WebLogic Server offers the following types of Authentication and Identity Assertion providers:

• The WebLogic Authentication provider allows you to manage users and groups in one place, the embedded LDAP server. Note that the Administration Console refers to the WebLogic Authentication provider as the Default Authenticator. For more information, see Configuring the WebLogic Authentication Provider.
• Identity Assertion providers use token-based authentication. WebLogic Server provides the WebLogic Identity Assertion Provider (referred to in the Administration Console as the Default Identity Asserter), LDAP X.509 Identity Asserter, Negotiate Identity Asserter, SAML (1.1) Identity Asserter, and SAML 2.0 Identity Asserter. For more information, see Configuring Identity Assertion Providers.
• LDAP Authentication providers access external LDAP stores. WebLogic Server provides LDAP Authentication providers that access Oracle Internet Directory, Oracle Virtual Directory, Open LDAP, Netscape iPlanet, Microsoft Active Directory and Novell NDS stores. For more information, see Configuring LDAP Authentication Providers. If the connection to the LDAP server uses SSL, create and configure a custom trust keystore as described in Enabling an LDAP Authentication Provider for SSL.

  Note: You are not limited to these LDAP Authentication providers. To use an LDAP server other than the supported LDAP servers, choose the LDAP server type that has the closest defaults to the LDAP server you want to use and modify the attribute values accordingly.

• DBMS Authentication providers access an external database management system. WebLogic Server provides for SQL Authentication Providers, Read-Only SQL Authentication Providers, and Custom DBMS Authentication Providers. For more information, see Configuring RDBMS Authentication Providers.
• The WebLogic SAML Authentication provider enables authentication based on the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML).

  Note: The WebLogic SAML Authentication provider can be used with both the SAML Identity Asserter (for SAML 1.1) as well as the SAML 2.0 Identity Asserter to allow virtual users to log in. For important usage notes, see Configuring the SAML Authentication Provider.

• The NT Authentication provider for Windows NT domains. For more information, see Configuring a Windows NT Authentication Provider.
• The Realm Adapter Authentication provider accesses user and group information stored in compatibility security realms. For more information, see Configuring a Realm Adapter Authentication Provider.

Oracle recommends that you configure the Password Validation provider immediately after configuring a new WebLogic domain. The Password Validation provider, which is included with WebLogic Server, can be configured with several out-of-the-box authentication providers to manage and enforce password composition rules. Whenever a password is created or updated in the security realm, the corresponding authentication provider automatically invokes the Password Validation provider to ensure that the password meets the composition requirements that are established. For more information, see Configure the Password Validation provider.

In addition, you can use a Custom Authentication provider which offers different types of authentication technologies. For more information, see Configure custom security providers.

Each security realm must have one at least one Authentication provider configured. The WebLogic Security Framework is designed to support multiple Authentication providers (and thus multiple LoginModules) for multipart authentication. Therefore, you can use multiple Authentication providers as well as multiple types of Authentication providers in a security realm. The Control Flag attribute determines how the LoginModule for each Authentication provider is used in the authentication process. For more information, see Set the JAAS control flag.

To configure an Authentication or Identity Assertion provider: