IEEE International Conference on Web Services (ICWS'05)
CredEx: User-Centric Credential Management for Grid and Web Services
Orlando, Florida
July 11-July 15
ISBN: 0-7695-2409-5
User authentication is a crucial security component for most computing systems. But since the security needs of different systems vary widely, authentication mechanisms are similarly diverse. In particular, independently managed Web and Grid Services vary with regard to the type of security token (credential) used to prove user identity (username/password, X.509 signing, Kerberos, etc.). Forcing users to manage and present credentials manually for each service is tedious, error-prone and potentially insecure. In contrast, we present CredEx, an open-source, standards-based Web Service that facilitates the secure storage of credentials and enables the dynamic exchange of different credential types using the WS-Trust token exchange protocol. With CredEx, a user can achieve single sign-on by acquiring a single (default) credential then dynamically exchanging that credential as needed for services that authenticate a different way. We describe the design and implementation of CredEx by focusing on its use in bridging password-based Web Services and PKI-based Grid Services, illustrating how interoperability between these realms can be based upon the WS-Security and WS-Trust specifications.
Citation:
David Del Vecchio, Marty Humphrey, Jim Basney, Nataraj Nagaratnam, "CredEx: User-Centric Credential Management for Grid and Web Services," icws, pp.149-156, IEEE International Conference on Web Services (ICWS'05), 2005