Service integration bus security: Troubleshooting tips

Use this set of specific tips to help you troubleshoot problems you experience when working with a secure service integration bus.

[z/OS]To help you identify and resolve service integration bus security-related problems, use the WebSphere® Application Server trace and logging facilities as described in Setting up component trace (CTRACE).

If you encounter a problem that you think might be related to service integration bus security, you can check for error messages in the WebSphere Application Server administrative console, and in the application server SystemOut.log file. You can also enable the application server debug trace to provide a detailed exception dump.
Note: This topic references one or more of the application server log files. As a recommended alternative, you can configure the server to use the High Performance Extensible Logging (HPEL) log and trace infrastructure instead of using SystemOut.log , SystemErr.log, trace.log, and activity.log files on distributed and IBM® i systems. You can also use HPEL in conjunction with your native z/OS logging facilities. If you are using HPEL, you can access all of your log and trace information using the LogViewer command-line tool from your server profile bin directory. See the information about using HPEL to troubleshoot applications for more information on using HPEL.

WebSphere Application Server system messages are logged from a variety of sources, including application server components and applications. Messages logged by application server components and associated IBM products start with a unique message identifier that indicates the component or application that issued the message. The prefix for the service integration bus security component is CWSII.

The Troubleshooter reference: Messages contains information about all WebSphere Application Server messages, indexed by message prefix. For each message there is an explanation of the problem, and details of any action that you can take to resolve the problem.

Here is a set of tips to help you troubleshoot commonly-experienced problems:

Migrating a Version 5.1 application server to WebSphere Application Server Version 7.0 or later

Before you migrated the Version 5.1 application server, no user ID or password was required on the target MQ Series queue. After the application server is migrated to Version 7.0 or later, and to use the default messaging provider (the service integration bus), client requests fail because basic authentication is now enabled. The problem appears as a log message:
SibMessage    W   [:] CWSIT0009W: A client request failed in the application 
server with endpoint <endpoint_name> in bus your_bus with reason: CWSIT0016E: 
The user ID null failed authentication in bus your_bus.

In WebSphere Application Server Version 7.0 or later, when you use a service integration bus and WebSphere Application Server security is enabled for the server or cell, by default the service integration bus queue destination inherits the security characteristics of the server or cell. So if the server or cell has basic authentication enabled, then the client request fails.

To resolve the problem, you have three choices (in order of security, from least secure to most secure):
  • Disable security.
  • For an equivalent level of security to the configuration on Version 5.1, modify the settings for the service integration bus that hosts the queue destination so that bus security is disabled and therefore the bus does not inherit security characteristics from the server or cell.
  • For a greater level of security than the configuration on Version 5.1, configure basic authentication on each client that uses the service.

To disable WebSphere Application Server security, refer to Enabling and disabling security using scripting, or Global security settings.

To disable bus security, use the administrative console to complete the following steps:
  1. Navigate to Service integration -> Buses -> bus_name.
  2. Clear the Secure check box.
  3. Save your changes.
To configure basic authentication on each client, use either the administrative console or the wsadmin tool. To complete the task by using the wsadmin tool, see Configuring web service client port information using wsadmin scripting and use the WebServicesClientBindPortInfo wsadmin task option. To complete the task by using the administrative console, complete the following steps:
  1. Navigate to Applications -> Application Types -> WebSphere enterprise applications -> application_name -> Web Modules or EJB Modules > module_name > Web services: Client security bindings.
  2. Click HTTP basic authentication to access the Configuring HTTP basic authentication with the administrative console panel.
  3. Enter the values in the panel.
  4. Save your changes to the master configuration.

Making a connection by using a user ID in an authorized group, access is denied when using LDAP

One of the possible causes is the group name, if you are using an Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) registry. When you specify the group authorization permissions, the distinguished name (DN) should be used as the group name. If you specify a common name (CN) for the group name users in that group cannot be authorized.

Steps to change the group name from CN to DN depends on where the problem occurred.