Configuring local operating system registries

Use these steps to configure local operating system registries.

Before you begin

For detailed information about using the local operating system user registry, see Local operating system registries. These steps set up security based on the local operating system user registry on which WebSphere Application Server is installed.

For security purposes, the WebSphere Application Server provides and supports the implementation for Windows operating system registries, AIX®, Solaris and multiple versions of Linux® operating systems. The respective operating system application programming interface (API) are called by the product processes (servers) for authenticating a user and other security-related tasks (for example, getting user or group information). Access to these APIs are restricted to users who have special privileges. These privileges depend on the operating system and are described later in this topic.

When a local operating system registry is chosen, the started task identity is chosen as the server identity. A user ID and password are not required to configure the server.

Important: Each started task, for example, a controller, servant, or daemon might have a different identity. Because you should give differing resource authorizations to each, you should give differing user IDs to controllers and servants. The z/OS Profile Management Tool sets up these identities.

Consider the following issues:

• The server ID needs to be different from the Windows machine name where the product is installed. For example, if the Windows machine name is vicky and the security server ID is vickyy, the Windows system fails when getting the information (group information, for example) for user vicky.
• WebSphere Application Server dynamically determines whether the machine is a member of a Windows system domain.
• WebSphere Application Server does not support Windows trusted domains.
• If a machine is a member of a Windows domain, both the domain user registry and the local user registry of the machine participate in authentication and security role mapping.
• If you use a Windows domain user ID to install and run WebSphere Application Server, the ID must have the following privileges:
  • Be a member of the domain administrative groups in the domain controller
  • Have the Act as part of the operating system privilege in the local security policy on the local machine.
  • Have the Log on as a service privilege on the local machine if the server runs as a service.
• The domain user registry takes precedence over the local user registry of the machine and can have undesirable implications if users with the same password exist in both user registries.
• The user that the product processes run under requires the Administrative and Act as part of the operating system privileges to call the Windows operating system APIs that authenticate or collect user and group information. The process needs special authority, which is given by these privileges. The user in this example might not be the same as the security server ID (the requirement for which is a valid user in the registry). This user logs into the machine (if using the command line to start the product process) or the Log On User setting in the services panel if the product processes have started using the services.

Consider the following points:

• The user that the product processes run under requires the root privilege. This privilege is needed to call the operating system APIs to authenticate or to collect user and group information. The process needs special authority, which is given by the root privilege. This user might not be the same as the security server ID (the requirement is that it should be a valid user in the registry). This user logs into the machine and is running the product processes.
• The user that enables administrative security must have the root privilege if you use the local operating system registry. Otherwise, a failed validation error is displayed.
• You might need to have the password shadow file in your system.

About this task

When you set up a user registry for WebSphere Application Server, the System Authorization Facility (SAF) works in conjunction with the user registry to authorize applications to run on the server. For more information on the SAF capabilities, see System Authorization Facility user registries. Complete the following steps to configure additional properties that are associated with the local OS user registry and SAF configuration.

Important: The local operating system is not a valid user account repository when you have a mixed cell environment that includes both z/OS platform and non-z/OS platform nodes.

The following steps are needed to perform this task initially when setting up security for the first time.

1. Click Security > Global security.
2. Under User account repository, select Local operating system and click Configure.
3. Enter a valid user name in the Primary administrative user name field.
   This value is the name of a user with administrative privileges that is defined in the registry. This user name is used to access the administrative console or used by wsadmin.
4. If SAF authorization is not enabled, enter a valid user name in the Primary administrative user name field.
   This value is the name of a user with administrative privileges that is defined in the registry. This user name is used to access the administrative console or used by wsadmin.
5. Optional: Select the Ignore case for authorization option to enable WebSphere Application Server to perform a case insensitive authorization check when you use the default authorization.
6. Click Apply.
7. Select either the Automatically generated server identity or Server identity that is stored in the repository option.
   If you select the Server identity that is stored in the repository option, enter the following information:

   Server user ID or administrative user

   Specify the short name of the account that is chosen in the second step.

   Server user password

   Specify the password of the account that is chosen in the second step.

8. Select either the Automatically generated server identity or User identity for the z/OS started task.
9. Enter a valid user profile name in the Primary administrative user name field.

   The Primary administrative user name specifies the user profile to use when the server authenticates to the underlying operating system. This identity is also the user that has initial authority to access the administrative application through the administrative console. The administrative user ID is common to all user registries. The administrative ID is a member of the chosen registry and it has special privileges in WebSphere Application Server. However, it does not have any special privileges in the registry that it represents. In other words, you can select any valid user ID in the registry to use as the administrative user ID or server user ID.

   For the Primary administrative user name field, you can specify any user profile that meets this criteria:

   • The user profile has a status of *ENABLED.
   • The user profile has a valid password.
   • The user profile is not used as a group profile.
     Important: A group profile is assigned a unique group ID number, which is not assigned to a regular user profile. Run the DSPUSRPRF Display User Profile command to determine if the user profile you want to use as the Primary administrative user name has a defined group ID number. If the Group ID field is set to *NONE, you can use the user profile as the Primary administrative user name.
10. Optional: Enable and configure SAF authorization.
    1. Click Security > Global security > External authorization provider.
    2. Select the System Authorization Facility (SAF) authorization option to enable SAF as the authorization provider.
    3. Under Related items, click z/OS SAF authorization to configure SAF authorization.
       To see an explanation of the SAF authorization options, see z/OS System Authorization Facility authorization.
11. Click OK.

    The administrative console does not validate the user ID and password when you click OK. Validation is only done when you click OK or Apply in the Global security panel. First, make sure that you select Local operating system as the available realm definition in the User account repository section, and click Set as current. If security was already enabled and you had changed either the user or the password information in this panel, make sure to go to the Global security panel and click OK or Apply to validate your changes. If your changes are not validated, the server might not start.

    Important: Until you authorize other users to perform administrative functions, you can only access the administrative console with the server user ID and password that you specified. For more information, see Authorizing access to administrative roles.