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Refresh Authentication
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Overview of Refresh AuthenticationCloudscape supports user authentication, which is described in the Cloudscape Developer's Guide. User authentication is a standard database security feature in which the database engine ensures that users provide a valid user id and password before it grants a database connection to that user. Why You Should Authenticate TargetsIn a secure Cloudscape synchronization system, Cloudscape should authenticate traditional client JDBC connections; it should also authenticate targets before permitting them to refresh, as shown in Figure 5-1. Figure 5-1 A secure Cloudscape synchronization system authenticates refresh requests. Source databases have most of the security features of traditional client/server databases. They are under the control of an administrator, who protects the environment of the database through operating system permissions and other tools; the only access to data is through database connections and SQL. When user authentication is turned on, only valid users are allowed access to the data, and even then you can restrict which users have permissions to update data. Target databases, on the other hand, are designed to be deployed in many different ways and are operated on a variety of devices, including laptops and other unprotected environments. They often do not have an administrator to protect the data on disk and to protect the physical environment of the database. In addition, even when targets are deployed in a secure environment, you should protect against forged refresh request messages. Therefore, you should not trust that traditional user authentication on the target will solve all your security needs; you must enforce security at the source. You should also authenticate targets when they request refreshes. Cloudscape's models for refresh authentication are described in the next section. Refresh Authentication ModelsA Cloudscape synchronization system's flexibility means it can be deployed in many different ways. For example, target databases can be deployed outside a corporate firewall. Such flexibility adds to the complexity of designing the security of your system; you typically do not want expose your database user IDs to users outside the firewall. Nonetheless, you want make sure that only valid targets can refresh. For this reason, Cloudscape supports refresh authentication for two basic types of environments:
Figure 5-2 Within a single corporate entity, the source can authenticate target refresh requests based on standard user IDs and passwords. Exposing those to the targets does not present a security hole, because target users are corporate users.
Figure 5-3 In a system in which targets are deployed outside the corporate firewall, you can define your own refresh authentication. |
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![]() Cloudscape Version 3.6 For information about Cloudscape technical support, go to: www.cloudscape.com/support/.Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000 Informix Software, Inc. All rights reserved. |