An external application is any application that implements its own authentication process. Specifically, it is an application that does not take part in your WebCenter Portal application's single sign-on process.
System administrators can use Fusion Middleware Control or the WLST command-line tool to register and manage external applications for WebCenter Portal application deployments. Application administrators can also register and manage external applications at runtime through out-of-the-box administration pages or using external application task flows.
All external application changes that you make for WebCenter Portal applications, post deployment, are stored in the MDS repository as customizations.
Note:
External application configuration is dynamic. Configuration changes are immediately reflected in the WebCenter Portal application; it is not necessary to restart the application or the managed server.
This chapter includes the following sections:
Section 26.1, "What You Should Know About External Applications"
Section 26.3, "Modifying External Application Connection Details"
The content of this chapter is intended for Fusion Middleware administrators (users granted the Admin
or Operator
role through the Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console). See also Section 1.8, "Understanding Administrative Operations, Roles, and Tools."
If your WebCenter Portal application (Framework application or Spaces application) interacts with an application that handles its own authentication, you can associate that application with an external application definition to allow for credential provisioning. In doing so, you use an external application definition to provide a means of accessing content from these independently authenticated applications.
To replicate a single sign-on experience from the end user's perspective, the external application service captures the user name and password, and any other credentials for the external application, and supplies it to the WebCenter Portal services or application requiring the credentials. The WebCenter Portal service or other application then uses this information to log in on behalf of the end user. This username and password combination is securely stored in a credential store configured for the WebLogic domain where the application is deployed.
The user provides login credentials when prompted, and these credentials are mapped to the WebCenter Portal application user and stored in the credential store configured for the domain. The credential store subsequently supplies that information during authentication to the external application. Unless the external application's credentials change, the user supplies the credentials only once as the mapped information is read from the credential store for future requests.
Note:
When logging in to an external application, if you clear the Remember My Login Information check box, then the credentials provisioned for that user session are lost in the event of a failover in a high availability (HA) environment. You are prompted to specify the credentials again if you try to access the external application content in the same user session.
The external applications that are to be used by a Framework application can be specified before deployment through a wizard in Oracle JDeveloper, or after deployment through Fusion Middleware Control Console (Figure 26-1) or using WLST commands. Post-deployment, external applications specified at design time in JDeveloper display automatically. However, after deployment you must reprovision design-time shared and public credentials using Fusion Middleware Control or WLST commands. For information, see Chapter 29, "Configuring the Identity Store," and Chapter 30, "Configuring the Policy and Credential Store."
Note:
In Spaces, you can register external applications using the External Application task flow available by default, or you can add a task flow to register and manage your applications. For information about registering external applications using External Application task flows in Spaces, see the sections "Registering External Applications Through Spaces Administration" and "Working with the External Application Task Flow" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle WebCenter Portal: Spaces.
You can register external applications for WebCenter Portal applications through Fusion Middleware Control or using WLST commands.
Before registering an external application, access the application's login page and examine the HTML source for the application's login form. All the registration details you require are located in the <form tag>
.
For example, the underlying code for the Yahoo! Mail login form looks something like this:
<form method=post action="https://login.yahoo.com/config/login?" autocomplete="off" name="login_form"> ... <td><input name="login" size="17"</td> ... <td><input name="passwd" size="17"</td> ...
In this example, to provide WebCenter Portal users with a direct link to the Yahoo! Mail application, the following sample registration information is required:
Registration Information | Sample Value | HTML Source |
---|---|---|
Login URL |
|
|
User Name / User ID Field |
|
|
Password Field Name: |
|
|
Authentication Method |
|
|
Note:
External application configuration is dynamic. New external applications and updates to existing applications are immediately available; there is no need to restart the WebCenter Portal application.
For information about services that use external applications, see the section "Secured Service Connections" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle WebCenter Portal.
This section includes the steps for:
Section 26.2.1, "Registering External Applications Using Fusion Middleware Control"
Section 26.2.2, "Registering External Applications Using WLST"
Section 26.2.3, "Registering External Applications in the Spaces Application"
Section 26.2.4, "Registering External Applications in Framework Applications"
To register an external application:
Login to Fusion Middleware Control and navigate to the home page for your WebCenter Portal application (Framework application or Spaces application):
Do one of the following:
For the Spaces application - From the WebCenter Portal menu, choose Settings > Service Configuration.
For Framework applications - From the Application Deployment menu, choose WebCenter Portal > Service Configuration.
From the list of services on the WebCenter Portal Service Configuration page, choose External Applications.
To register a new external application, click Add (Figure 26-2).
Enter a unique name for the external application and a display name that WebCenter Portal users working with this external application will see.
See also Table 26-1.
Table 26-1 External Application Connection - Name
Field | Description |
---|---|
Application Name |
Enter a name for the application. The name must be unique (across all connection types) within the WebCenter Portal application. For example: Note: Once registered, you cannot edit the Application Name. |
Display Name |
Enter a user friendly name for the application that WebCenter Portal users will recognize. WebCenter Portal end-users working with this external application will see the display name you specify here. For example: If you leave this field blank, the Application Name is used. |
Enter login details for the external application.
For details, see Table 26-2.
Table 26-2 External Application Connection - Login Details
Select the authentication method used by the external application.
For details, see Table 26-3.
Table 26-3 External Application Connection - Authentication Details
Field | Description |
---|---|
Select the form submission method used by the external application. Choose from one of the following:
The Authentication Method specifies how message data is sent by the browser. You can find this value by viewing the HTML source for the external application's login form, for example, |
Specify additional login fields and details, if required.
For details, see Table 26-4, "External Application Connection - Additional Login Fields".
