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* What is WSS4J? *
WSS4J is part of the Apache Web Services project:
http://ws.apache.org/
Apache WSS4J is an implementation of the OASIS Web Services Security specifications
(WS-Security, WSS) from OASIS Web Services Security TC. WSS4J is primarily
a Java library that can be used to sign, verify, encrypt, and decrypt SOAP Messages
according to the WS-Security specifications. WSS4J uses Apache Axis and other Apache
XML-Security projects and is interoperable with other JAX-RPC based server/clients
and .Net WSE server/clients that follow the OASIS WSS specifications
* Supported WSS Specifications *
WSS4J implements
* OASIS Web Serives Security: SOAP Message Security 1.0 Standard 200401,
March 2004
* Username Token profile V1.0
* X.509 Token Profile V1.0
The Web Services Security part of WSS4J is fairly well tested and many
WebService projects use it already. Also interoperability with
various other implementations is well tested.
* Support of older WSS specifications *
The WSS4J release 1.1.0 is the last release that was able to emulate previous
WSS specs
The next WSS4J releases (>= 1.5.x)
- support the OASIS V1.0 specs and the relevant namespaces only
- support one versions of provisional (draft) namespaces for the upcoming version
After the next version of the WSS specs is finished, we do one WSS4J release
with the provisional namespaces and another release (with a new release
number) with the then fixed namespace URIs. Doing so we could save a lot of
coding while retaining some backward compatibility using the n-1 release.
* Web Services Security Features *
WSS4J can generate and process the following SOAP Bindings:
o XML Security
+ XML Signature
+ XML Encryption
o Tokens
+ Username Tokens
+ Timestamps
+ SAML Tokens
WSS4J supports X.509 binary certificates and certificate paths.
The master link to WSS4J: http://ws.apache.org/wss4j/
There is also a Wiki concerning Apache WS projects and WSS4J as one
of the WS sub-projects:
http://wiki.apache.org/ws/
http://wiki.apache.org/ws/FrontPage/WsFx
WS-Trust and WS-Secure Conversation specifications
WSS4J now comes with the support for derived key token signature and encryption.
This is used by the Axis2-"rahas" module to provide the WS-Secure Conversation.
WS-Trust support is also being developed within Axis2 based on WSS4J
org.apache.ws.sandbox. package contains experimental implementations of these
specifications.
* Installation (binary distribution) *
The WSS4J zip archive is the binary distribution and contains the wss4j
jar file, some examples, test classes (incl. sources), the interop test
classes (incl. sources and necessary certificate store), and the according
client and server deployment and property files.
The WSS4J jar file contains all classes that implement the basic functions
and the handlers. To install it make sure this jar file is in the classpath
of your Axis client and/or Axis server.
In addition you need to set up the property files that contain information
about the certificate keystores you use. The property files and the keystore
are accessed either as resources via classpath or, if that fails, as files
using the relative path of the application
Thus no specific installation is required. The wss4j jar file could be
included into ear or war files of enterprise or web application servers.
Please refer to the JAVADOC files of the distribution for further
information how to use WSS4J, the handlers, and how to setup the
deployment files.
* Crypto Notice *
This distribution includes cryptographic software. The country in
which you currently reside may have restrictions on the import,
possession, use, and/or re-export to another country, of
encryption software. BEFORE using any encryption software, please
check your country's laws, regulations and policies concerning the
import, possession, or use, and re-export of encryption software, to
see if this is permitted. See <http://www.wassenaar.org/> for more
information.
The U.S. Government Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and
Security (BIS), has classified this software as Export Commodity
Control Number (ECCN) 5D002.C.1, which includes information security
software using or performing cryptographic functions with asymmetric
algorithms. The form and manner of this Apache Software Foundation
distribution makes it eligible for export under the License Exception
ENC Technology Software Unrestricted (TSU) exception (see the BIS
Export Administration Regulations, Section 740.13) for both object
code and source code.
The following provides more details on the included cryptographic
software:
Apache Santuario : http://santuario.apache.org/
Apache WSS4J : http://ws.apache.org/wss4j/
Bouncycastle : http://www.bouncycastle.org/
* Required software *
To work with WSS4J you need additional software. Most of the software is also
needed by your SOAP base system, e.g. Apache Axis.
To simplify installation and operation of WSS4J an additional ZIP file
is provided that holds all other JARs that are required by WSS4J. Please
note that we probably not use the very latest versions of these JARs, but
we used them during the tests.
To implement the Web Service Security (WSS) part specific software is
required:
addressing-1.0.jar
This jar contains the implementation of WS-Addressing, required
by WSS4J Trust.
See: http://ws.apache.org/addressing/
axis-1.4.jar
axis-ant-1.4.jar
axis-jaxrpc-1.4.jar
axis-saaj-1.4.jar
These jars contain the Apache Axis base software. They implement
the basic SOAP processing, deployment, WSDL to Java, Java to WSDL
tools and a lot more. Please refer to a Axis documentation how to
setup Axis. You should be familiar with Axis, its setup, and
deployment methods before you start with any WSS4J functions.
See: http://ws.apache.org/axis/
bcprov-jdk14-140.jar
This is the BouncyCastle library that implements all necessary
encryption, hashing, certificate, and keystore functions. Without
this fantastic library WSS4J wouldn't work at all.
See: http://www.bouncycastle.org/
commons-codec-1.3.jar
commons-discovery-0.2.jar
commons-logging-1.1.jar
These jars are from the Commons project and provide may useful
functions, such as Base64 encoding/decoding, resource lookup,
and much more. Please refer to the commons project to get more
information.
The master link for the commons project:
http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/index.html
junit-3.8.1.jar
The famous unit test library. Required if you like to build WSS4J
from source and run the unit tests.
See: http://www.junit.org/
log4j-1.2.9.jar
The logging library. Required to control the logging, error
reporting and so on.
See: http://logging.apache.org/
opensaml-1.1.jar
The SAML implementation used by WSS4J to implement the SAML profile.
See: http://www.opensaml.org/
wsdl4j-1.5.1.jar
The WSDL parsing functions, required by Axis tools to read and
parse WSDL.
See: http://ws.apache.org/axis/ under related projects
xalan-2.7.1.jar
Library that implements XML Path Language (XPath) and XSLT. The XML
Security implementation needs several functions of Xalan XPath.
See: http://xml.apache.org/xalan-j/
xmlsec-1.4.2.jar
This library implements the XML-Signature Syntax and Processing and
the XML Encryption Syntax and Processing specifications of the W3C. Thus
they form one of the base foundations of WSS4J.
See: http://xml.apache.org/security/
xercesImpl.jar
xml-apis.jar
The XML parser implementation. Required by anybody :-) .
See: http://xml.apache.org/xerces2-j/