Flat File

The Flat File authentication module enables authentication against a flat file. The default flat file repository stores user profile attributes as a properties file with using the format attributename=attributevalue. The attributes are:

The comma (,) is used as the delimiter for multiple values of the same attribute. When used for another purpose, commas must be encoded as %2C to avoid the flat file implementation to interpret the value as two.

Directory Location

Specifies the absolute path to the directory where all flat file users are located. The directory is used as a database of user IDs and passwords against which users can authenticate.

Authentication Level

The authentication level is set separately for each method of authentication. The value indicates how much to trust an authentication mechanism. Once a user has authenticated, this value is stored in the SSO token for the session. When the SSO token is presented to an application the user wants to access, the application uses the stored value to determine whether the level is sufficient to grant the user access. If the authentication level stored in an SSO token does not meet the minimum value required, the application can prompt the user to authenticate again through a service with a higher authentication level. The default value is 0.

If no authentication level is specified, the SSO token stores the value specified in the Core Authentication attribute Default Authentication Level.