In most cases, when a user attempts to access a network resource, the owner of the network wants to verify the identity of the user. Company employees should be identified to determine which resources they can use. Customers should be identified for personalization of content as they access resources. Even anonymous users should be tracked uniquely, so that their history can be used to provide a quality experience when they once again access the network. To identify a user, SiteMinder employs authentication schemes.
Authentication schemes provide a way to collect credentials and determine the identity of a user. SiteMinder supports a variety of authentication schemes. These schemes range from basic user name/password authentication and HTML forms-based authentication to digital certificate and token authentication. Simple schemes can be used for low risk network resources, while complex schemes may be employed to ensure added security for critical network resources.
Authentication schemes must be configured using the Administrative UI. During authentication, SiteMinder Web Agents communicate with the Policy Server to determine the proper credentials that must be retrieved from a user who is requesting resources.
This chapter discusses general information for working with authentication schemes in the Administrative UI, then provides separate sections that explain how to configure each supported scheme using authentication scheme templates. These templates provide the Policy Server with most of the information it needs to process a scheme. An administrator must complete the configuration of an authentication scheme by supplying implementation specific information, such as server IP addresses, or shared secrets required to initialize a scheme.
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