Trusted contexts and trusted connections

A trusted context is a database object that defines a trust relationship for a connection between the database and an external entity such as an application server.

The trust relationship is based upon the following set of attributes:
  • System authorization ID: Represents the user that establishes a database connection
  • IP address (or domain name): Represents the host from which a database connection is established
  • Data stream encryption: Represents the encryption setting (if any) for the data communication between the database server and the database client
When a user establishes a database connection, the Db2® database system checks whether the connection matches the definition of a trusted context object in the database. When a match occurs, the database connection is said to be trusted.

A trusted connection cannot be established if the connection is to a local database using inter-process communication (IPC).

A trusted connection allows the initiator of this trusted connection to acquire additional capabilities that may not be available outside the scope of the trusted connection. The additional capabilities vary depending on whether the trusted connection is explicit or implicit.

The initiator of an explicit trusted connection has the ability to:
  • Switch the current user ID on the connection to a different user ID with or without authentication
  • Acquire additional privileges via the role inheritance feature of trusted contexts
An implicit trusted connection is a trusted connection that is not explicitly requested; the implicit trusted connection results from a normal connection request rather than an explicit trusted connection request. No application code changes are needed to obtain an implicit connection. Also, whether you obtain an implicit trusted connection or not has no effect on the connect return code (when you request an explicit trusted connection, the connect return code indicates whether the request succeeds or not). The initiator of an implicit trusted connection can only acquire additional privileges via the role inheritance feature of trusted contexts; they cannot switch the user ID.

How using trusted contexts enhances security

The three-tiered application model extends the standard two-tiered client and server model by placing a middle tier between the client application and the database server. It has gained great popularity in recent years particularly with the emergence of web-based technologies and the Java™ 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platform. An example of a software product that supports the three-tier application model is IBM® WebSphere® Application Server (WAS).

In a three-tiered application model, the middle tier is responsible for authenticating the users running the client applications and for managing the interactions with the database server. Traditionally, all the interactions with the database server occur through a database connection established by the middle tier using a combination of a user ID and a credential that identify that middle tier to the database server. This means that the database server uses the database privileges associated with the middle tier's user ID for all authorization checking and auditing that must occur for any database access, including access performed by the middle tier on behalf of a user.

While the three-tiered application model has many benefits, having all interactions with the database server (for example, a user request) occur under the middle tier's authorization ID raises several security concerns, which can be summarized as follows:
  • Loss of user identity

    Some enterprises prefer to know the identity of the actual user accessing the database for access control purposes.

  • Diminished user accountability

    Accountability through auditing is a basic principle in database security. Not knowing the user's identity makes it difficult to distinguish the transactions performed by the middle tier for its own purpose from those performed by the middle tier on behalf of a user.

  • Over granting of privileges to the middle tier's authorization ID

    The middle tier's authorization ID must have all the privileges necessary to execute all the requests from all the users. This has the security issue of enabling users who do not need access to certain information to obtain access anyway.

  • Weakened security

    In addition to the privilege issue raised in the previous point, the current approach requires that the authorization ID used by the middle tier to connect must be granted privileges on all resources that might be accessed by user requests. If that middle-tier authorization ID is ever compromised, then all those resources will be exposed.

  • "Spill over" between users of the same connection

    Changes by a previous user can affect the current user.

Clearly, there is a need for a mechanism whereby the actual user's identity and database privileges are used for database requests performed by the middle tier on behalf of that user. The most straightforward approach of achieving this goal would be for the middle-tier to establish a new connection using the user's ID and password, and then direct the user's requests through that connection. Although simple, this approach suffers from several drawbacks which include the following:
  • Inapplicability for certain middle tiers. Many middle-tier servers do not have the user authentication credentials needed to establish a connection.
  • Performance overhead. There is an obvious performance overhead associated with creating a new physical connection and re-authenticating the user at the database server.
  • Maintenance overhead. In situations where you are not using a centralized security set up or are not using single sign-on, there is maintenance overhead in having two user definitions (one on the middle tier and one at the server). This requires changing passwords at different places.
The trusted contexts capability addresses this problem. The security administrator can create a trusted context object in the database that defines a trust relationship between the database and the middle-tier. The middle-tier can then establish an explicit trusted connection to the database, which gives the middle tier the ability to switch the current user ID on the connection to a different user ID, with or without authentication. In addition to solving the end-user identity assertion problem, trusted contexts offer another advantage. This is the ability to control when a privilege is made available to a database user. The lack of control on when privileges are available to a user can weaken overall security. For example, privileges may be used for purposes other than they were originally intended. The security administrator can assign one or more privileges to a role and assign that role to a trusted context object. Only trusted database connections (explicit or implicit) that match the definition of that trusted context can take advantage of the privileges associated with that role.

Enhancing performance

When you use trusted connections, you can maximize performance because of the following advantages:
  • No new connection is established when the current user ID of the connection is switched.
  • If the trusted context definition does not require authentication of the user ID to switch to, then the overhead associated with authenticating a new user at the database server is not incurred.

Example of creating a trusted context

Suppose that the security administrator creates the following trusted context object:
CREATE TRUSTED CONTEXT CTX1
 	BASED UPON CONNECTION USING SYSTEM AUTHID USER2
 	ATTRIBUTES (ADDRESS   '192.0.2.1')
  DEFAULT ROLE managerRole
   ENABLE
If user user1 requests a trusted connection from IP address 192.0.2.1, the Db2 database system returns a warning (SQLSTATE 01679, SQLCODE +20360) to indicate that a trusted connection could not be established, and that user user1 simply got a non-trusted connection. However, if user user2 requests a trusted connection from IP address 192.0.2.1, the request is honored because the connection attributes are satisfied by the trusted context CTX1. Now that use user2 has established a trusted connection, he or she can now acquire all the privileges and authorities associated with the trusted context role managerRole. These privileges and authorities may not be available to user user2 outside the scope of this trusted connection