Unlike most Catalina components, there are several standard
Realm implementations available. As a result,
the className attribute MUST be used to select the
implementation you wish to use.
JDBC Database Realm (org.apache.catalina.realm.JDBCRealm)
The JDBC Database Realm connects Catalina to
a relational database, accessed through an appropriate JDBC driver,
to perform lookups of usernames, passwords, and their associated
roles. Because the lookup is done each time that it is required,
changes to the database will be immediately reflected in the
information used to authenticate new logins.
A rich set of additional attributes lets you configure the required
connection to the underlying database, as well as the table and
column names used to retrieve the required information:
| Attribute | Description |
|---|
connectionName |
The database username to use when establishing the JDBC
connection.
|
connectionPassword |
The database password to use when establishing the JDBC
connection.
|
connectionURL |
The connection URL to be passed to the JDBC driver when
establishing a database connection.
|
digest |
The name of the MessageDigest algorithm used
to encode user passwords stored in the database. If not specified,
user passwords are assumed to be stored in clear-text.
|
driverName |
Fully qualified Java class name of the JDBC driver to be
used to connect to the authentication database.
|
roleNameCol |
Name of the column, in the "user roles" table, which contains
a role name assigned to the corresponding user.
|
userCredCol |
Name of the column, in the "users" table, which contains
the user's credentials (i.e. password(. If a value for the
digest attribute is specified, this component
will assume that the passwords have been encoded with the
specified algorithm. Otherwise, they will be assumed to be
in clear text.
|
userNameCol |
Name of the column, in the "users" and "user roles" table,
that contains the user's username.
|
userRoleTable |
Name of the "user roles" table, which must contain columns
named by the userNameCol and roleNameCol
attributes.
|
userTable |
Name of the "users" table, which must contain columns named
by the userNameCol and userCredCol
attributes.
|
See the JDBC Realm HOW-TO
for more information on setting up container managed security using the
JDBC Database Realm component.
DataSource Database Realm (org.apache.catalina.realm.DataSourceRealm)
The DataSource Database Realm connects Catalina to
a relational database, accessed through a JNDI named JDBC DataSource
to perform lookups of usernames, passwords, and their associated
roles. Because the lookup is done each time that it is required,
changes to the database will be immediately reflected in the
information used to authenticate new logins.
The JDBC Realm uses a single db connection. This requires that
realm based authentication be synchronized, i.e. only one authentication
can be done at a time. This could be a bottleneck for applications
with high volumes of realm based authentications.
The DataSource Database Realm supports simultaneous realm based
authentications and allows the underlying JDBC DataSource to
handle optimizations like database connection pooling.
A rich set of additional attributes lets you configure the name
of the JNDI JDBC DataSource, as well as the table and
column names used to retrieve the required information:
| Attribute | Description |
|---|
dataSourceName |
The name of the JNDI JDBC DataSource for this Realm.
|
digest |
The name of the MessageDigest algorithm used
to encode user passwords stored in the database. If not specified,
user passwords are assumed to be stored in clear-text.
|
roleNameCol |
Name of the column, in the "user roles" table, which contains
a role name assigned to the corresponding user.
|
userCredCol |
Name of the column, in the "users" table, which contains
the user's credentials (i.e. password(. If a value for the
digest attribute is specified, this component
will assume that the passwords have been encoded with the
specified algorithm. Otherwise, they will be assumed to be
in clear text.
|
userNameCol |
Name of the column, in the "users" and "user roles" table,
that contains the user's username.
|
userRoleTable |
Name of the "user roles" table, which must contain columns
named by the userNameCol and roleNameCol
attributes.
|
userTable |
Name of the "users" table, which must contain columns named
by the userNameCol and userCredCol
attributes.
|
See the
DataSource Realm HOW-TO for more information on setting up container
managed security using the DataSource Database Realm component.
JNDI Directory Realm (org.apache.catalina.realm.JNDIRealm)
The JNDI Directory Realm connects Catalina to
an LDAP Directory, accessed through an appropriate JNDI driver,
that stores usernames, passwords, and their associated
roles. Changes to the directory are immediately reflected in the
information used to authenticate new logins.
The directory realm supports a variety of approaches to using
LDAP for authentication:
- The realm can either use a pattern to determine the
distinguished name (DN) of the user's directory entry, or search
the directory to locate that entry.
- The realm can authenticate the user either by binding to the
directory with the DN of the user's entry and the password
presented by the user, or by retrieving the password from the
user's entry and performing a comparison locally.
- Roles may be represented in the directory as explicit entries
found by a directory search (e.g. group entries of which the user
is a member), as the values of an attribute in the user's entry,
or both.
