Certificate-based Authentication involves using a personal digital certificate (PDC) to identify and authenticate a user. A PDC can be configured to require a match against a PDC stored in Directory Server, and verification against a Certificate Revocation List.
There are a number of things that need to be accomplished before adding the Certificate-based Authentication module to a realm. First, the web container that is installed with the Access Manager needs to be secured and configured for Certificate-based Authentication. Before enabling the Certificate-based module, see Chapter 6, “Using Certificates and Keys” in the Sun ONE Web Server 6.1 Administrator’s Guide (located at http://docs.sun.com/source/817-1831-10/agcert.html) for the initial Web Server configuration steps. If using Application Server see the Sun ONE Application Server Administrator’s Guide to Security (located at http://docs.sun.com/source/816-7158-10/sgcerts.html).
Each user that will authenticate using the certificate-based module must request a PDC for the user’s browser. Instructions are different depending upon the browser used. See your browser’s documentation for more information.
In order to add this module, you must log in to Access Manager as the realm Administrator and have Access Manager and the web container configured for SSL and with client authentication enabled. For more information, see Chapter 3, Configuring Access Manager in SSL Mode.