Developing stand-alone custom registries

This development provides considerable flexibility in adapting WebSphere® Application Server security to various environments where some notion of a user registry, other than LDAP or Local OS, already exists in the operational environment.

Before you begin

WebSphere Application Server security supports the use of stand-alone custom registries in addition to the local operating system registry, stand-alone Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) registries, and federated repositories for authentication and authorization purposes. A stand-alone custom-implemented registry uses the UserRegistry Java™ interface as provided by WebSphere Application Server. A stand-alone custom-implemented registry can support virtually any type or notion of an accounts repository from a relational database, flat file, and so on.

Implementing a stand-alone custom registry is a software development effort. Implement the methods that are defined in the com.ibm.websphere.security.UserRegistry interface to make calls to the appropriate registry to obtain user and group information. The interface defines a general set of methods for encapsulating a wide variety of registries. You can configure a stand-alone custom registry as the selected repository when configuring WebSphere Application Server security on the Global security panel.

In WebSphere Application Server Version 8.5, make sure that your implementation of the stand-alone custom registry does not depend on any WebSphere Application Server components such as data sources, Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) and Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI). You can not have this dependency because security is initialized and enabled prior to most of the other WebSphere Application Server components during startup. If your previous implementation used these components, make a change that eliminates the dependency. For example, if your previous implementation used data sources to connect to a database, instead use the JDBC java.sql.DriverManager interface to connect to the database.

Note: The user registry is used in controllers and servants. There is an increased risk of integrity exposure in that configuration if the registry implementation is not secured.

If your previous implementation uses data sources to connect to a database, change the implementation to use Java database connectivity (JDBC) connections.

1. Implement all the methods in the interface except for the CreateCredential method, which is implemented by WebSphere Application Server.
   FileRegistrySample.java file is provided for reference.

   Attention: The sample provided is intended to familiarize you with this feature. Do not use this sample in an actual production environment.
2. Build your implementation.
   To compile your code, you need the app_server_root/plugins/com.ibm.ws.runtime.jar and the app_server_root/plugins/com.ibm.ws.security.crypto.jar files in your class path. For example:

   app_server_root/java/bin/javac -classpath 
   app_server_root/plugins/com.ibm.ws.runtime.jar;
   app_server_root/plugins/com.ibm.ws.security.crypto.jar your_implementation_file.java

   

   app_server_root\java\bin\javac -classpath 
   app_server_root\plugins\com.ibm.ws.runtime.jar:
   app_server_root\plugins\com.ibm.ws.security.crypto.jar your_implementation_file.java

   To compile your code, you need the com.ibm.ws.runtime.jar and the com.ibm.ws.security.crypto.jar files in your class path. For example:

   javac -extdirs app_server_root/java/ext:/QIBM/UserData/Java400/ext:
   /QOpenSys/QIBM/ProdData/JavaVM/jdk60/32bit/jre/lib/ext:app_server_root/lib   
   -classpath app_server_root/plugins/com.ibm.ws.runtime.jar: 
   app_server_root/plugins/com.ibm.ws.security.crypto.jar 
    com/ibm/websphere/security/FileRegistrySample.java 

   The previous lines of code for your class path are one continuous line.
3. Create a classes subdirectory in your profile for custom classes.
   For more information, see Creating a classes subdirectory in your profile for custom classes.

   Create the classes subdirectory for each node in the cell.

4. Copy the class files that are generated in the previous step to the product class path.
   The preferred location is the following directory:

   • %install_root%/lib/ext
   • %install_root%\lib\ext

   directory. Copy these class files to all of the product process class paths.

   The preferred location is the app_server_root\classes directory. For more information, see Creating a classes subdirectory in your profile for custom classes. Copy the class files to all the product process class paths including the cell, all of the node agents.

5. To configure your implementation using the administrative console, follow the steps in topics about configuring stand-alone custom registries.
   This step is required to implement custom user registries.