International Business Machines Corporation

Anthony Scott Moran

Heather Maria Hinton

Patrick Ryan Wardrop

Brian James Turner

Dolapo Martin Falola

Benjamin Brewer Harmon

Ivan Matthew Milman

Matthias Schunter

Peter Sean Calvert

Birgit Monika Pfitzmann

Thomas R Gross

Gavin George Bray

Ian Glazer

Venkat Raghavan

Warwick Leslie Burrows

Shane Weeden

Guenter Karioth

Brook M Lovatt

Benjamin Brewer c/o Ibm Uk Ltd Harmon

Mark c/o Ibm United Kingdom Limited Intellectual Property Law Vandenwauver

A method carried out at a point of contact (e.g., reverse proxy, a web server plug-in, or the like) that serves as an intermediary between a client browser and one or more back-end applications (or application component), wherein each back-end application has the capability to set its own server-side session management data with respect to the point of contact that is independent of any client-side session management data set by the point of contact and used by the point of contact to manage a user session. The method begins as a given back-end application returns a response to a first request that has been issued from the client browser (the first request having been received at the point of contact and passed to a back end application or component for processing). The point of contact intercepts the out-going response, augments server-side session management data associated therewith with a 'stamp,' and forwards to the client browser the response together with the server-side session management data as augmented to include the stamp. The stamp provides a way for the point of contact to later determine whether the server-side session management data, if received with another user request, is valid for that request. Later, upon receipt at the point of contact of a new user request that includes the server-side session management data (and stamp), the point of contact uses the stamp to determine whether the new request is valid. If so, the point of contact removes the stamp from the server-side session management data and forwards the new request (and the management data) to the back-end application for handling.

Method and system for global logoff from a web-based point of contact server

A method and system is presented to parse a WSDL description and build a hierarchical protected object namespace for authorization of access to the resource, wherein the protected object namespace is based on the abstract part of a WSDL but can be used to assist in authorization decisions for multiple different concrete bindings of this WSDL, wherein the concrete binding/request is based on the WS-Addressing endpoint reference.

Method and system for creating a protected object namespace for a WSDL resource description

A method and a system are presented in which federated domains interact within a federated environment. Domains within a federation can initiate federated single-sign-on operations for a user at other federated domains. A point-of-contact server within a domain relies upon a trust proxy within the domain to manage trust relationships between the domain and the federation. Trust proxies interpret assertions from other federated domains as necessary. Trust proxies may have a trust relationship with one or more trust brokers, and a trust proxy may rely upon a trust broker for assistance in interpreting assertions. When a user is provisioned at a particular federated domain, the federated domain can provision the user to other federated domains within the federated environment. A provision operation may include creating or deleting an account for a user, pushing updated user account information including attributes, and requesting updates on account information including attributes.

Method and system for federated provisioning

Method and system for creating a protected object namespace from a WSDL resource description

Methods, systems, and computer program products are disclosed that give entities flexibility to implement custom authentication methods of other entities for authentication of a principal in a federation by authenticating the principal by an identity provider according to a service provider's authentication policy and recording in session data of the identity provider an authentication credential satisfying the service provider's authentication policy. Authentication of a principal in a federation is also carried out by authenticating the principal by the identity provider according to an identity provider's authentication policy. Authentication of a principal in a federation is further carried out by receiving in the identity provider an authentication request from the service provider, the authentication request specifying the service provider's authentication policy.

Authentication of a principal in a federation

The invention provides federated functionality within a data processing system by means of a set of specialized runtimes, which are instances of an application for providing federation services to requesters. Each of the plurality of specialized runtimes provides requested federation services for selected ones of the requestors according to configuration data of respective federation relationships of the requestors with the identity provider. The configuration data is dynamically retrieved during initialization of the runtimes which allows the respective_runtime to be specialized for a given federation relationship. Requests are routed to the appropriate specialized runtime using the first requestor identity and the given federation relationship. The data, which describes each federation relationship between the identity provider and each of the plurality of requestors, is configured prior to initialization of the runtimes.

Specializing support for a federation relationship

A method is presented for managing authentication credentials for a user. A session management server performs session management with respect to the user for a domain that includes a protected resource. The session management server receives a request to access the protected resource, which requires authentication credentials that have been generated for a first type of authentication context. In response to determining that authentication credentials for the user have been generated for a second type of authentication context, the session management server sends to an authentication proxy server a first message that contains the authentication credentials for the user and an indicator for the first type of authentication context. The session management server subsequently receives a second message that contains updated authentication credentials for the user that indicate that the updated authentication credentials have been generated for the first type of authentication context.

