Securing applications during assembly and deployment

Several assembly tools exist that are graphical user interfaces for assembling enterprise or Java™ Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) applications. You can use these tools to assemble an application and secure Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) and web modules in that application.

About this task

An EJB module consists of one or more beans. You can enforce security at the EJB method level. A web module consists of one or more web resources: an HTML page, a JavaServer Pages (JSP) file, or a servlet. You can also enforce security for each web resource.
Note: For information about the tools that WebSphere® Application Server supports, see Assembly tools.

To secure an EJB module, a Java archive (JAR) file, a web module, a web application archive (WAR) file, or an application enterprise archive (EAR) file, you can use an assembly tool. You can create an application, an EJB module, or a web module and secure them using an assembly tool or development tools such as the IBM® Rational® Application Developer.

Procedure

  1. Secure EJB applications by using an assembly tool.
    For more information, see Securing enterprise bean applications.
  2. Secure web applications by using an assembly tool.
    For more information, see Securing web applications using an assembly tool.
  3. Add users and groups-to-roles while assembling a secured application using an assembly tool.
    For more information, see Adding users and groups to roles using an assembly tool.
  4. Map users to RunAs roles using an assembly tool.
    For more information, see Mapping users to RunAs roles using an assembly tool.
  5. Adding the was.policy file to applications for Java 2 security.
  6. Assemble the application components that you secured using an assembly tool.
    For more information, see Assembling applications.

Results

After securing an application, the resulting .ear file contains security information in its deployment descriptor. The EJB module security information is stored in the ejb-jar.xml file and the web module security information is stored in the web.xml file. The application.xml file of the application EAR file contains all the roles that are used in the application. The user and group-to-roles mapping is stored in the ibm-application-bnd.xmi file of the application EAR file.

Supported configurations: For IBM extension and binding files, the .xmi or .xml file name extension is different depending on whether you are using a pre-Java EE 5 application or module or a Java EE 5 or later application or module. An IBM extension or binding file is named ibm-*-ext.xmi or ibm-*-bnd.xmi where * is the type of extension or binding file such as app, application, ejb-jar, or web. The following conditions apply:
  • For an application or module that uses a Java EE version prior to version 5, the file extension must be .xmi.
  • For an application or module that uses Java EE 5 or later, the file extension must be .xml. If .xmi files are included with the application or module, the product ignores the .xmi files.

However, a Java EE 5 or later module can exist within an application that includes pre-Java EE 5 files and uses the .xmi file name extension.

The ibm-webservices-ext.xmi, ibm-webservices-bnd.xmi, ibm-webservicesclient-bnd.xmi, ibm-webservicesclient-ext.xmi, and ibm-portlet-ext.xmi files continue to use the .xmi file extensions.

[AIX Solaris HP-UX Linux Windows][IBM i]The was.policy file of the application EAR contains the permissions that are granted for the application to access system resources that are protected by Java 2 security.

This task is required to secure EJB modules and web modules in an application. This task is also required for applications to run properly when Java 2 security is enabled. If the was.policy file is not created and it does not contain required permissions, the application might not be able to access system resources.

What to do next

After securing an application, you can install an application by using the administrative console. When you install a secured application, refer to Deploying secured applications to complete this task.