What about security in adf faces application ?

Question

It seem that the documentation has a little bit changed about security for adf faces application.
SRDemo J2EE sample application only implemented the security at the web container and may be for the session beans (don't remember) by using security-role and security-constraint in web.xml configuration file.
It seem that the documentation recommand now to implement adf security and didn't find anymore the reference to the standard j2ee security implementation.
We found also that the security constraints checked by the web container was sometimes ignored and the container didn't ask us to login before displaying a page.
Is ADF security a clear Oracle recommandation for ADF Faces application ?
What about j2ee security for this type of application (why it is not recommended to use it) ?

Answer 1

Hi,
there is no single recommedation about security because security ideally is applied on several levels to implement security in depth. Container managed security with J2EE is a good option to secure page access and - if using EJB - to propagate the user identity for method level access control.
Using ADF Security, which is security added to the binding layer based on JAAS, a second layer of the security onion becomes available that allows you to define which user is allowed to perform which operation on an iterator or attribute binding. This goes beyond of what container managed security can do for you.
The thrid layer is business layer security and eventually database security.
For Oracle Open World we will have a developmengt track and one of the presentation I am giving with Ric Smith from our team is about end-to-end application security for ADF Faces, ADF, ADF BCor TopLink/EJB and the Oracle database.
The plan is to also write this up in a paper, but this would come late because of other priorities I have on my plate. So attending OOW probably is the best option for you to get the big picture
Frank