public interface

Authentication

implements Serializable Principal
org.springframework.security.core.Authentication
Known Indirect Subclasses

Class Overview

Represents the token for an authentication request or for an authenticated principal once the request has been processed by the authenticate(Authentication) method.

Once the request has been authenticated, the Authentication will usually be stored in a thread-local SecurityContext managed by the SecurityContextHolder by the authentication mechanism which is being used. An explicit authentication can be achieved, without using one of Spring Security's authentication mechanisms, by creating an Authentication instance and using the code: 

 SecurityContextHolder.getContext().setAuthentication(anAuthentication);
Note that unless the Authentication has the authenticated property set to true, it will still be authenticated by any security interceptor (for method or web invocations) which encounters it.

In most cases, the framework transparently takes care of managing the security context and authentication objects for you.

Summary

Public Methods
abstract Collection<? extends GrantedAuthority> getAuthorities()
Set by an AuthenticationManager to indicate the authorities that the principal has been granted.
abstract Object getCredentials()
The credentials that prove the principal is correct.
abstract Object getDetails()
Stores additional details about the authentication request.
abstract Object getPrincipal()
The identity of the principal being authenticated.
abstract boolean isAuthenticated()
Used to indicate to AbstractSecurityInterceptor whether it should present the authentication token to the AuthenticationManager.
abstract void setAuthenticated(boolean isAuthenticated)
See isAuthenticated() for a full description.
[Expand]
Inherited Methods
From interface java.security.Principal

Public Methods

public abstract Collection<? extends GrantedAuthority> getAuthorities ()

Set by an AuthenticationManager to indicate the authorities that the principal has been granted. Note that classes should not rely on this value as being valid unless it has been set by a trusted AuthenticationManager.

Implementations should ensure that modifications to the returned collection array do not affect the state of the Authentication object, or use an unmodifiable instance.

Returns
  • the authorities granted to the principal, or an empty collection if the token has not been authenticated. Never null.

public abstract Object getCredentials ()

The credentials that prove the principal is correct. This is usually a password, but could be anything relevant to the AuthenticationManager. Callers are expected to populate the credentials.

Returns
  • the credentials that prove the identity of the Principal

public abstract Object getDetails ()

Stores additional details about the authentication request. These might be an IP address, certificate serial number etc.

Returns
  • additional details about the authentication request, or null if not used

public abstract Object getPrincipal ()

The identity of the principal being authenticated. In the case of an authentication request with username and password, this would be the username. Callers are expected to populate the principal for an authentication request.

The AuthenticationManager implementation will often return an Authentication containing richer information as the principal for use by the application. Many of the authentication providers will create a UserDetails object as the principal.

Returns
  • the Principal being authenticated or the authenticated principal after authentication.

public abstract boolean isAuthenticated ()

Used to indicate to AbstractSecurityInterceptor whether it should present the authentication token to the AuthenticationManager. Typically an AuthenticationManager (or, more often, one of its AuthenticationProviders) will return an immutable authentication token after successful authentication, in which case that token can safely return true to this method. Returning true will improve performance, as calling the AuthenticationManager for every request will no longer be necessary.

For security reasons, implementations of this interface should be very careful about returning true from this method unless they are either immutable, or have some way of ensuring the properties have not been changed since original creation.

Returns
  • true if the token has been authenticated and the AbstractSecurityInterceptor does not need to present the token to the AuthenticationManager again for re-authentication.

public abstract void setAuthenticated (boolean isAuthenticated)

See isAuthenticated() for a full description.

Implementations should always allow this method to be called with a false parameter, as this is used by various classes to specify the authentication token should not be trusted. If an implementation wishes to reject an invocation with a true parameter (which would indicate the authentication token is trusted - a potential security risk) the implementation should throw an IllegalArgumentException.

Parameters
isAuthenticated true if the token should be trusted (which may result in an exception) or false if the token should not be trusted
Throws
IllegalArgumentException if an attempt to make the authentication token trusted (by passing true as the argument) is rejected due to the implementation being immutable or implementing its own alternative approach to isAuthenticated()