User Authentication Filter

In this article, we are going to understand how to provide the mechanism of user-authentication by using Filters. For this, we are going to create a webpage which asks the user to enter his name and password in a form and click the submit button.

When details are entered, there will be a call to Servlet, but before this Servlet is executed, the filter associated with it will be executed and the initialization parameters of this filter(specified in the deployment descriptor file(web.xml) pointing to the correct username and password are checked against the entered username and password on the webpage.

If there is match of values, the servlet class is executed, otherwise it won't be executed. Hence, providing user authentication using Filters.

As you know that we can create a Filter class by implementing the Filter interface. With this Filter class, we can associate one or multiple initialization parameters and check their values against the user entered values for user authentication.

Methods of Filter interface

In order to create a filter class we must implement the three methods of javax.servlet.Filter interface.

Methods	Description
void *doInit(FilterConfig config)*	This method initializes the Filter.
void *doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse, response, FilterChain chain)*	This method is called by the web container when a client requests for a web resource which could be a Servlet or a JSP page .
void destroy()	This method destroys the Filter instance.

Creating a webpage which calls the Servlet

We are creating a webpage which asks the user to enter his name and password and click the submit button, This information will be matched against the username and password stored in and the initialization parameters of this filter (specified in the deployment descriptor file(web.xml).

Webpage1.jsp

<html>

<head>
<title> Filters Demo </title>
</head>


<body>

<b> Please enter your details :  </b>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>

<form action ="MyServ">
Name : <input type = "text"  name = "name" />
Password :<input type = "password"  name = "password"/>

<input type = "submit"  name = "submit" />
</form>

</body>
</html>

Creating Filter

We are creating a Filter by implementing the Filter interface and by implementing its three methods -

init(FilterConfig)
doFilter(ServletRequest, ServletResponse, FilterChain )
destroy()

Within the doFilter(ServletRequest, ServletResponse, FilterChain) method, we must make a call to doFilter(request, response) method of FilterChain interface.

The call to doFilter(request, response) method calls any additional Filter attached to the Servlet.
If there is no more Filter attached to the Servlet then the requested Servlet is finally executed.
After the servlet has finished its executed, the doFilter(request,response) method returns, enabling you to handle Servlet output in the response object.

MyFilter1.java

import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import java.util.*;



public class MyFilter1 implements Filter
{
FilterConfig config; 

public void init(FilterConfig filterConfig) 
{
config = filterConfig;
}

public void destroy()
{
}


//This method is called each time a client requests for a web resource i.e. preprocessing request
public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain) throws ServletException, IOException
{
response.setContentType("text/html");
PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();


if(request.getParameter("username").equals(config.getInitParameter("username")) && request.getParameter("password"). equals(config.getInitParameter("password")))
{
out.println("Login success!");

out.println("<br/>");
out.println("<br/>");
out.println("<br/>");


//doFilter() calls the next filter in the chain or the requested web resource(if there is no more filter)
chain.doFilter(request,response);

}
else
{
out.println("Login failed!");
}


out.println("<br/>");
out.println("<br/>");
out.println("<br/>");


//post-processing the request and after the requested web resource is called.
out.println("<b><i>Message of the day - Never give up!</i></b>");

}
}

MyServlet1.java is a Servlet class, which is executed after its associated filter is executed.

MyServlet1.java

import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;

public class MyServlet1 extends GenericServlet
{


public void service(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException
{

response.setContentType("text/html");
PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();

out.println("You are logged into your account.");
}
}

Directory Structure of Servlet files

The diagram above depicts how to arrange the Servlet files in a specific directory structure, as per Java Servlet Specification-

Project Folder - We have created a project folder named UserAuthentication within the webapps folder of Tomcat installation folder. This folder contains the Servlet class(.java) file and WEB-INF folder.

WEB-INF - Within your project folder, you create another folder named WEB-INF and this folder should contain the deployment descriptor file(web.xml) of your Java Servlet program.

classes - Within the WEB-INF folder you should create a folder named classes. This folder should contain the compiled(.class) form of your Java Servlet class.

