Specifying the authentication type for a data source in a document specification

When a data source requires authentication, each authentication type that is supported by Rational® Publishing Engine (Form, Basic, OAuth, or OAuth-OSLC) is tested until the correct type is found. You can circumvent the testing process by designating an authentication type.

When you specify the authentication type, Rational Publishing Engine ensures that the correct protocol is used first and unnecessary requests are not performed. You might see a significant performance improvement in document generation time if your data source requires Basic, OAuth, or OAuth-OSLC authentication or if you are using a complex template that requires many requests from the data source. If no authentication type is specified, each type is tested.

About this task

Complete this task to improve the performance of generating HTML, XSL-FO, and Legacy PDF documents.

For more information about how user names and passwords are stored, see Security considerations for IBM® Rational Publishing Engine.

Procedure

  1. Open the Launcher application.
  2. Create a document specification.
  3. Configure a data source.
  4. Select the data source. The Properties view opens.
  5. In the authentication field, enter the authentication type that applies to your data source. You can enter one of the following case-sensitive authentication types:
    • Form
    • Basic
    • OAuth
    • OAuth-OSLC
  6. If necessary, enter the credentials to authenticate with the data source including the user name and password.
  7. Save the document specification.

What to do next

Update the authentication properties in existing document specifications.

Creating oslcServiceProviders.xml file for OAuth-OSLC authentication

If you are using a Generic XML, REST v1, or REST v2 data source that requires OAuth-OSLC authentication, you must first create a oslcServiceProviders.xml to store the base_url, consumer_key, and secret property values.

About this task

By default, the product looks for the oslcServiceProviders.xml file under the RPE_HOME/config directory. The benefit of creating your oslcServiceProviders.xml file under this default RPE_HOME/config directory, is no further configuration is required. However, you must remember to create a backup of this file when you want to upgrade to a later version of the product. After installation and upgrade, you can place the backup oslcServiceProviders.xml file under the RPE_HOME/config directory of the newly installed product.
You can specify the oslcServiceProviders.xml file outside the default RPE_HOME/config directory, but you must specify the location of the oslcServiceProviders.xml file with the com.ibm.rational.rpe.config.oslcServiceProviders property. If the location is an HTTP secured path, you must specify the authentication credentials with the com.ibm.rational.rpe.config.oslcServiceProviders.usr and com.ibm.rational.rpe.config.oslcServiceProviders.pwd properties. Specify these properties using one of the following scopes:

Creating the oslcServiceProviders.xml file outside the default RPE_HOME/config directory supports team collaboration environments. The oslcServiceProviders.xml file can be reused by multiple users when placing the file in a shared location, and set the com.ibm.rational.rpe.config.oslcServiceProviders property to point to the shared location.

Procedure

  1. Create a copy of the sample in the Rational Publishing Engine installation directory: RPE_HOME/config/oslcServiceProviders-sample.xml
  2. In a text editor, open your copy of the oslcServiceProviders.xml file.
  3. In the title tags, provide a name for the data source provider.
  4. In the description tags, provide a description or notes for the data source provider.
  5. In the base_url tags, provide the base URL to the data source. Example: https://server:port/oslcCatalog
  6. In the pattern tags, provide the URL pattern of the data source. When you have a list of data sources specified in the oslcServiceProviders.xml file, the pattern is used to identify which data source details match the data source requirements. Example: https://server:port/contextroot
  7. In the consumer_key tags, provide the consumer key from the data source.
  8. In the secret tags, provide the secret value from the data source.
  9. Save the oslcServiceProviders.xml file to a location outside of the Rational Publishing Engine installation directory.

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