| /* |
| * Copyright 2005-2008 Les Hazlewood, Jeremy Haile |
| * |
| * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); |
| * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. |
| * You may obtain a copy of the License at |
| * |
| * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 |
| * |
| * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software |
| * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, |
| * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. |
| * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and |
| * limitations under the License. |
| */ |
| package org.jsecurity.authc; |
| |
| /** |
| * An Authenticator is responsible for authenticating accounts in an application. It |
| * is one of the primary entry points into the JSecurity API. |
| * |
| * <p>Although not a requirement, there is usually only a single Authenticator configured for |
| * an application. Enabling Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) behavior |
| * (Two Phase Commit, etc.) is usually achieved by the single <tt>Authenticator</tt> coordinating |
| * and interacting with an application-configured set of |
| * {@link org.jsecurity.realm.Realm Realm}s. |
| * |
| * <p>Note that most JSecurity users will not interact with an <tt>Authenticator</tt> instance directly. JSecurity's |
| * default architecture is based on an overall <tt>SecurityManager</tt> which typically wraps an |
| * <tt>Authenticator</tt> instance. |
| * |
| * @see org.jsecurity.mgt.SecurityManager |
| * @see AbstractAuthenticator AbstractAuthenticator |
| * @see org.jsecurity.authc.pam.ModularRealmAuthenticator ModularRealmAuthenticator |
| * |
| * @since 0.1 |
| * @author Les Hazlewood |
| * @author Jeremy Haile |
| */ |
| public interface Authenticator { |
| |
| /** |
| * Authenticates a user based on the submitted <tt>authenticationToken</tt>. |
| * |
| * <p>If the authentication is successful, an {@link Account Account} |
| * object is returned that represents the user's account data relevant to JSecurity. This returned object is |
| * generally used in turn to construct a <tt>Subject</tt> representing that user's access rights and |
| * access to a <tt>Session</tt> |
| * |
| * @param authenticationToken any representation of a user's principals and credentials |
| * submitted during an authentication attempt. |
| * |
| * @return the Account representing the authenticated user's account data. |
| * |
| * @throws AuthenticationException if there is any problem during the authentication process. |
| * See the specific exceptions listed below to as examples of what could happen in order |
| * to accurately handle these problems and to notify the user in an appropriate manner why |
| * the authentication attempt failed. Realize an implementation of this interface may or may |
| * not throw those listed or may throw other AuthenticationExceptions, but the list shows |
| * the most common ones. |
| * |
| * @see ExpiredCredentialsException |
| * @see IncorrectCredentialsException |
| * @see ExcessiveAttemptsException |
| * @see LockedAccountException |
| * @see ConcurrentAccessException |
| * @see UnknownAccountException |
| */ |
| public Account authenticate( AuthenticationToken authenticationToken ) |
| throws AuthenticationException; |
| } |