valid. After the user’s credentials are properly authenticated, the agent examines all the groups (which contain the policies) assigned to the user. Based on the aggregate of all policies assigned to the user, the individual is either allowed or denied access to the URL.