Agent Guides › Web Agent Guide › Protecting Web Applications › Configure the Web Agent to set the REMOTE_USER Variable

Configure the Web Agent to set the REMOTE_USER Variable

Configure the Web Agent to set the REMOTE_USER variable as follows:

• To set the REMOTE_USER to the value of the SiteMinder log-in user name, set the Web Agent’s SetRemoteUser parameter to yes.

  The default for this parameter is no, which leaves the REMOTE_USER variable blank.

  Note: Prior to SiteMinder Web Agent 5.x QMR 2, the SetRemoteUser parameter affected only IIS web servers; Apache and Oracle iPlanet Agents always set REMOTE_USER to the SiteMinder logged-in user name. If you install or upgrade from Agents prior to 5.x QMR 2, note that REMOTE_USER is no longer enabled by default.

• To set the REMOTE_USER variable based on a specific user account instead of the logged-in user’s credentials:
  • Enable the SetRemoteUser parameter by setting it to yes.
  • Set the RemoteUserVar parameter. This parameter instructs the Agent to populate the REMOTE_USER variable based on the value from an HTTP-WebAgent-Header-Variable response attribute. Use this to integrate with legacy applications.

    To configure the RemoteUserVar parameter, enter only the name of the response variable. For example, to return an HTTP-WebAgent-Header-Variable such as "user=ajohnson", set the RemoteUserVar parameter to the value user.

  • Bind the header variable to an OnAuthAccept rule. Do not use an existing HTTP header variable response; create a new one.

    Note: For more information, see the Policy Server documentation.

• To revert to the default, which leaves REMOTE_USER blank, return the SetRemoteUser parameter to no.

Note: Be sure to take security consequences into consideration before configuring SetRemoteUser or RemoteUserVar.