Table 26-4 External Application Connection - Additional Login Fields
Field | Description |
---|---|
If your application requires additional login criteria, expand Additional Login Fields. For example, in addition to user name and password, the Lotus Notes application requires two additional fields - Host and MailFilename. Click Add to specify an additional field for the login form. For each new field, do the following:
Click Delete to remove a login field. |
Specify shared and public user credentials, if required.
For details, see Table 26-5.
Table 26-5 External Application Connection - Shared User and Public User Credentials
Field | Description |
---|---|
Indicate whether this external application enables shared user credentials, and specify the credentials. Select Enable Shared Credentials, and then enter User Name and Password credentials for the shared user. When shared credentials are specified, every user accessing this external application, through the WebCenter Portal application, is authenticated using the user name and password defined here. WebCenter Portal users are not presented with a login form. Because WebCenter Portal users do not need to define personal credentials of their own, external applications with shared credentials are not listed in the external application's change password task flows such as My Accounts. See also"Providing Login Information for External Applications" in Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle WebCenter Portal: Spaces. |
|
Indicate whether unauthenticated users (public users) may access this external application. Select Enable Public Credentials, and then enter User Name and Password credentials for the public user. When public credentials are specified, public users accessing this external application through the WebCenter Portal application's public pages are logged in using the username and password defined here. If public credentials are not specified, public users will see an authorization error indicating this external application is not accessible to public users. |
Click OK to register the application.
Use the WLST command createExtAppConnection
to create an external application connection. For command syntax and examples, see createExtAppConnection
in the Oracle Fusion Middleware WebLogic Scripting Tool Command Reference.
Use the WLST command addExtAppCredential
to add shared or public credentials for an existing external application connection. For details, see addExtAppCredential
in the Oracle Fusion Middleware WebLogic Scripting Tool Command Reference.
Use the WLST command addExtAppField
to define additional login criteria for an existing external application connection. For details, see addExtAppField
in the Oracle Fusion Middleware WebLogic Scripting Tool Command Reference.
For information on how to run WLST commands, see Section 1.13.3.1, "Running Oracle WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) Commands."
For information about registering external applications in the Spaces application, see the section "Registering External Applications Through Spaces Administration" in Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle WebCenter Portal: Spaces.
For information about registering external applications in Framework applications, see section "Managing External Applications" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle WebCenter Portal.
This section shows you how to modify the external application connection details by:
Section 26.3.1, "Modifying External Application Connection Using Fusion Middleware Control"
Section 26.3.2, "Modifying External Application Connection Using WLST"
To update external application connection details:
Log in to Fusion Middleware Control and navigate to the home page for your Framework application (or Spaces application):
Do one of the following:
For the Spaces application - From the WebCenter Portal menu, choose Settings > Service Configuration.
For Framework applications - From the Application Deployment menu, choose WebCenter Portal > Service Configuration.
From the list of services on the WebCenter Portal Service Configuration page, choose External Applications.
Select the name of the external application you want to modify, and click Edit.
Edit connection details, as required. For detailed parameter information, see Table 26-2.
Note that you cannot edit the name of the external application.
Click OK to save your changes.
Use the WLST command setExtAppConnection
to edit existing external application connection details. For command syntax and examples, see setExtAppConnection
in the Oracle Fusion Middleware WebLogic Scripting Tool Command Reference.
Note:
To edit details relating to an additional login field, use setExtAppField
. To edit existing shared or public credentials, use setExtAppCredential
.
To delete an additional login field, use removeExtAppField
. To delete shared or public credentials, use removeExtAppCredential
.
For information on how to run WLST commands, see Section 1.13.3.1, "Running Oracle WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) Commands."
For information about modifying external applications in Spaces, see the section "Editing External Application Connection Details" in Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle WebCenter Portal: Spaces.
For external applications that are created using login URLs, ensure that their login URLs are accessible. For information about direct URLs, see the section "Automated Single Sign-On" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle WebCenter Portal.
Take care when deleting an external application connection as WebCenter Portal application users will no longer have access to that application, and any services dependent on the external application may not function correctly.
In Spaces, links to external applications are not automatically removed from the Application Navigator task flow when an external application is deleted. To prevent unsuccessful access attempts, administrators are advised to remove links to unavailable applications.
This section includes the following subsections:
Section 26.5.1, "Deleting External Application Connections Using Fusion Middleware Control"
Section 26.5.2, "Deleting External Application Connections Using WLST"
Section 26.5.3, "Deleting External Applications Connections in WebCenter Portal: Spaces"
To delete an external application connection:
Login to Fusion Middleware Control and navigate to the home page for your Framework application (or Spaces application):
Do one of the following:
For the Spaces application - From the WebCenter Portal menu, choose Settings > Service Configuration.
For Framework applications - From the Application Deployment menu, choose WebCenter Portal > Service Configuration.
From the list of services on the WebCenter Portal Service Configuration page, choose External Applications.
Select the name of the external application you want to remove, and click Delete.
Use the WLST command deleteConnection
to remove an external application connection. For command syntax and examples, see deleteConnection
in the Oracle Fusion Middleware WebLogic Scripting Tool Command Reference.
Note:
To delete an additional login field, use removeExtAppField
. To delete shared or public credentials, use removeExtAppCredential
.
For information on how to run WLST commands, see Section 1.13.3.1, "Running Oracle WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) Commands."
For information about deleting external applications in Spaces, see the section "Deleting External Applications" in Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle WebCenter Portal: Spaces.
For information about deleting external applications in Framework applications, see the section "Deleting External Application Registration Details in Oracle JDeveloper" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle WebCenter Portal.