z/OS SAF Interfaces in Java

These APIs are implemented through Java classes wrapping z/OS UNIX Services. The z/OS UNIX Services are in turn handled by a Security Server for z/OS that implements SAF interfaces (such as RACF).

The initial set of services first released provided access to a basic set of existing OS/390 UNIX APIs. These APIs are required to implement principal based access control in a Java application, for example, an application that implements a Java SecurityManager class. Applications that use these APIs do not have to be APF authorized.

The classes provided in this release are:

• PlatformAccessControl
• PlatformThread
• PlatformSecurityServer
• PlatformAccessLevel
• PlatformReturned
• PlatformUser

These methods of these new classes allow a Java application to:

• Check to see if the Security Server or a specific security server class is active
• Extract the userid in effect for the current running thread
• Check the userid in effect for access rights to a resource
• Authenticate a userid and password
• Check if a userid is a member of a group
• Change a user's password

For more information about security services SAFdocs.jar click here