A trust anchor specifies the keystores that contain trusted root certificates. These certificates are used to validate the X.509 certificate that is embedded in the SOAP message. These keystores are used by the following message points to validate the X.509 certificate that is used for digital signature or XML encryption:
The keystores are critical to the integrity of the digital signature validation. If the keystores are tampered with, the result of the digital signature verification is doubtful and compromised. Therefore, IBM recommends that you secure these keystores. The binding configuration specified for the request consumer in the ibm-webservices-bnd.xmi file must match the binding configuration for the request generator in the ibm-webservicesclient-bnd.xmi file.
The trust anchor is defined as java.security.cert.TrustAnchor in the Java
CertPath API. The Java CertPath API uses
the trust anchor and the certificate store to validate the incoming X.509
certificate that is embedded in the SOAP message. The Web services security
implementation in WebSphere Application Server supports this trust anchor.
In WebSphere Application Server, the trust anchor is represented as a Java
keystore object. The type, path, and password of the keystore are passed to
the implementation through the administrative console or by scripting.