Lightweight Third-Party Authentication (LTPA) is a type of authentication mechanism in
WebSphere®
Application Server security that defines a particular token format. The purpose of the LTPA token
authentication is to flow the LTPA token from the first web service, which authenticated the
originating client, to the downstream web service. You can configure the server to validate LTPA
token authentication.
About this task
Important: There is an important distinction between Version 5.x and Version
6.0.x and later applications. The information supports Version 5.x applications only
that are used with WebSphere Application Server Version 6.0.x and later. The information does not apply to
Version 6.0.x and later applications.
This task is used to configure LTPA. Do not attempt to configure LTPA from a pure
client. After the downstream web service receives the LTPA token, it validates the token to verify
that the token has not been modified and has not expired. For validation to be successful, the LTPA
keys used by both the sending and receiving servers must be the same.
Complete the following steps to specify how the server must validate the LTPA token
authentication information:
Procedure
- Launch an assembly tool.
For more information, see the related information on
Assembly Tools.
- Switch to the Java™ 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) perspective. Click .
- Click .
- Right-click the webservices.xml file, and click
.
-
Click the Binding Configurations tab, which is located at the end of the web services editor
within the assembly tool.
- Expand the section.
- Click Edit to view the login mapping information.
The
login mapping information is displayed. Select or enter the following information:
- Authentication method
- Specifies the type of authentication that occurs. Select LTPA to use LTPA
token authentication.
- Configuration name
- Specifies the Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) login configuration name.
For the LTPA authentication method, enter WSLogin for the JAAS login
configuration name. This configuration understands how to validate an LTPA token.
- Use token value type
- Determines if you want to specify a custom token type. For LTPA authentication, you must select
this option because LTPA is considered a custom type. LTPA is not in the Web Services Security
Specification.
- Token value type URI and local name
- Specifies custom authentication types. If you select Use Token value type
you must enter data into the Token value Type URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) and
local name fields. For the token value type URI field, enter the following string:
http://www.ibm.com/websphere/appserver/tokentype/5.0.2
. For the local name, enter
the following string: LTPA
- Callback handler factory class name
- Creates a JAAS CallbackHandler implementation that understands the following callback handlers:
- javax.security.auth.callback.NameCallback
- javax.security.auth.callback.PasswordCallback
- com.ibm.wsspi.wssecurity.auth.callback.BinaryTokenCallback
- com.ibm.wsspi.wssecurity.auth.callback.XMLTokenReceiverCallback
- com.ibm.wsspi.wssecurity.auth.callback.PropertyCallback
For any of the default authentication methods (BasicAuth, IDAssertion, Signature, and LTPA),
use the callback handler factory default implementation. Enter the following class name for any of
the default authentication methods including LTPA:
com.ibm.wsspi.wssecurity.auth.callback.WSCallbackHandlerFactoryImpl
This
implementation creates the correct callback handler for the default implementations.
- Callback handler factory property
- Specifies callback handler properties for custom callback handler factory implementations.
Default callback handler factory implementation does not any property specifications. For LTPA,
leave this field blank.
- Login mapping property
- Specifies properties for a custom login mapping. For default implementations including LTPA,
leave this field blank.
What to do next
See the task for configuring the server to handle LTPA token authentication information if
you have not previously specified this information.