Method and system for extending authentication methods

Access Control Lists control permitted actions on protected network computer system resources by providing an access control policy associated with the requested protected system resource containing a permission list of permitted identities and at least one action group tag with associated action indicators; reusing a finite quantity of action indicators among a plurality of action group tags to control a number of unique permissions less than or equal to the product of the quantity of allowable action indicators and a quantity of allowable action group tags; evaluating the permission list according to a specific permission definition associated with the action group tag, the permission definition providing a correlation between members of a set of action indicators; and granting authorization to perform actions on the requested protected system resource to the requesting user if the access control policy permission list includes an appropriate action indicator correlated to an action group tag.

Grouped access control list actions

A method and a system are presented in which federated domains interact within a federated environment. Domains within a federation can initiate federated operations for a user at other federated domains. A point-of-contact server within a domain relies upon a trust proxy within the domain to manage trust relationships between the domain and the federation. The point-of-contact server receives incoming requests directed to the domain and interfaces with a first application server and a second application server, wherein the first application server responds to requests for access to controlled resources and the second application server responds to requests for access to federated user lifecycle management functions, which are implemented using one or more pluggable modules that interface with the second application server.

Method and system for pluggability of federation protocol runtimes for federated user lifecycle management

A method is presented for obtaining information from a client for the benefit of a server using a particular communication protocol that the server does not implement. A primary server receives a client-generated request, and the primary server sends a first request to a secondary server as part of the processing of the client-generated request. While processing the first request, the secondary server determines a need for data obtainable from a client application that supports user interaction using a communication protocol for which the secondary server is not configured to implement. The secondary server sends a second request to the primary server for obtaining data that results from using the communication protocol. The secondary server subsequently receives the resulting data and continues to process the first request using the resulting data, after which the secondary server returns a response for the first request to the primary server.

Method for access by server-side components using unsupported communication protocols through passthrough mechanism

The invention provides federated functionality within a data processing system by means of a set of specialized runtimes. Each of the plurality of specialized runtimes provides requested federation services for selected ones of the requestors according to configuration data of respective federation relationships of the requestors with the identity provider. The configuration data is dynamically retrieved during initialization of the runtimes which allows the respective runtime to be specialized for a given federation relationship. Requests are routed to the appropriate specialized runtime using the first requestor identity and the given federation relationship. The data which describes each federation relationship between the identity provider and each of the plurality of requesters is configured prior to initialization of the runtimes. Configuration data is structured into global specified data, federation relationship data and requestor specific data to minimize data change, making the addition or deletion of requestors very scalable.

A dynamic information retrieval service is provided that can be configured to retrieve entitlement information from a plurality of providers. Any application that requires entitlement data may make a request for that information to the dynamic information retrieval service using a single standard interface. A request includes information describing the identity of the user and a list of names representing the entitlement data that are required. The dynamic information retrieval service determines the appropriate provider for the entitlement information, retrieves the entitlement data, and returns the requested entitlement data to the application. The dynamic information retrieval service may also cache the entitlement data. The dynamic information retrieval service may process requests requiring several distinct items of entitlement data to be retrieved in parallel. Therefore, applications may send a single request for entitlement data for a single user, but for several providers.

Dynamic access decision information module

Access Control Lists (ACLs) are used to describe the permitted actions (permissions) on protected network computer system resources or objects associated with an client or user identity. An identity may be an individual user or group of users. The actions are used to represent the different access methods available on a particular projected object or resource. A new action grouping mechanism is provided which tags each action with an action group name. The grouping of actions facilitates a larger permission set to be defined in an ACL, whereas action permission indicators can be reused for unique action definitions within various action groups. This effectively extends the finite total number of permissions available within a security system, allows a more descriptive and extensible permission mechanism in an Access Control List, as well as aiding in the simplification of management and definition of security policies.

A method, an apparatus, a system, and a computer program product are presented for allowing an administrative user to provide help, support, or assistance to other users within a computing environment. An administrator obtains a username of a user who requires assistance through some means. The administrator belongs to a special group of users that is allowed to invoke a switch-user function, which obtains a comprehensive version of that user's identity, e.g., security credentials, while maintaining a session. With respect to applications and systems within a computing environment, the administrator's session will have the attributes of the assumed user identity as if the administrator had logged in with that user's authentication information. The administrator then accesses resources while impersonating that user in order to assist that user or to find a problem.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Cruz, CA, United States of America

Anthony Scott Moran