How to prevent caching of Http Authentication

Question

Hello all,
I'm having trouble with a custom wrapper for the URL object that I wrote which is to be run from a multi-threaded program. Basically what I have is an application server that interacts w/ native code through message queueing. As the application server gets a request from the queue it starts a thread that invokes my URL wrapper. My URL wrapper has code to set the authentication (userid/pwd) based on info given from the app server which is read from the queue. It all works fine until the credentials change (a new user/pwd). The credentials from the 1st request are used. I'm betting that even if I use my wrapper object single threaded it won't work because it doesn't seem to allow the credentials to change. The only way I know of setting the credentials is through the default authenticator and it doesn't seem like this object is subject to change.
The following is a subset of my custom URL wrapper object:
public class HttpRequestObject
     private URL urlObj = null;
     private StringBuffer urlString = new StringBuffer();
     private InputStream input = null;
     private URLConnection urlCon = null;
     public HttpRequestObject(String url)
          urlString.append(url.trim());
     private class HTTPAuthenticator extends java.net.Authenticator
          private String userid;
          private String password;
          public HTTPAuthenticator(String name, String pwd)
               userid = name;
               password = pwd;
          protected java.net.PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication()
               return new java.net.PasswordAuthentication(userid,password.toCharArray());
     public boolean openConnection(String name, String pwd)
          java.net.Authenticator.setDefault(new HTTPAuthenticator(name,pwd));
          return this.openConnection();
     public boolean openConnection()
          try
               urlObj = new URL(urlString.toString());
               urlCon = urlObj.openConnection();
               input = urlCon.getInputStream();
               return true;
          catch(Exception e)
               System.out.println(e.getMessage());
               e.printStackTrace();
               return false;
          finally
               java.net.Authenticator.setDefault(new HTTPAuthenticator(" "," "));
}I'm not comfortable with this design at all because it feels too disconnected. There appears to be too big a possibility of credentials being shared between threads where each thread should maintain its own set of credentials. Please help.
Cliff

Answer 1

Hallo,
you have to ask for new username and password in your getPasswordAuthentication() or you have to set your new username and password in your getPasswordAuthentication. You don't have to use a new Authenticator object in order to authenticate a different user. That won't work.
Take a look at this site, there you will see, how to create your own Authenticator: http://java.sun.com/features/2002/11/hilevel_network.html
Hope this helps,
Hobster