Authenticator.getPasswordAuthentication: NTLM Caching

Question

Hello,
I have written a subclass of java.net.Authenticator and implemented the getPasswordAuthentication method for use with NTLM authentication. Then I call Authenticator.setDefault(myAuth);
At the first web service call to an IIS server the getPasswordAuthentication method is invoked and the NTLM authentication works like a charm.
When the user logs out of my Swing Application, the application doesn't shut down, but all the socket connections are closed, I call Authenticator.setDefault(null), various cleanup, and the user is presented with another Login Screen.
When the user logs in again with a different username and password, I again set the default authenticator, but HERE'S THE PROBLEM: the getPasswordAuthentication method is not invoked again! It seems to be cached in the JVM.
I know a lot of things are going on behind-the-scenes between IIS and Java; is there any way (besides shutting down the app and making the user launch it again) to trigger the invocation of getPasswordAuthentication so the server will recognize the newly-entered username/password?
Thanks,
Andrew
Message was edited by:
luxner

Answer 1

HI Jiggy,
The thing with NTLM authentication is that the server requests your username/password whenever it needs them. So you have to write an Authenticator extension to supply the credentials. It's not very hard. The biggest concept is to get is that there is no control over sending them to the server; you just have to write this simple handler to give the info when requested. There is an excellent article on this: http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/net/http-auth.html
You just have to override one method:
public PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication(){
PasswordAuthentication auth
= new PasswordAuthentication(user, pwd);
return auth;
}There is little more to it than that. You may need a HostnameVerifier implementation as well. But if you read the article above you should be on the right track.
Andrew
Edited by: luxner on Oct 9, 2008 1:53 PM