There are two choices you have when assigning roles: WebSphere
Application Server authorization, which uses the Security role to user/group
mapping panel of the administrative console or the system authorization
facility (SAF) for role-based authorization, which uses SAF authorization
for Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) roles. This topic only describes
using the Security role to user/group mapping panel of the administrative
console (WebSphere Application Server authorization for J2EE roles) to assign
users and groups to roles.
About this task
These steps are common for both
installing an application and modifying an existing application. If the application
contains roles, you see the Security role to user/group mapping link during
application installation and also during application management, as a link
in the Additional properties section.
- Access the administrative console.
Type http://localhost:port_number/ibm/console in
a Web browser.
Type http://server_name:port_number/ibm/console in
a Web browser.
- Click Applications > Enterprise applications > application_name .
- Under Detail properties, click Security role
to user/group mapping. A list of all the roles that belong
to this application is displayed. If the roles already have users or All Authentication
or Everyone special subjects assigned, they display here.
- To assign the special subjects, select either the Everyone or
the All Authenticated option for the appropriate roles.
- To assign users or groups, select the role. You can
select multiple roles at the same time, if the same users or groups are assigned
to all the roles.
- Click Look up users or Look up groups.
- Get the appropriate users and groups from the user registry by
completing the Limit and the Search string fields and by clicking Search.
The Limit field limits the number of users that are obtained and displayed
from the user registry. The pattern is a searchable pattern matching one or
more users and groups. For example, user* lists users like user1,
user2. A pattern of asterisk (*) indicates all users or groups.
Use the
limit and the search strings cautiously so as not to overwhelm the user registry.
When you use large user registries such as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
(LDAP) where information on thousands of users and groups resides, a search
for a large number of users or groups can make the system slow and can make
it fail. When more entries exist than requests for entries, a message displays
on top of the panel. You can refine your search until you have the required
list.
If the search string you are using has no matches, a NULL error
message is displayed. This message is informational and does not necessarily
indicate an error, as it is valid to have no entries matching your selected
criteria.
- Select the users and groups to include as members of these roles
from the Available field and click >> to add them to the roles.
- To remove existing users and groups, select them from the Selected field
and click <<. When removing existing users and groups
from roles, use caution if those same roles are used as RunAs roles.
For
example, if the user1 user is assigned to the role1 RunAs role and you try
to remove the user1 user from the role1 role, the administrative console validation
does not delete the user. A user can only be part of a RunAs role if the user
is already in a role either directly or indirectly through a group. In this
case, the user1 user is in the role1 role. For more information on the validation
checks that are performed between RunAs role mapping and user and group mapping
to roles, see Assigning users to RunAs roles.
- Click OK. If any validation problems exist between
the role assignments and the RunAs role assignments, the changes are not committed
and an error message that indicates the problem displays at the top of the
panel. If a problem exists, make sure that the user in the RunAs role is also
a member of the regular role. If the regular role contains a group that contains
the user in the RunAs role, make sure that the group is assigned to the role
using the administrative console. Follow steps 4 and 5. Avoid using the Application
Server Toolkit or any other manual process where the complete name of the
group, host name, group name, or distinguished name (DN) is not used.
What to do next
This task is required to assign users and groups to roles, which
enables the correct users and groups to access a secured application. If you
are installing an application, complete your installation. After the application
is installed and running you can access your resources according to the user
and group mapping that you did in this task. If you manage applications and
modify the users and groups to role mapping, make sure you save, stop, and
restart the application so that the changes become effective. Try accessing
the J2EE resources in the application to verify that the changes are effective.
Note: Depending upon how your active user registry is configured,
the search results of security user or group role mappings are displayed
in different formats. With federated repository, LDAP, file-based and custom
registries can be used. WebSphere Application Server can uniquely identify
users from various registries by the user names listed in the table.
Attention: In a distributed
environment, when you install WebSphere Application Server with samples, enable
security using federated repositories, and start the server1 server with sample
applications, the server might create exceptions. However, the server starts
successfully. The deployment manager did not create user and group samples
when it created the deployment manager profile. To resolve exceptions caused
by the samples failing to load, create your own sample users and groups. In
the administrative console, do the following:
- Click Users and Groups > Manage Users.
- Create the samples user and the sampadmn group. The samples user
is a member of the sampadmn group.
For more assistance, refer to the "Managing users" help topic by clicking
More
information about this page at the top right of the Manage Users panel.