Linking Security Role References to Security Roles

The security role references used in the components of the application are linked to the security roles defined for the application. In the absence of any explicit linking, a security role reference will be linked to a security role having the same name.

You can explicitly link all the security role references declared in the @DeclareRoles annotation or security-role-ref elements for a component to the security roles defined by the use of annotations (as discussed in Defining Security Roles) and/or in the security-role elements.

You use the role-link element to link each security role reference to a security role. The value of the role-link element must be the name of one of the security roles defined in a security-role element, or by the @DeclareRoles or @RolesAllowed annotations (as discussed in Defining Security Roles). You do not need to use the role-link element to link security role references to security roles when the role-name used in the code is the same as the name of the security-role to which you would be linking.

The following example illustrates how to link the security role reference name payroll to the security role named payroll-department:

...
 <enterprise-beans>
     ...
     <session>
         <ejb-name>AardvarkPayroll</ejb-name>
         <ejb-class>com.aardvark.payroll.PayrollBean</ejb-class>
         ...
         <security-role-ref>
             <description>
                 This role should be assigned to the
                 employees of the payroll department.
                 Members of this role have access to
                 anyone’s payroll record.
                 The role has been linked to the
                 payroll-department role.
             </description>
             <role-name>payroll</role-name>
             <role-link>payroll-department</role-link>
         </security-role-ref>
         ...
     </session>
     ...
 </enterprise-beans>
 ...