Abstract: A method, system, and computer program product code for dynamically refreshing user credentials in a distributed processing environment. The present invention provides for fast, local refresh of credentials by a server if the credentials expire during an on-going secure operation. This technique avoids the need for rolling back the operation and requiring the client to restart after acquiring fresh credentials. The ability for a systems administrator to invalidate credentials which have been compromised is maintained.

Abstract: Methods, systems and computer program products are provided which allow “bootstrapping” of credentials by a client application using the well known certificate authority SSL capabilities of another installed application, such as a browser. A first secured session is established between the client and a server which has a certificate including a digital signature from a well known certificate authority. For example, a hypertext transport protocol over SSL (HTTPS) session may be established to the server by a browser such as Netscape™ or Internet Explorer™. An additional public key, or public key ring is then downloaded from the server to the client which may be subsequently used by the client to establish SSL sessions with servers that do not have a certificate from a well known certificate authority.

Abstract: A method, system, and computer program product code using a two-tiered cache for hierarchically structured data. The present invention significantly reduces the frequency of computationally intense processing used to retrieve hierarchically structured data and reduces the system cache storage requirements for maintaining coalesced images.

Abstract: A method, system, and computer program for securely sharing log-in credentials among trusted browser-based applications. Credentials for a user are automatically shared only among a restricted and authorized set of trusted applications, without requiring the application developer to write code to manage the credentials. A single log-in is used to obtain the user credentials for a particular codebase, and the credentials are then reused for applications in that codebase. The Java sandbox concept is exploited to provide this restricted sharing, such that the credentials are stored in the shared static data area associated with the server and codebase from which the set of trusted applications was downloaded.