Security Considerations

Security recommendations include:

  • The following paragraph describes our INITIAL IMPLEMENTATION in this first look of the WS RLS interface -- THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO BE A FINAL SOLUTION.

    Users of the WS RLS authenticate themselves to the WS RLS in the usual manner based on their credential. The WS RLS uses the WSAA and Authorization Framework to make authorization decisions. Then, the WS RLS uses a single certificate and key file to identify itself to the RLS irregardless of the user accessing the WS RLS. Thus users that can access the WS RLS are given the fixed WS RLS identity to access the RLS. Users accustomed to using RLS may not feel comfortable with this approach -- if it may be an issue for your environment, we suggest that you not use it with your production RLS. If you think of WS RLS as the gating interface to the RLS, as you should, then you should apply the appropriate authorization restrictions at the WS RLS level, which can be done using WSAA. This will in effect achieve a level of authorization similar to that of the RLS.