Getting Started with WebSphere Application Server

Chapter 8 – Security 155
Figure 8.7 – Portlets for Community Edition administrative configuration
8.5 Securing your data with trusted contexts
Trusted contexts provide a way to build fast and more secure three-tier applications. A three-tiered
application consists of a database server such as DB2, a middleware server such as Community Edition,
and end users. With this model, Community Edition is responsible for accessing the DB2 database server
on behalf of end users. Trusted context support ensures that an end user's DB2 database identity and
DB2 database privileges are used when Community Edition performs any database requests on behalf of
that end user.
The user's identity is always preserved for auditing and security purposes. When you require secure
connections, trusted contexts improve performance because you do not have to get new connections.
A trusted context is an object that the DB2 database administrator defines that contains a system
authorization ID and a set of trust attributes, like the IP address, that identify a connection as trusted. The
relationship between a database connection and a trusted context is established when the connection to
the database server is first created, and that relationship remains for the life of the database connection.
Community Edition can use that database connection under a different user without re-authenticating the
new user at the database server.
To avoid vulnerability to security breaches, a Community Edition server using these trusted methods
should not use untrusted connection methods.
Note:
For more information about trusted contexts, refer to the article
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/library/techarticle/dm-0609mohan/index.html
and this tutorial that uses Data Web Services and trusted context with IBM Data Studio:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/edu/dm-dw-dm-0805misra2-i.html