Creating the Deployment Descriptor file

As per the Java Servlet specifications, every web application based on Servlet must have a Deployment Descriptor file(an XML file) named web.xml. So, let's create one and this time, associate our two filter classes with our Servlet class -

web.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee
                      http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_4_0.xsd"
  version="4.0"
  metadata-complete="true">

  <display-name>Welcome tomcat</display-name>
  <description>
     Welcome tomcat
  </description>

  
<filter>
 	<filter-name>Filter1</filter-name>
	<filter-class>MyFilter1</filter-class>
	<init-param>
		<param-name>username</param-name>
		<param-value>scott</param-value>
	</init-param>
	<init-param>
		<param-name>password</param-name>
		<param-value>tiger</param-value>
	</init-param>
</filter>



<filter-mapping>
	<filter-name>Filter1</filter-name>
	<url-pattern>/MyServ</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>




<servlet>
 	<servlet-name>Servlet</servlet-name>
	<servlet-class>MyServlet1</servlet-class>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
	<servlet-name>Servlet</servlet-name>
	<url-pattern>/MyServ</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

</web-app>

In deployment descriptor file, The <filter> has two child tags <filter-name> and <filter-class>.

<filter-name> tag is used to specify a unique name for our filter class, we have given it a unique name Filter1.

<filter-class> tag is used to specify the full qualified name of the filter class and in our example our filter class is named MyFilter1.

We have also specified three initialization parameters specific to our Filter using <init-param> tag. This tag has two child tags <param-name> and <param-value> :

<param-name> tag is used to specify the name of a parameter.

<param-value> tag is used to specify the value of this parameter associated with our Filter class named MyFilter1.

<servlet> has two child tags <servlet-name> and <servlet-class> :

<servlet-name> tag is used to specify a unique name for our Servlet class, we have given it a unique name Servlet.

<servlet-class> tag is used to specify the full qualified name of the Servlet class and in our example our Servlet class is named MyServlet1.

Note

The child tag <filter-name> of <filter> tag is matched with the <filter-name> child tag of <filter-mapping>. The <url-pattern> child tag of <filter-mapping> should be the same as the <url-pattern> for our servlet i.e. MyServ.

The child tag <servlet-name> of <servlet> tag is matched with the <servlet-name> child tag of <servlet-mapping>. The <url-pattern> child tag is used to specify the URL to access Servlet and we have named this URL MyServ.

The order in which these Filters are executed depends on the order of <filter-mapping> tag described in the web.xml file. Hence, first the Filter1 is executed and then Filter2 is executed.

Setting the classpath

Much of the support for developing the web applications based on the Java Servlet technology does not come with the core Java. Hence, in order to compile the Servlet programs, we have to set the classpath to a jar file named servlet-api.jar.

This jar file provides all the classes that are required for the Servlet programming and it comes within the lib Folder of Tomcat installation folder.

For example, in our case we have installed Tomcat Web Server within the C: Drive, hence the path to our lib folder containing the servlet-api.jar is - C:\apache-tomcat-9.0.2\lib

There are two ways to set the classpath -

You could set the classpath by entering this command at the Command Prompt, but this only temporarily sets the classpath to the path of servlet-api.jar file. If you restart your system, you will have to set the classpath again.
```
set classpath=C:\apache-tomcat-9.0.2\lib\servlet-api.jar
```
In order to set the classpath permanently, you need to set your classpath system variables. A simple tutorial on how to permanently set the classpath system variables, you may read How to permanently set the classpath system variable

Compiling the Servlet class

After setting the classpath, you need to compile the filter and the Servlet class by entering the command at the folder where you've stored the Servlet class file.

javac -d WEB-INF/classes MyFilter1.java

javac -d WEB-INF/classes MyServlet1.java

Executing the Servlet

First we execute the webpage which asks the user to enter his name and password and click the submit button,

On submitting the details, this username and password entered by the user will be matched against the username and password stored in and the initialization parameters of this filter (specified in the deployment descriptor file(web.xml).

Hence, if there is a match of values then the user is presented with the following messages on the window.

But, if there is a mismatch of values then the user is presented with the following messages on the window.

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