WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment, Version 6.0.x     Operating Systems: AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, Windows

Security considerations specific to a multi-node or process Network Deployment environment

Before you begin

WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment supports centralized management of distributed nodes and application servers. This support inherently brings complexity, especially when security is included. Because everything is distributed, security plays an even larger role in ensuring that communications are appropriately secure between application servers and node agents, and between node agents (a node-specific configuration manager) and the deployment manager (a domain-wide, centralized configuration manager). Consider the following issues associated with operating in this environment.

Because the processes are distributed, the authentication mechanism that must be used is Lightweight Third Party Authentication (LTPA). The LTPA tokens are encrypted, signed and forwardable to remote processes. However, the tokens have expirations. The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) connector which is the default connector, is used for administrative security and does not have retry logic for expired tokens. However, the protocol is stateless so a new token is created for each request if there is not sufficient time to run the request with the given time left in the token. An alternative connector is the RMI connector, which is stateful, and has some retry logic to correct expired tokens by resubmitting the requests after the error is detected. Also, because tokens have time-specific expiration, the synchronization of the system clocks are crucial to the proper operation of token-based validation. If the clocks are off by too much (approximately 10-15 minutes), you can encounter unrecoverable validation failures that can be avoided by having them in sync. Verify that the clock time, date, and time zones are all the same between systems. It is acceptable for nodes to be across time zones, provided that the times are correct within the time zones (for example, 5 PM CST = 6 PM EST, and so on).

Why and when to perform this task

Consider the following issues when using or planning for a Network Deployment environment:

Result

Proper understanding of the security interactions between distributed servers greatly reduces the problems that are encountered with secure communications. Security adds complexity because additional function must be managed. For security to work properly, it needs thorough consideration during the planning of your infrastructure.

What to do next

When you have security problems that are related to the WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment environment, see Troubleshooting security configurations to find additional information about the problem. When trace is needed to solve a problem because servers are distributed, it is often required to gather trace on all servers simultaneously while recreating the problem. This trace can be enabled dynamically or statically, depending on the type of problem that is occurring.
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Last updated: Mar 17, 2005 4:28:29 AM CST
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