Policy Server Guides › Policy Design Guide › Authentication Schemes › Authentication Schemes Overview

Authentication Schemes Overview

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 can be identified to determine which resources they can use. Customers can be identified for personalization of content as they access resources. Even anonymous users can 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 various authentication schemes. These schemes range from basic user name/password authentication and HTML forms-based authentication to digital certificates. Simple schemes can be used for low risk network resources, while complex schemes can be employed to help ensure added security for critical network resources.

Authentication schemes must be configured using the Policy Server User Interface. 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 Policy Server User Interface, 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 required 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.