SSL client authentication: how to get the cert used in call?

Question

Hi !
I'd like to authenticate my clients based on their certificate. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to get the client certificate that was used for the current method call.
I am thinking of something like this:
SomeClass dosomething(param a, param b) {
RemoteUser ru = getUserFromCert();
if (ru==null) return;
....do the job....
SomeOtherClass dosomethingelse() {
....same thing
RemoteUser getUserFromCert() {
Principal pr = RMIContext.getRMIContext().getSSLSocket().getSSLSession().getPrincipal();
Is that the way to do it?
What do I need to implement to get that getUserFromCert method going?
Has anyone done that before?
Thanks for any help,
ken

Answer 1

Thanks for your reply. I'd like option (b) best as well. But I think I read somewhere that the HandshakeCompletedListener is called asynchronously? Would be bad if it'd be called after a call has been handled.
I did some more research and realized I might as well use JMX. JMX has authentication included and does remote method invocation just like RMI. There even seems to be a so called JMXMP connector which supports client authentication by certificate, which is exactly what I want. I'd probably have to rewrite some parts but it seems to be an elegant solution.
Am I right?