test

Using the HTTP Binding Component

Using Basic Authentication with the HTTP Binding Component

Basic authentication enables you to require credentials, in the form of a username and password, to make a transaction. These credentials are transmitted as plain text. The username and password are encoded as a sequence of base-64 characters before transmission to ensure privacy. So, for example, the user name “Fred” and password “Dinosaur” are combined as “Fred:Dinosaur.” When encoded in base-64, these characters are equivalent to “RnJlZDpEaW5vc2F1cg0K”.

For a Provider web service, a request message from a client contains the user name and password fields in the request header.

For a Consumer web service invoking a web service with basic authentication enabled, the user name and password are appended to the request headers for authentication.

For more information on basic authentication protocol see RFC 1945 (Hypertext Transfer Protocol HTTP/1.0), RFC 2616 (Hypertext Transfer Protocol HTTP/1.1), and RFC 2617 (HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication).

Basic Authentication Supported Features

Basic authentication is supported by specifying a policy in the WSDL. A basic authentication policy can be added to the WSDL either manually or by using the WS-Policy Attachment window accessed from CASA and provided through Tango (WSIT). A basic authentication policy is specified at the root level of the WSDL and a reference to the policy is made in the WSDL Port type section, binding the policy to the endpoint.

To support basic authentication, the HTTP Binding Component defines the following WSDL elements:

Authentication Mechanisms for Consumer Endpoints

Three types of authentication mechanisms are supported for web service consumer endpoints.

A consumer endpoint can be configured to use one of these mechanisms by adding it as a child element to the MustSupportBasicAuthentication element of the endpoints Policy.

The following sections describe these mechanisms in more detail.

WssTokenCompare Username/Password Authentication

To use the WssTokenCompare feature, the Policy element must be present, and specify the username and password that are used for authentication. The username and password extracted from the HTTP Authorization request header are compared with the username and password specified in the Policy's WssUsernameToken10 and WssPassword elements.

The following sample WSDL contains the policy and its reference to use WssTokenCompare. Note that an application variable token is used for the password so that the password is not exposed in the WSDL. The value of the password can be specified in the component's Application Variable property in NetBeans.


<wsdl:service name="echoService">
    <wsdl:port name="echoPort" binding="tns:echoBinding">
        <soap:address location="http://pponnala-tecra-xp.stc.com:18181/
         echoService/echoPort"/>
        <wsp:PolicyReference URI="#HttpBasicAuthBindingBindingPolicy"/>
    </wsdl:port>
</wsdl:service>

<wsp:Policy wsu:Id="HttpBasicAuthBindingBindingPolicy">
    <mysp:MustSupportBasicAuthentication on="true">
        <mysp:BasicAuthenticationDetail>
           <mysp:WssTokenCompare/>
        </mysp:BasicAuthenticationDetail>
    </mysp:MustSupportBasicAuthentication>
    <mysp:UsernameToken mysp:IncludeToken="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/
     2005/07/securitypolicy/IncludeToken/AlwaysToRecipient">
       <wsp:Policy>
            <sp:WssUsernameToken10>wilma</sp:WssUsernameToken10>
            <sp:WssPassword>${pass_token}</sp:WssPassword>
       </wsp:Policy>
  </mysp:UsernameToken>
</wsp:Policy>
Note –

The code displayed above is wrapped for display purposes.

Using the Access Manager for Authentication and Authorization

To use Access Manager to configure access-level authorization, you configure the consuming endpoint to use the Sun Access Manager to authenticate the client's credentials. The HTTP Binding Component SOAP binding integrates seamlessly with Sun Access Manager to authenticate the HTTP client's credentials (the username and password extracted from the HTTP Authorization header) against the user's credentials in the Sun Access Manager database.

To configure the HTTP/SOAP Binding Component to use Access Manager, set the HTTP Binding Component Runtime property Sun Access Manager Configuration Directory value to the directory where the Sun Access Manager's AMConfig.properties file can be found.

    To configure the Sun Access Manager Configuration Directory, do the following:

  1. Access the HTTP Binding Component Properties from the NetBeans Services window. Right-click sun-http-binding under Servers > GlassFish V2 > JBI > Binding Components, and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.

