An identity is a piece of information which can uniquely identify an individual or object.
Within the broker identity is held as eight properties, which define two identities in the broker: source and mapped. For both the source and mapped identities, values are held for Type, Token, Password, and IssuedBy properties:
The Type property defines the format of the Token, and can be in the form of username, usernameAndPassword or x.509. The Token property holds the actual token and, in the case of a usernameAndPassword token, the Password field contains the attached password. The IssuedBy field defines where the Token was created. For example, for a x.509 certificate this could be “IBM” (the Common Name of the Certifying Authority). For username and usernameAndPassword formats, this is transport specific unless the IssuedBy property is set on the node. For more information, see Configuring identity
The source identity is always set by the input node. The information to fill these fields is commonly found in the headers of a message but can also be located in the body, provided the node has been configured with an ESQL Path or XPath reference for the various properties. If multiple identities are available (for example through aggregation), the first identity is used. The token extraction is transport specific and can be performed only using transports that support the flow of identities These are currently: MQ, HTTP(S), and SOAP.
The values in the properties are writeable (for example, from ESQL), although it is not recommended to write to the IdentitySource* values. This could be used to create a custom identity mapping routine in ESQL by using the IdentitySource* values to create custom IdentityMapped* values.