Information in a user request

A session key is a piece of data that is stored with a client and sent with every request to WebSEAL made by that client. The session key is used by WebSEAL to identify a series of requests as coming from the same client. It allows WebSEAL to avoid the overhead of performing authentication for each request. The session key is a locator index to the associated session data stored in the WebSEAL server session cache. The session key is also known as the WebSEAL session ID.

Authentication data is information found in the user request that identifies the user to the WebSEAL server. Examples of authentication data types include client-side certificates, passwords, and token codes.