Configuring security for a web application in Apache Karaf

This recipe will handle how to build a web application with authentication enabled. As we are running within Apache Karaf and Karaf supports Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) out of the box, we will show you everything that is needed to run a basic authentication with JAAS on Karaf.

Getting ready

The prerequisite is to install the WAR feature. The source code for this recipe is available at https://github.com/jgoodyear/ApacheKarafCookbook/tree/master/chapter4/chapter4-recipe7.

How to do it…

1. The first step is configuring the user/password combination in Karaf. Let's start with the user configuration. Let's make sure that the users.properties file in the /etc folder contains the following setup (it's the default configuration):

   karaf = karaf,_g_:admingroup
   _g_\:admingroup = group,admin,manager,viewer

   The users.properties file follows the following syntax:

   USER=PASSWORD, ROLE1, ROLE2, …

   It can also have the following syntax...