Patent ID: 7426642

Claim:
A method of integrating legacy access with single sign-on in a distributed computing environment, comprising steps of: establishing a first secure session from a client on a user's workstation to a server, wherein the secure session establishment authenticates the user's identity from identifying information passed from the client; storing the identifying information in a security token accessible to the server; and using the identifying information stored in the security token to authenticate the user for access to a legacy host application or system, whereby the authentication occurs programmatically and does not require the user to re-enter his identifying information, wherein the step of using the identifying information further comprises the steps of: requesting a legacy host access agent to generate a password substitute, based on the user's identifying information from the security token and an identifier of the legacy host application or system; passing the password substitute and a legacy host identifier of the user to the client on the user workstation; establishing a second secure session between an emulator client operating on the user's workstation and an emulator server on a host where the legacy host application or system will be accessible; receiving a sign-on data stream from the legacy host application or system at the emulator client over the second secure session; programmatically inserting the password substitute and the legacy host identifier into the sign-on data stream, creating a modified data stream; returning the modified data stream from the emulator client to the emulator server, over the second secure session; and sending, by the legacy host application or system, the password substitute and the legacy host identifier to the legacy host access agent for transparently authenticating the user.