Asynchronous messaging - security considerations

This topic describes considerations that you should be aware of if you want to use security for asynchronous messaging with WebSphere Application Server.

Security for messaging is enabled only when WebSphere Application Server administrative security is enabled. In this case:

• JMS connections made to the JMS provider are authenticated.

• Access to JMS resources owned by the JMS provider is controlled by access authorizations.

• Requests to create new connections to the JMS provider must provide a user ID and password for authentication.

• The user ID and password do not need to be provided by the application.

If authentication is successful, then the JMS connection is created; if the authentication fails then the connection request is ended.

Standard J2C authentication is used for a request to create a new connection to the JMS provider. If your resource authentication (res-auth) is set to Application, set the alias in the Component-managed Authentication Alias. If the application that tries to create a connection to the JMS provider specifies a user ID and password, those values are used to authenticate the creation request. If the application does not specify a user ID and password, the values defined by the Component-managed Authentication Alias are used. If the connection factory is not configured with a Component-managed Authentication Alias, then you receive a runtime JMS exception when an attempt is made to connect to the JMS provider. Restriction:

1. User IDs longer than 12 characters cannot be used for authentication with the V5 default messaging provider or WebSphere MQ. For example, the default Windows NT user ID, Administrator, is not valid for use because it contains 13 characters. Therefore, an authentication alias for a WebSphere JMS provider or WebSphere MQ connection factory must specify a user ID no longer than 12 characters.

2. If you want to use Bindings transport mode for JMS connections to WebSphere MQ, you set the property Transport type=BINDINGS on the WebSphere MQ Queue Connection Factory. You must also choose one of the following options:

   • To use security credentials, ensure that the user specified is the currently logged on user for the WebSphere Application Server process. If the user specified is not the current logged on user for the WebSphere Application Server process, then the WebSphere MQ JMS Bindings authentication throws the error MQJMS2013 invalid security authentication supplied for MQQueueManager.

   • Do not specify security credentials. On the WebSphere MQ Connection Factory, ensure that both the Component-managed Authentication Alias and the Container-managed Authentication Alias properties are not set.

Authorization to access messages stored by the default messaging provider is controlled by authorization to access the service integration bus destinations on which the messages are stored. For information about authorizing permissions for individual bus destinations, see Administering destination roles.

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