org.jasig.cas.authentication.principal
Interface Credentials

All Superinterfaces:

java.io.Serializable

All Known Subinterfaces:

RememberMeCredentials

All Known Implementing Classes:

HttpBasedServiceCredentials, RememberMeUsernamePasswordCredentials, UsernamePasswordCredentials

public interface Credentials
extends java.io.Serializable

Marker interface for credentials required to authenticate a principal.

The Credentials is an opaque object that represents the information a user asserts proves that the user is who it says it is. In CAS, any information that is to be presented for authentication must be wrapped (or implement) the Credentials interface. Credentials can contain a userid and password, or a Certificate, or an IP address, or a cookie value. Some credentials require validation, while others (such as container based or Filter based validation) are inherently trustworthy.

People who choose to implement their own Credentials object should take care that any toString() they implement does not accidentally expose confidential information. toString() can be called from various portions of the CAS code base, including logging statements, and thus toString should never contain anything confidential or anything that should not be logged.

Credentials objects that are included in CAS do NOT expose any confidential information.

Since:

3.0

This is a published and supported CAS Server 3 API.

Version:

$Revision: 1.2 $ $Date: 2007/01/22 20:35:26 $

Author:

William G. Thompson, Jr.