To fully support the required communications for WebSphere Application Server, a secure communication mechanism is required to ensure that applications are communicating securely.
For more information, refer to Communicating securely. Configure the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) channel as part of the transport channel service to provide secure communication for all users.
The SSL channel is a protocol channel that provides the same interface as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) channel. The SSL channel implements the same application interface that the TCP channel implements, so you can write upstream channels to use only TCP channel functions. SSL function can be provided using the SSL channel without modifying the upstream channel. The SSL channel communicates with the network using a downstream channel that implements the TCP channel interface.
The SSL channel receives configuration information from JSSE repertoires that is configured and maintained by WebSphere Application Server. The SSL channel configuration attribute for the security repertoire name provides a reference to all the security attributes that are required to initialize the SSL channel. If a security repertoire is not available, channel data can be filled in with a map of the property names. If properties are specified in addition to the repertoire name, they override the parameters in the repertoire. Additional security information can be provided as part of individual container configuration.
For more information on the SSL channel, refer to Transport chains or Transport protocol for a high availability manager.
For general information on SSL, refer to Secure Sockets Layer.