org.mmbase.security
Class Authentication

java.lang.Object
  org.mmbase.security.Configurable
      org.mmbase.security.Authentication

Direct Known Subclasses:

Authenticate, Authenticate, AuthenticationHandler, ContextAuthentication, NoAuthentication

public abstract class Authentication

extends Configurable

This class is a abstract implementation of the Authentication. To make your own implementation of authentication, you have to extend this class.

Version:

$Id: Authentication.java,v 1.22 2004/03/26 15:48:26 michiel Exp $

Author:

Eduard Witteveen, Michiel Meeuwissen (javadocs)

Field Summary

Fields inherited from class org.mmbase.security.Configurable

configFile, fileWatcher, manager

Constructor Summary

Authentication()

Method Summary

abstract boolean	isValid(UserContext userContext) The method returns wether the UserContext has become invalid for some reason (change in security config?)
abstract UserContext	login(java.lang.String application, java.util.Map loginInfo, java.lang.Object[] parameters) This method will verify the login, and give a UserContext back if the login procedure was successful.

Methods inherited from class org.mmbase.security.Configurable

load, load

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

clone, equals, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait

Constructor Detail

Authentication

public Authentication()

Method Detail

login

public abstract UserContext login(java.lang.String application,
                                  java.util.Map loginInfo,
                                  java.lang.Object[] parameters)
                           throws SecurityException

This method will verify the login, and give a UserContext back if the login procedure was successful.

Parameters:

application - A String that further specifies the login method (one implementation could handle more then one methods) A typical value might be 'username/password'.

loginInfo - A Map containing the credentials or other objects which might be used to obtain them (e.g. request/response objects). It might also be 'null', in which case your implementation normally should return the 'anonymous' user (or null, if no such user can be defined).

parameters - A list of optional parameters, may also (and will often) be null.

Returns:

nullThrows:

SecurityException - When something strang happened

isValid

public abstract boolean isValid(UserContext userContext)
                         throws SecurityException

The method returns wether the UserContext has become invalid for some reason (change in security config?)

Parameters:

userContext - The UserContext of which we want to know the rights

Returns:

true when valid, otherwise false

Throws:

SecurityException - When something strang happend