Chapter 7. Authentication
Abstract
This chapter describes how to use policies to configure authentication in a Apache CXF application. Currently, the only credentials type supported in the SOAP layer is the WS-Security UsernameToken.
7.1. Introduction to Authentication
Overview
In Apache CXF, an application can be set up to use authentication through a combination of policy assertions in the WSDL contract and configuration settings in Spring XML.
Note
Remember, you can also use the HTTPS protocol as the basis for authentication and, in some cases, this might be easier to configure. See Section 3.1, “Authentication Alternatives”.
Steps to set up authentication
In outline, you need to perform the following steps to set up an application to use authentication:
- Add a supporting tokens policy to an endpoint in the WSDL contract. This has the effect of requiring the endpoint to include a particular type of token (client credentials) in its request messages.
- On the client side, provide credentials to send by configuring the relevant endpoint in Spring XML.
- (Optional) On the client side, if you decide to provide passwords using a callback handler, implement the callback handler in Java.
- On the server side, associate a callback handler class with the endpoint in Spring XML. The callback handler is then responsible for authenticating the credentials received from remote clients.
