Mapping Security Roles to Enterprise Server Groups

The Enterprise Server assigns users to principals or groups, rather than to security roles. When you are developing a Java EE application, you don’t need to know what categories of users have been defined for the realm in which the application will be run. In the Java EE platform, the security architecture provides a mechanism for mapping the security roles defined in the application to the users, principals, or groups defined in the runtime realm. The deployer will work with the security view provided by the application developer to implement this mapping.

One way to declare a mapping between a security role used in the application and one or more groups and/or principals defined for the applicable realm of the Enterprise Server is to use the security-role-mapping element in the runtime deployment descriptor (sun-application.xml, sun-web.xml, or sun-ejb-jar.xml.) This is the method to use when the role name defined in the application does not match the group or principal name defined for the Enterprise Server. An example of this role mapping can be found in Part VII, Security, in The Java EE 6 Tutorial, Volume II.

In the tutorial, the role names used in the application are the same as the group names defined on the Enterprise Server. Under these circumstances, you can enable a default principal-to-role mapping on the Enterprise Server using the Admin Console. To enable the default principal-to-role-mapping, follow these steps:

1. Start the Enterprise Server, then the Admin Console.

2. Expand the Configuration node.

3. Select the Security node.

4. On the Security page, check the Enabled box beside Default Principal to Role Mapping.