  2. Configure the Sun Access Manager Configuration Directory property to specify the location of the Sun Access Manager's AMConfig.properties file.

  3. Configure the policy in the WSDL to enable Authorization by changing the Access Manager authorization attribute to true (note the attribute authorization="true" in the example below). This attribute is optional and the default value is false.

The following sample WSDL contains the policy and its reference to use AccessManager. 


<service name="AuthAMService">
    <port name="AuthAMPort" binding="tns:AuthAMBinding">
        <soap:address location="http://localhost:${HttpDefaultPort}/AuthAMService
/AuthAMPort"/>
        <wsp:PolicyReference URI="#HttpAuthorizationBindingAMPolicy"/>
    </port>
</service>
<wsp:Policy wsu:Id="HttpAuthorizationBindingAMPolicy">
    <mysp:MustSupportBasicAuthentication on="true">
        <!-- authenticationType is one of simple, am, or realm -->
        <mysp:BasicAuthenticationDetail>
            <mysp:AccessManager authorization="true"/>
        </mysp:BasicAuthenticationDetail>
    </mysp:MustSupportBasicAuthentication>
</wsp:Policy>

For a tutorial demonstrating how to secure communications between a service client and server using the Sun Java System Access Manager, see: Securing Communications in OpenESB with Sun Access Manager.

Using the GlassFish Realm Security to Authenticate the HTTP Client Credentials

The HTTP Binding Component can integrate with GlassFish Application Server, out of the box, to provide authentication of requesting clients by authenticating the client against the credentials in a "realm". To take advantage of this security feature, the HTTP/SOAP Binding Component's consuming endpoint needs to be properly configured in the WSDL.

To configure an HTTP/SOAP endpoint to use Realm security configure the PolicyReference element which belongs in the namespace, http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/09/policy. The PolicyReference identifies the Policy, which also belongs in the namespace, http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/09/policy, that provides the details for configuring Realm security.

This is an example of an endpoint with an associated PolicyReference element.


<port name="SoapBasicAuthPortRealm" binding="tns:SoapBasicAuthRealmBinding">
    <soap:address location="http://localhost:12081/SoapBasicAuthService
/SoapBasicAuthRealmPort"/>
    <wsp:PolicyReference URI="#HttpBasicAuthBindingBindingRealmPolicy"/>
</port>

The PolicyReference element contains an attribute called URI. The value of the URI consists of a '#' character followed by the name of the policy defined somewhere else in the WSDL. Taking this example further, the example below defines the Policy that the PolicyReference references. In the following example, ignore the UsernameToken. This is used by the "outbound" endpoint for sending the username/password credential when it sends a request. You don't need to have this element for "inbound" (consuming) endpoints, but it's included here to illustrate the bi-directionality of an endpoint. 


<wsp:Policy wsu:Id="HttpBasicAuthBindingBindingRealmPolicy">
    <mysp:MustSupportBasicAuthentication on="true">
        <mysp:BasicAuthenticationDetail>
           <mysp:Realm realmName="file" />
        </mysp:BasicAuthenticationDetail>
    </mysp:MustSupportBasicAuthentication>
    <mysp:UsernameToken mysp:IncludeToken="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005
/07/securitypolicy/IncludeToken/AlwaysToRecipient">
       <wsp:Policy>
            <sp:WssUsernameToken10>wilma</sp:WssUsernameToken10>
            <sp:WssPassword>pebbles</sp:WssPassword>
       </wsp:Policy>
    </mysp:UsernameToken>
 </wsp:Policy>
Note –

The code above has been wrapped for display purposes

The PolicyReference and Policy elements are used above simply to ensure that we adhere to the standard for SOAP binding. There are no Tango WS-Policy Attachments involved and the WS-Policy Attachment "runtime" will ignore the child element MustSupportBasicAuthentication which is specific to the HTTP Soap BC. MustSupportBasicAuthentication is in the namespace, http://sun.com/ws/httpbc/security/BasicauthSecurityPolicy.

For example, your GlassFish installation comes with a preconfigured file realm which is essentially a file-based user database. See the GlassFish documentation on Realm security, or for a demonstration of how Realm security is configured for a SOAP endpoint see Securing Communication using Glassfish Realm Security.