Security in an jsp application using BIBeans

Question

Hi all,
We are developing a system with BIB to access OLAP 9.2.0.5. We need to implement some access rules at database level, i.e. user 1 can read levels 1, 2 and 3 of a hierarchical dimension, but user 2 can only read level 3. We do not know how to pass this database rules to BI catalog user, or replace this BI user with database connection information, to have more than one different user connection accessing the system. Anyone can help me?
thanks in advance,
Alexandre Martins - Commit Consultores - Brazil

Answer 1

We are developing a jsp application with TAG libraries
Ex.:
<orabi:BIThinSession id="BIThinSession1" configuration="/Project1BIConfig1.xml" >
<orabi:Presentation id="untitled1_Presentation1" location="Presentation1" />
</orabi:BIThinSession>
<FORM name="BIForm">
<!-- Insert your Business Intelligence tags here -->
<orabi:Render targetId="untitled1_Presentation1" parentForm="BIForm" />
<%-- The InsertHiddenFields tag adds state fields to the parent form tag --%>
<orabi:InsertHiddenFields parentForm="BIForm" biThinSessionId="BIThinSession1" />
</FORM>
This application hás a login screen, where the user will pass his database username and password, which corresponds equally to a user of same name at the BI Beans catalog.
Here is the moment that we face the Problem: We can not change the user to switch to the database user. The catalog user is switched by BIUser().
Workarounds performed:
     1 – We created a ConnectionProvider class to establish the connection with the properties and another class - AuthenticationProvider - to pass parameters to the connection.
          Problem: Could not pass parameters to Application Authentication class. Tried to force application to connect to authentication or vice-versa to pass username that was informed at login screen but this does not work.
     Ex.: trying to set this classes at configuration file (.xml).
     User “ALEX” has database access (OLAP , MOLAP) and catalog access .
public class AuthenticationProvider implements oracle.dss.security.AuthenticationProvider {
public void authenticate(Hashtable properties) throws BISecurityException {
properties.put(“user_name”, “ALEX”);
properties.put(“password”, “ALEX_1”);
public class ConnectionProvider implements oracle.dss.security.ConnectionProvider {
public Object connect(Hashtable properties) throws BISecurityException {
Connection conn = null;
try {
DriverManager.registerDriver(new OracleDriver());
String sUSER = properties.get("user_name").toString();
String sPW = properties.get("password").toString();
String connStr = "";
if(properties.get("jdbctype").equals("thin")) {
connStr = "jdbc:oracle:thin:@" +
properties.get("hostname") + ":" +
properties.get("port") + ":" +
properties.get("sid");
conn = (Connection)DriverManager.getConnection(connStr, sUSER, sPW);
catch(Throwable t) { throw new BISecurityException("Erro na conexão!", t); }
return conn;
     2 – Tried to get configuration through session searching all the connections and changing user to desired connection (in this case “thin”, MM.MDM) and reconnecting or disconnecting and reconnecting again.
At this point, debugged the database connection and could see that username actually changed, but when the program reached the open presentation TAG received an error because TAG could not understand the connection.
     Ex.: This is in between session TAG
<orabi:BIThinSession id="BIThinSession1" configuration="/Project1BIConfig1.xml" >
<%
ManagerFactory mf = BIThinSession1.getManagerFactory();
MetadataManager mdm = null;
if (mf != null) {
mdm = (MetadataManager) mf.lookupManager(
ManagerFactory.METADATA_MANAGER, null, true);
if (mdm != null) {
try {
int iAttachStatus = mdm.getAttachStatus();
if ((iAttachStatus != MM.ATTACHED) &&
(iAttachStatus != MM.ATTACHING))
mdm.attach();
Connection[] connectionArray = mdm.getConnections();
if (connectionArray != null) {
int count = connectionArray.length;
for (int index = 0; index < count; index++) {
String driverType = connectionArray[index].getDriverType();
if ( (driverType != null) &&
(driverType.equals(MM.MDM)) &&
(connectionArray[index].isConnected()) ) {
if(driverType.equals(MM.MDM)) {
connectionArray[index].setUsername("ALEX");
connectionArray[index].setPassword("ALEX_1");
connectionArray[index].reconnect(connectionArray[index].getPropertyBag());
catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace(); // just for demo purpose
%>
<orabi:Presentation id="untitled1_Presentation1" location="Presentation1" />
</orabi:BIThinSession>