2-way SSL and access control using the client certificate

Question

Hi,
I'd like to configure WLS 8.1 so that the server will use the client identity extracted from the client certificate to determine whether permissions should be granted. I am having some problems.
Details: The client can be either a Web service or a web application. The steps for authentication and authorization should be:
- The client sends a request to an Apache server (DMZ) which will then be forwarded to WLS.
- The client's identity, common name from the X.509 certificate, is mapped to the "username" (using WLS default identity assertion provider).
- Validate whether the client should be trusted (via the list in the trusted credentials)
- Check whether the resource should be granted based on the "username".
The on-line manual says
"If the Web browser or Java client requests a WebLogic Server resource protected by a security policy, WebLogic Server requires that the Web browser or Java client have an identity."
"The user corresponding to the Subject's Distinguished Name (SubjectDN) attribute in the client's digital certificate must be defined in the server's security realm; otherwise the client will not be allowed to access a protected WebLogic resource. For information on configuring users on the server, see Creating Users in Managing WebLogic Security."
So the questions I have are:
- If the client identity is certificate based, why should we configure users with the "user name" and "password"? How can we get around it?
- Once I defined the security condition for my app to use "user name of the caller," a default username and password prompt automatically popped up.
Apparently, the SSL mutual authentication configuration and the default authentication provider to use the X.509 type didn't take any effect.
- Without defining the security policy for the application, the debugging messages show that
getRoles(): input arguments: subject:0
Entitlement - <Role:Annonymous with expr:Grp(everyone)>
Any suggestions? Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi,
I am trying to use 2 way ssl using webservices client , here is my code :
AxisProperties.setProperty("org.apache.axis.components.net.SecureSocketFactory","org.apache.axis.components.net.SunFakeTrustSocketFactory");
SSLAdapterFactory factory = SSLAdapterFactory.getDefaultFactory();
WLSSLAdapter adapter = (WLSSLAdapter) factory.getSSLAdapter();
// clientCredentialFile stores in PEM format the public key and
// all the CAs associated with it + then the private key. All this in // a concatenated manner
FileInputStream clientCredentialFile = new FileInputStream ("C:\\sslcert\\client-pub3.pem");
// private key password
String pwd = "password";
adapter.loadLocalIdentity(clientCredentialFile, pwd.toCharArray());
adapter.setVerbose(true);
adapter.setTrustedCertificatesFile("C:\\certificate\\server\\server.jks");
adapter.setStrictCheckingDefault(false);
factory.setDefaultAdapter(adapter);
factory.setUseDefaultAdapter(true);
boolean idAvailability = false;
UNSLocator locator = new UNSLocator();
URL portAddress = new URL("https://localhost:7002/smuSSWeb/UNSResponse.xml");
UNSPort unsprt = locator.getUNSPort(portAddress);
idAvailability = unsprt.isIDAvailable("Yulin125", "C");
System.out.println("Got from method :"+idAvailability);
After runing this code i am getting the following exception :
AxisFault
faultCode: {http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/}Server.userException
faultSubcode:
faultString: java.net.SocketException: Software caused connection abort: socket write error
faultActor:
faultNode:
faultDetail:
I am using .pem (clientsigned,clientinter,clientroot, root-key) files for client authentication and i am using server.jks as a keystore for my server authentication.Once i run this code , i am able to present the server certificate chain to the client but i am not able to present the client certificate chain to server.
I am stuck with for quite sometime.
Some insight needed from the guru's