The Identity Provider needs a Identity Store to retrieve users information. These informations will be used during the authentication and authorization process. Identity Stores can be any type of repository: a database, LDAP, properties file, etc.

The PicketLink Identity Provider uses JAAS to connect to an Identity Store. This configuration is usually made at the container side using any LoginModule implementation.

If you are using the JBoss Application Server you can use one of the existing LoginModules or you can create your custom implementation: