COM & .NET Component Services

Advanced COM+ Security

On top of incredibly rich, user-friendly administrative support for all your security needs, COM+ provides low-level, advanced programmatic security capabilities. These features cater to complex security needs. However, I have found that there is almost always a good design solution that lets me use COM+ configurable settings without having to resort to advanced, programmatic, low-level security manipulation. In fact, you can probably lead a productive and fulfilling development career using COM+ without using low-level security manipulation at all. If what you have read so far fulfills your requirements, feel free to skip this section and move to the conclusion of this chapter and its account of the ever-present pitfalls of COM+ security. If not, continue reading.

Server-Side Impersonation

Setting the allowed impersonation level is a client-side configuration, in which the client declares the level of trust it has toward the server. Configuring the impersonation level is not an advanced security measure; it is a necessary precaution because you cannot know what the server is up to and whether it intends to impersonate the client. However, server-side impersonation is advanced security.

You should be aware that server-side impersonation is not an extensible or scalable design approach. Each COM+ application should be configured with enough credentials (that is, a security identity) to perform its work, and should not rely on the client’s credentials by impersonating ...