Basic authentication for JAX-WS and JAX-RS

The authentication configuration remains the same for JAX-WS and JAX-RS.

We need to give the JAX-WS or JAX-RS URL in <web-resource collection>.

Auth_type can be basic. The container would come with a form for the user to enter the username and password.

Authentication handled by container

We will first create a web service and then make the container handle the security on it.

Let's create an interface which will expose the service method and then declare an implementation class.

Let's use Tomcat 6.0 to demonstrate this.

Getting ready

  • In Eclipse-Indigo, create a dynamic web project
  • Server: Tomcat 6
  • JARs to be added to Tomcat lib folder: https://jax-ws.java.net/2.2.7/
  • Download the project and copy the lib folder

How to do it...

  1. Create an interface and an implementation class. Add the @WebService annotations to it. Create a package named com.packt.ws. Create an interface named EmployeeProfile and an implementation Class:

    Interface:

    package com.packt.ws;
    import javax.jws.WebMethod;
    import javax.jws.WebService;
    import javax.jws.soap.SOAPBinding;
    import javax.jws.soap.SOAPBinding.Style;
    @WebService
    @SOAPBinding(style = Style.RPC)
    public interface EmployeeProfile {
      @WebMethod
      String getSalary();
    }

    Implementation:

    package com.packt.ws;
    import javax.jws.WebService;
    import javax.jws.WebMethod;
    import javax.jws.WebService;
    @WebService(endpointInterface = "com.packt.ws.EmployeeProfile")
    public class EmployeeProfileImpl implements EmployeeProfile {
             @Override
    public String getSalary() {
        return "no salary for the month";
    }
    }
  2. Also add the sun-jaxws.xml file under WEB-INF
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <endpoints
      xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/jax-ws/ri/runtime"
      version="2.0">
      <endpoint
          name="EmployeeProfile"
          implementation="com.packt.EmployeeProfileImpl"
          url-pattern="/employee"/>
    </endpoints>
  3. Modify the web.xml file as shown:
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" id="WebApp_ID" version="2.5">
      <display-name>JAX-WS-Authentication-Tomcat</display-name>
       <listener>
            <listener-class>
               com.sun.xml.ws.transport.http.servlet.WSServletContextListener
            </listener-class>
        </listener>
        <servlet>
            <servlet-name>employee</servlet-name>
            <servlet-class>
            com.sun.xml.ws.transport.http.servlet.WSServlet
            </servlet-class>
            <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
        </servlet>
        <servlet-mapping>
            <servlet-name>employee</servlet-name>
            <url-pattern>/employee</url-pattern>
        </servlet-mapping>
       <security-role>
         <description>Normal operator user</description>
         <role-name>operator</role-name>
            </security-role>
     
    <security-constraint>
          <web-resource-collection>
            <web-resource-name>Operator Roles Security</web-resource-name>
            <url-pattern>/employee</url-pattern>
          </web-resource-collection>
     
          <auth-constraint>
            <role-name>operator</role-name>
          </auth-constraint>
          <user-data-constraint>
              <transport-guarantee>NONE</transport-guarantee>
          </user-data-constraint>
       </security-constraint>
     
    <login-config>
          <auth-method>BASIC</auth-method>
       </login-config>
     
    </web-app>
  4. Authenticate the web services. Edit the tomcat-users.xml file and add this to server.xml:
    <Realm className="org.apache.catalina.realm.UserDatabaseRealm"
                 resourceName="UserDatabase"/>

How it works...

By accessing the following URL, you should be prompted for a login.

Each web service URL is authenticated.

You will be prompted with a login page (http://localhost:8080/EmployeeProfile/employee)

See also

  • The Enabling and disabling the file listing recipe