A rich set of additional attributes lets you configure the
required behaviour as well as the connection to the underlying
directory and the element and attribute names used to retrieve
information from the directory:
| Attribute | Description |
|---|
authentication |
A string specifying the type of authentication to use.
"none", "simple", "strong" or a provider specific definition
can be used. If no value is given the providers default is used.
|
connectionName |
The directory username to use when establishing a
connection to the directory for LDAP search operations. If not
specified an anonymous connection is made, which is often
sufficient unless you specify the userPassword
property.
|
connectionPassword |
The directory password to use when establishing a
connection to the directory for LDAP search operations. If not
specified an anonymous connection is made, which is often
sufficient unless you specify the userPassword
property.
|
connectionURL |
The connection URL to be passed to the JNDI driver when
establishing a connection to the directory.
|
contextFactory |
Fully qualified Java class name of the factory class used
to acquire our JNDI InitialContext. By default,
assumes that the standard JNDI LDAP provider will be utilized.
|
protocol |
A string specifying the security protocol to use. If not given
the providers default is used.
|
roleBase |
The base directory entry for performing role searches. If
not specified the top-level element in the directory context
will be used.
|
roleName |
The name of the attribute that contains role names in the
directory entries found by a role search. In addition you can
use the userRoleName property to specify the name
of an attribute, in the user's entry, containing additional
role names. If roleName is not specified a role
search does not take place, and roles are taken only from the
user's entry.
|
roleSearch |
The LDAP filter expression used for performing role
searches. Use {0} to substitute the
distinguished name (DN) of the user, and/or {1} to
substitute the username. If not specified a role search does
not take place and roles are taken only from the attribute in
the user's entry specified by the userRoleName
property.
|
roleSubtree |
Set to true if you want to search the entire
subtree of the element specified by the roleBase
property for role entries associated with the user. The
default value of false causes only the top level
to be searched.
|
userBase |
The base element for user searches performed using the
userSearch expression. Not used if you are using
the userPattern expression.
|
userPassword |
Name of the attribute in the user's entry containing the
user's password. If you specify this value, JNDIRealm will
bind to the directory using the values specified by
connectionName and
connectionPassword properties, and retrieve the
corresponding attribute for comparison to the value specified
by the user being authenticated. If you do
not specify this value, JNDIRealm will
attempt a simple bind to the directory using the DN of the
user's entry and the password presented by the user, with a
successful bind being interpreted as an authenticated
user.
|
userPattern |
Pattern for the distinguished name (DN) of the user's
directory entry, with {0} marking where the
actual username should be inserted. You can use this property
instead of userSearch, userSubtree
and userBase when the distinguished name contains
the username and is otherwise the same for all users.
|
userRoleName |
The name of an attribute in the user's directory entry
containing zero or more values for the names of roles assigned
to this user. In addition you can use the
roleName property to specify the name of an
attribute to be retrieved from individual role entries found
by searching the directory. If userRoleName is
not specified all the roles for a user derive from the role
search.
|
userSearch |
The LDAP filter expression to use when searching for a
user's directory entry, with {0} marking where
the actual username should be inserted. Use this property
(along with the userBase and
userSubtree properties) instead of
userPattern to search the directory for the
user's entry.
|
userSubtree |
Set to true if you want to search the entire
subtree of the element specified by the userBase
property for the user's entry. The default value of
false causes only the top level to be searched.
Not used if you are using the userPattern
expression.
|
See the JNDI Realm HOW-TO
for more information on setting up container managed security using the
JNDI Directory Realm component.
Memory Based Realm (org.apache.catalina.realm.MemoryRealm)
The Memory Based Realm is a simple Realm implementation
that reads user information from an XML format, and represents it as a
collection of Java objects in memory. This implementation is intended
solely to get up and running with container managed security - it is NOT
intended for production use. As such, there are no mechanisms for
updating the in-memory collection of users when the content of the
underlying data file is changed.
The Memory Based Realm implementation supports the following
additional attributes:
| Attribute | Description |
|---|
pathname |
Absolute or relative (to $CATALINA_HOME) pathname to the XML file
containing our user information. See below for details on the
XML element format required. If no pathname is specified, the
default value is conf/tomcat-users.xml.
|
The XML document referenced by the pathname attribute must
conform to the following requirements:
- The root (outer) element must be
<tomcat-users>.
- Each authorized user must be represented by a single XML element
<user>, nested inside the root element.
- Each
<user> element must have the following
attributes:
- name - Username of this user (must be unique
within this file).
- password - Password of this user (in
clear text).
- roles - Comma-delimited list of the role names
assigned to this user.
See the Memory Realm HOW-TO
information on setting up container managed security using the
Memory Based Realm component.
