Managing policy sets and bindings for service clients at the application level using the administrative console

Use this administrative console task to manage policy sets for service clients applications or its services, endpoints, or operations.

Before you begin

Before completing this task, you need to install one or more Java™ API for XML-Based Web Services (JAX-WS) applications.

About this task

You have developed a web service that contains all the necessary artifacts and deployed your web services application into your application server instance. Now, you can attach or detach policy sets and manage the associated bindings.

The policy set information is displayed in the Attached Policy Set column. If a policy set is directly attached, then the policy set name appears; for example, WS-I RSP is displayed. If there is no policy set attached, and a policy set is attached at a higher level, then the word inherited in parentheses is appended to the policy set name, as the following example demonstrates: WS-I RSP (inherited). If there is no policy set attached directly or at a higher level, then None is displayed.

Every attachment of a policy set to a service artifact has an assigned binding. The binding information is displayed in the Binding column. The Binding column can contain the following values:

Not applicable. There is no policy set attached, either directly or to a higher level service resource.
Binding_name or Default. The binding name is displayed if a policy set is attached directly and an application-specific binding or a general binding is assigned, for example, MyBindings1. Default is displayed if a policy set is attached directly but the service resource uses the default bindings.
Binding_name (inherited) or Default (inherited). A service resource inherits the bindings from an attachment to a higher level resource.

In Version 7.0 and later of this product, there are two types of bindings, application specific bindings and general bindings.

Application specific binding

You can create application specific bindings only at a policy set attachment point. These bindings are specific to and constrained to the characteristics of the defined policy. Application specific bindings are capable of providing configuration for advanced policy requirements, such as multiple signatures; however, these bindings are only reusable within an application. Furthermore, application specific bindings have very limited reuse across policy sets.

When you create an application specific binding for a policy set attachment, the binding begins in a completely unconfigured state. You must add each policy, such as WS-Security or HTTP transport, that you want to override the default binding and fully configure the bindings for each policy that you have added. For WS-Security policy, some high level configuration attributes such as TokenConsumer, TokenGenerator, SigningInfo, or EncryptionInfo might be obtained from the default bindings if they are not configured in the application specific bindings.

For service clients, you can only create application specific bindings by selecting Assign Binding > New Application Specific Binding for service client resources that have an attached policy set. See service clients policy sets and bindings collection. Similarly, for service clients, you can only create application specific bindings by selecting Assign Binding > New Application Specific Binding for service client resources that have an attached policy set. See service client policy set and bindings collection.

General bindings

General bindings were introduced in Version 7.0 of this product. These bindings can be configured to be used across a range of policy sets and can be reused across applications and for trust service attachments. Though general bindings are highly reusable, they are however not able to provide configuration for advanced policy requirements, such as multiple signatures. There are two types of general bindings:

General provider policy set bindings
General client policy set bindings

You can create general policy set bindings by copying an existing binding or by creating a new one. For WS-Security bindings, copy an existing sample binding. Creating a new policy set binding from scratch for WS-Security can cause unexpected problems at run time.

To create general provider policy set bindings, in the administrative console, select Services > Policy sets > General provider policy set bindings > New or Copy. To create general client policy set bindings, select Services > Policy sets > General client policy set bindings > New or Copy.

For more information, see Defining and managing service client or provider bindings. General provider policy set bindings can also be used for trust service attachments.

Avoid trouble: After you make a copy of the provider or client sample bindings, customize only the settings of your new copy to suit your purposes. Do not remove anything from your binding copy, such as token generators, token consumers, sign parts, or encrypt parts. You can add things to your binding copy if needed, but deleting information can cause unanticipated errors at run time.

Depending on your assigned security role when security is enabled, you might not have access to text entry fields or buttons to create or edit configuration data. Review the administrative roles documentation to learn more about the valid roles for the application server.

Procedure

Open the administrative console.
In the navigation pane, click Applications > Application Types > WebSphere enterprise applications > Service_client_application_instance > Service client policy sets and bindings.
Select the check box next to the Application/Service/Endpoint/Operation column.
The service name is the service client reference in the application.

Avoid trouble: Do not select all the entries on the page. Only select the top-level parent of all artifacts that have the same attachment. For example, if all endpoints and operations are attached to the same endpoint, only select the Service entry. If you have more than one endpoint in your service, and the endpoints have different policies and all operations within each endpoint have the same policy, only select the parent endpoint for each set of operations that have the same policy attachment.
Click Attach to attach a policy set to an application, service, endpoint or operation.
[Optional] Click Detach to detach a policy set from a list of attached policy sets for an application, service client, endpoint or operation.

Click Assign Binding to select from a list of available bindings for the selected policy set attachment. All the bindings are listed along with the following options:

Table 1. Binding descriptions . Use the descriptions of the default bindings for the selected policy set attachment.
Bindings	Description
Default	Specifies the default binding for the selected service client, endpoint, or operation. You can specify client and provider default bindings to be used at the cell level or global security domain level, for a particular server, or for a security domain. The default bindings are used when an application-specific binding has not been assigned to the attachment. When you attach a policy set to a service resource, the binding is initially set to the default. If you do not specifically assign a binding to the attachment point using this Assign Binding action, the default specified at the nearest scope is used. For any policy set attachment, the run time checks to see if the attachment includes a binding. If so, it uses that binding. If not, the run time checks in the following order and uses the first available default binding: Default general bindings for the server Default general bindings for the domain in which the server resides Default general bindings for the global security domain
New Application Specific Binding	Select this option to create a new application-specific binding for the policy set attachments. The new binding you create is used for the selected resources. If you select more than one resource, ensure that all selected resources have the same policy set attached.
Client sample	Select this option to use the Client sample binding.
Client sample V2	Select this option to use the Client sample V2 binding when you are using either the Kerberos V5 WSSecurity default or the TrustServiceKerberosDefault policy sets.
Saml Bearer Client sample	Select this option to use the Saml Bearer Client sample. The Saml Bearer Client sample extends the Client sample binding to support SAML Bearer token usage scenarios. You can use this sample with any of the SAML bearer token default policy sets.
Saml HoK Symmetric Client sample	Select this option to use the Saml HoK Symmetric Client sample. The Saml HoK Symmetric Client sample extends the Client sample binding to support SAML holder-of-key (HoK) symmetric key token usage scenarios. You can use this sample with one of the SAML HoK Symmetric key default policy sets: either SAML11 HoK Symmetric WSSecurity default or SAML20 HoK Symmetric WSSecurity default.

Results

When you finish this task, a policy set is attached or detached, and a binding is assigned to the service artifact.

Example

If you have configured a service client application instance, app1 and you want, for example, to attach the Username WSSecurity default policy set to your application, first locate app1 application in the Applications > Application Types > WebSphere enterprise applications. Click app1 > Service client policy sets and bindings under the Web Services Properties section. Select the check box next to the app1 service application. Click Attach and select Username WSSecurity default policy set. Click Save, to save your changes to the master configuration.

To assign a binding to the attached policy set, click app1 > Service client policy sets and bindings. Select the check box next to the app1 service application and click Assign Binding. Select client sample binding from the list. Click Save, to save your changes to the master configuration.

What to do next

You can proceed to view service clients at the cell level using the administrative console.