BY RAYMOND K. NG
Originally touted as a secure runtime environment for downloadable executables (applets), Java platform security received a lot of attention early on and the rather inflexible security model was quickly identified as a weakness in the system. With the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), Sun revamped the Java platform security model and introduced a fine-grained, flexible, and extensible security model for code-based security. This new model has largely been a success but it was restricted to code-based security. This makes sense for browser-based deployment environments but is not as relevant for server-side deployments. To address this gap, Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) was introduced as an optional package for Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.3.1, and subsequently integrated into JDK 1.4.
Sun officially announced Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) 1.0 in 2000. Just as Java became the mainstream programming language of choice, Java EE has been widely adopted as the primary application platform for enterprises. But the security needs of enterprise applications are quite different from those of downloadable executable code, so Java EE defined its own security model that is declarative, consistent, and portable across Java EE implementations.
JAAS was included officially as part of the Java EE 1.3 specification. Unfortunately, Java EE 1.3 did not attempt to resolve the differences between the Java EE security model and JAAS, which made it more difficult to deploy off-the-shelf JAAS login modules in some vendors` implementations.
State of Java EE Security
In this section, we`ll provide a brief overview of the main players in the Java EE security landscape.
Java EE Declarative Security
Java EE defines a declarative and portable security model that applies to both Web and Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) modules and applications. The main goal of the declarative security model is to decouple security concerns from business application logic, so enterprise application developers can focus on the main business functions and services provided by the applications without worrying about security.
The Java EE declarative security model applies to the servlet container and the EJB container. The servlet container security model is based on URL patterns, whereas the EJB security model is method-based.
For security-aware applications, Java EE also defines a programmatic API to handle more advanced security needs.
JAAS
Introduced as an option for JDK 1.3.1 and incorporated into J2EE 1.4, today JAAS has been quite widely adopted by commercial and open source vendors as the primary pluggable authentication framework for SE and EE applications alike.
JAAS defines a framework for subject-based authentication and authorization in a pluggable manner, decoupling applications from underlying security implementations. ...
Source:
http://java.sys-con.com/node/1002315
