JADE Security Plug-in Tutorial

Author: Giosue Vitaglione (TILAB S.p.A.)

Date: 2002 September 20th.

Java platform: Sun SDK 1.4

JADE version 2.61

This tutorial describes how to install and start using the JADE Security Plug-in.

Overview

The JADE Security Plug-in enables a set of security features and provides the base technology to programmers who aim at real-world agent-based application development.

Multi-agent systems without any security support cannot provide e-commerce services or any application on the Internet. A malicious agent ‘M’, for example, could kill a reseller agent ‘A’, and take its place selling items, placing/accepting orders and getting payments, acting with a fake identity. As another example, anyone could connect a remote container to your platform, move a malicious agent onto your main container, and read/delete all the files on your machine.

This Plug-in includes features such as user/agent authentication, authorization and secure communication inside an agent platform. More information about the available features, as well as practical details about permission configuration and a step-by-step guide for starting a secure JADE platform, can be found in the Security Administrator Guide.

Installation

The JADE Security Plug-in can be downloaded here: jadesecurity.zip

This plug-in is distributed under the LGPL License. See the file Copying for details.

Download 'jadesecurity.zip' and unpack it in the same directory of your JADE installation.
All the files will be copied in the directory: jade/add-ons/security
In order to use the Security Examples, you need the standard JADE 'jar' files installed in the jade/lib directory. If you are using the source code, please create the 'jar' files by typing: 'ant jade lib' in your jade/ directory.
Please note that you need JADE 2.61 or later. The plug-in does not work with earlier versions of JADE.

Examples

In order to run the examples, you do not need to set the CLASSPATH variable or compile something.

Just launch the .bat files you find in the subdirectories of jade/add-ons/security/runExamples/.
Usually you need to call main.bat first, and then cont.bat. Please note that JADE with the Security Plug-in take more time than the standard version to start-up.
A README file is provided for most examples.

Step-by-step instructions are provided for the examples: 'myfirst' in the Security Administrator Guide.

Unix/Linux users might need to edit the .bat files, in order to properly set the environment variables.

Compiling

The plug-in is distributed with a pre-compiled jadeS.jar.
The examples source are pre-compiled, as well (into the jade/add-ons/security/classes/examples).
You do not need to compile anything to run the examples.

If you want to re-compile the Plug-in or the examples, read the folllowing instructions.

JADE Security Plug-in needs a recent version the program 'ant' for compiling. You can download it here.

In order to re-compile the examples, type:

> cd jade/add-ons/security

> ant

If you want to re-compile the Plug-in, type:

> cd jade/add-ons/security

> ant compile lib

this will compile both the Plug-in and the examples.

More options can be shown with:

> ant -projecthelp

Configuration and Usage

Assuming jadeS.jar (and all the other standard JADE jar files) is in your CLASSPATH:
in order to start a secure JADE platform, type:

java -Djava.security.manager -Djava.security.policy=myfirst.policy -Djade.security.password=myfirst.password jade.Boot -owner bob:letmepass

in the same directory where proper myfirst.policy and myfirst.password files are.
Please also check carefully the path to the jar files included in the policy file. The file provided in the examples can help.

It is recommended to read the Security Administrator Guide for more details.

JADE is a trademark of TILAB.
JADE has been developed jointly by TILAB (formely CSELT) and the Computer Engineering Group of the University of Parma