org.picketlink.authentication

Interface Authenticator

All Known Implementing Classes:

BaseAuthenticator, IdmAuthenticator

public interface Authenticator

An Authenticator implementation is responsible for managing the user authentication process. This is a key concept of how authentication is performed by PicketLink.

During the authentication (eg.: Identity.login()) the Identity will try to select the proper authenticator based on the following premises:

• If any class that implements this interface and annotated with .PicketLink is provided, it will be used.
• If any producer method or field annotated with PicketLink that references a implementation of this interface, it will be selected.

Please, not that implementations must be annotated with PicketLink, otherwise they will not be recognized and selected during the authentication process.

If multiple implementations exists for the same application, only one should be annotated with PicketLink. If you want to use multiple authenticators and select them at runtime based on a specific condition you can use a producer method annotated with this annotation.

In order to get a successful authentication attempt, considering that the implementation has successfully checked the provided credentials, implementations need to:

• Return a AuthenticationStatus.SUCCESS status.
• Return an Account that maps to the owner of the provided credentials.

The other status can be used in case of failure or if the authentication was deferred.

It is recommended that implementations be requested scoped.

Author:

Shane Bryzak

Nested Class Summary

Nested Classes

Modifier and Type	Interface and Description
static class	Authenticator.AuthenticationStatus

Method Summary

Methods

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
void	authenticate() Performs the authentication.
Account	getAccount() Returns a Account if a successful authentication was made.
Authenticator.AuthenticationStatus	getStatus() Returns the current status of the authentication attempt.
void	postAuthenticate() Post-authentication logic.

Method Detail

authenticate

void authenticate()

Performs the authentication.

postAuthenticate

void postAuthenticate()

Post-authentication logic. This method is always invoked after an authentication attempt.

getStatus

Authenticator.AuthenticationStatus getStatus()

Returns the current status of the authentication attempt.

Returns:

getAccount

Account getAccount()

Returns a Account if a successful authentication was made. Otherwise it should return null.

Returns: