Web Agent Guides › Web Agent Configuration Guide › Single Sign-On (SSO) › Single Sign-on and Agent Key Management

Single Sign-on and Agent Key Management

Web Agents use keys to encrypt and decrypt cookies that pass information between Web Agents. When an Agent receives a SiteMinder cookie, the key allows the Agent to decrypt the contents of the cookie. Keys must be set to the same value for all Web Agents communicating with a Policy Server.

To ensure the keys remain secure, the Policy Server can generate these keys, encrypt them, and distribute them to all the Web Agents within a SiteMinder environment. Automated key changes make agent key management easy to implement for large SiteMinder installations that share the same key store, which holds all the key information. Automating key changes also ensures the integrity of the keys.