Authentication and Authorization question.

Question

Hi All,
I require your help in getting validated my understanding on Authentication and Authorization. This is wrt to WebLogic Server and WebLogic Portal.
Authentication.
1. The custom authentication provider can authenticate(user and group) against any datastore(LDAP OR DB). The LoginModule is a kind of blockbox and it can return true/false depending on authentication.
2. The end result of this process is true/false.
Authorization.
1. The custom authorization providers can authorize the authenticated user based on role. All these entities ie(user,group,role) can be either in LDAP OR DB.
2. The end result of this process is true/false.
Role mapping.
1. The custom role mapper can put all the roles that a user belongs and returns all Role. This can happen agaist LDAP OR DB.
2. The end result is list of roles for a user.
Security policy configuration.
Is it mandatory that a user/group/role should be existing in WebLogic Server LDAP server(OR Portal LDAP server) to create these policies and authorization rules. What i mean by is that can user,group,role can exist in application specific database and still can be used for creatiing security policies??
Thanks,
Prashanth Bhat.

Answer 1

The Security Providers are useful/can be used for developing a standard j2ee application , which will be deployed as standard j2ee application.
The DA means Delegated Administrator, which is way how portal components are restricted to different types of administrators.
The VE means Visitor Entitlemens, which is way how portal components are restricted to end users.
My question is whether thess(DAs and VEs) can also be put
our datastore for access rights??
Thanks,
Prashanth Bhat.