Many institutions are using Shibboleth for unified single sign-on between both internal and external web application. Shibboleth is an authentication engine and, as its backend, it can use a variety of sources for authentication including LDAP, a SQL database or other resources. It simply deals with authentication, so more advanced configurations, such as systems which allow grace logins after a password expires, may require more customization. The following tutorial shows how to use Shibboleth with a Novell e-Directory server that allows grace logins after a user’s password has expired.
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When writing J2EE web applications, web services, enterprise Java beans (EJBs) or other pieces of code that run on a Java application server such as RedHat’s JBoss, IBM WebSphere or Apache Tomcat, a developer typically doesn’t load database drivers or connect to the database directly. Instead, a context lookup must be made in order to get a DataSource, and from there a Connection. However what if one needs to run existing code locally, outside of the web server? This guide shows developers how to setup a local context so application server code can be run in a stand-alone application without modification.
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When creating new Java web applications within an IDE such as Eclipse or NetBeans, the IDE creates a directory structure and uses its own internal builder to create WAR and EAR files. While these build tools may be convenient when starting to develop J2EE applications, when working on production grade projects, it’s important to create your own directory structure and build scripts to automate the building and deployment process. This tutorial will take you through automating the build process of a web application using Apache Ant as well as giving you a better understanding of exactly how web applications are laid-out and built within the EAR file.
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Anyone who has programmed with Java should be familiar with the concept of Checked Exceptions. Although C++ and OCaml have optional support for exception checking, Java seems to be the only major programing language where it is a built-in and required part of the language. Enforcing at compile time that certain exceptions need to be caught may have seemed like a good idea at the time Java was developed, however no major languages developed since have adapted the concept. Many view Checked Exceptions as a design flaw. In this article, I attempt to show how this flaw can be overcome using a base exception class to encapsulate exception handling.
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I’ve never been a huge fan of certification. Although I understand it is supposed to help gauge an industry benchmark in a given field, I often feel like it’s given the IT world a generation of good test takers who are not necessarily good designers. Still, I’ve programmed with PHP on my own for years and want to eventually move my career path towards that direction. I decided to get a one up and try for my Zend PHP5 certification. What I came away with was a massive sense in disappointment in Zend’s entire certification process.
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