Configuring SSL

Secure socket layers (SSL) encrypt traffic between the client browser and the server to secure information exchanged over the network between the browser and IBM® WebSphere® Portal. You will need to configure your environment for SSL to activate this additional security feature.

About this task

Perform the following tasks to configure SSL:
  1. Setting up SSL
    Get an overview of the tasks that are required to configure SSL for IBM WebSphere Portal. Some of these tasks are completed on the IBM WebSphere Application Server and the web server. The steps that refer to the WebSphere Application Server and the web server are summarized here; refer to the WebSphere Application Server and the web server documentation for detailed information. Steps that are unique to WebSphere Portal are described in detail here.
  2. Configuring SSL only for the login process
    You can encrypt only the login process to IBM WebSphere Portal and then allow subsequent requests through HTTP.
  3. Setting up Client Certificate Authentication
    View the steps required to configure IBM WebSphere Portal for SSL client certificate authentication. The supported scenario is a "client certificate only" setup that switches completely to this authentication method and does not allow form-based login via username and password. Other configuration scenarios are possible, but are neither recommended nor supported.
  4. Cryptographic hardware for SSL acceleration
    If your portal environment makes extensive use of SSL, you might choose to use cryptographic hardware to offload encryption and improve performance. WebSphere Portal tolerates interfacing through WebSphere Application Server with cryptographic hardware for SSL acceleration. However, the tasks that are involved in setting up and configuring cryptographic hardware are specific to web servers or WebSphere Application Server and do not necessarily involve configuring WebSphere Portal.
Parent topic: Securing