Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server 2.1 Administration Guide

Verifying Single Sign-On

Single sign-on enables multiple applications in one virtual server instance to share the user authentication state. With single sign-on, a user who logs in to one application becomes implicitly logged in to other applications that require the same authentication information.

Single sign-on is based on groups. All Web applications whose deployment descriptor defines the same group and use the same authentication method (BASIC, FORM, CLIENT-CERT) share single sign-on.

Single sign-on is enabled by default for virtual servers defined for the Enterprise Server.