Package com.epicentric.authentication

Enables configurable authentication of users against a data source as they log on.

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Package Summary

Interface Summary

Authenticator	Abstraction that knows how to obtain authentication of an account.
SSOUsernameRetriever	An Abstraction that provides how to obtain the username of a user authenticated by a Single Sign On (SSO) product.

Class Summary

AccountPropertyDescriptor	Description of an authentication account's attributes, such as user name and password.
AccountTypeDescriptor	Description of an authentication account.
AuthenticationManager	Point of entry into the authentication API.
GenericAuthenticator	Abstract class from which each Authenticator implementation can inherit.
JNDIAuthenticator	Authenticator that connects to any of the supported LDAP servers for checking whether a user is authentic.
NTAuthenticator	Authenticator implementation for connecting to an NT domain to authenticate a user.
Realm	Class that specifies how Vignette Portal users get authenticated.
RealmFeature	Representation of features that a realm's authenticator can support.
SQLAuthenticator	Authenticator implementation for connecting to any of the supported SQL databases.

Exception Summary

AccountDoesNotExistException	Exception thrown when an Authenticator tries to remove an authentication account that does not exist.
AccountExistsException	Exception thrown when an Authenticator tries to create an authentication account that already exists.
AuthenticationException	Base exception class for all exceptions in the Authentication API.
InvalidAccountException	Exception thrown by an Authenticator when it confirms that an authentication account is not authentic.
LockedOutException
PropertyDescriptorNotFoundException	Exception thrown by AccountTypeDescriptor if an attempt is made to get an AccountPropertyDescriptor that does not exist.

Package com.epicentric.authentication Description

Enables configurable authentication of users against a data source as they log on. The Vignette Portal framework supports the following authentication mechanisms:

• Relational database authentication using JDBC
• LDAP authentication using JNDI
• Windows NT authentication
• Single sign-on (SSO product must be installed)

The first three mechanisms can be used singly or in combination. For example, a Vignette Portal installation could authenticate against multiple NT domains or against a SQL table for some users and an NT domain for others.

The default authentication is via a relational database. Properties in the authentication configuration file (authentication.xml) enable the authentication mechanism or mechanisms to be specified.

The authentication API is capabilities-based; the functionality depends upon the capabilites of the underlying mechanism, such as whether it supports creating and removing user accounts, changing passwords, and retrieving forgotten passwords. The capabilities can be turned on and off from the authentication configuration file. The encryption scheme can also be specified in the configuration file.

For further discussion of the authentication API and an example of a custom authenticator, see the Vignette Portal Developer's Guide, available from Vignette Global Marketplace (http://global.vignette.com).

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Discussion

See Also:

com.epicentric.user, com.epicentric.jdbc, com.epicentric.jndi