Today I learned how to override session authentication using a web site rule

Did you know that you can override session based authentication based on URL patterns?‎ Yes? Lucky you, I didn`t. I honestly admit it: I am more a developer than an admin ;-). The feature dates back to R7.0.2 so I must have been missed something at that time...

In one of my projects domino provides a web service which can be consumed by a 3rd-party-system. All sites on that server (R8.5) are configured to use  session-based authentication. Since web services cannot authenticate via basic authentication (at least I did not get it working) I  was looking for a way to work around session based authentication. An additional web site involves a lot of effort and patience in this environment as there are quite a few people involved. 

Finally I got the right hint from the developer who consumes the web service. There is a web site rule for that! And I just did not know about it:-o

The setup is quite straight forward. Open an Internet Site document and click on Web Site - Create Rule and select "Override Session Authentication" as type of rule.

You can specify a URL pattern for which domino overrides session based authentication. On the one hand this provides a lot of flexibility‎. On the other hand, the pattern should be chosen with care. Wildcards (*) can be applied too.

So, this is it, my lesson learned today.