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Interface com.sun.server.realm.User

public interface User
extends Principal

All users are principals ... perhaps in the native OS, perhaps not. (Groups and ACLs don't map to the native OS concepts.) All users have a "home" file storage area.

Users always have authentication information, which is used to validate a user's proferred credentials. Different kinds of realms use different kinds of authentication information. For example, realms could use X.509 public key certificates, shared passphrases, encrypted passwords, smart cards, or biometric data to figure out if the user's credentials are valid.

Users also have a variety of attributes. These are identified by names, which are strings without embedded whitespace. Names containing periods (".") are assigned in the same way that Java package names are assigned; for example, according to the Internet domain names of the organization defining the attribute. Names not containing periods are assigned by Sun, and include:

fullname to identify the user's full name;
home to identify the URL for the directory where their personal data is stored;
webhost the name of the host serving as the user's HTTP proxy server;
webport the port of the user's HTTP proxy server, defaulting to 8080 if not specified;
mailhost the user's mail server, offering SMTP and mailbox (IMAP, POP3, etc.) service
calendar the user's CDE calendar server.

NOTE: this interface is still in development.

getAttribute(String): Returns the single requested attribute for the user.
getAttributeNames(): Returns an enumeration of the keys for the attributes supported for this user.
getRealm(): Returns the realm with which this user is associated.
isAuthenticationEnabled(): Returns true if authentication for this user is enabled.

getRealm

 public abstract Realm getRealm()

Returns the realm with which this user is associated.

getAttribute

 public abstract Object getAttribute(String name)

Returns the single requested attribute for the user.

Parameters:: name - string identifying the attribute.
Returns:: value of that attribute, or null if no value has been defined

getAttributeNames

 public abstract Enumeration getAttributeNames()

Returns an enumeration of the keys for the attributes supported for this user.

isAuthenticationEnabled

 public abstract boolean isAuthenticationEnabled()

Returns true if authentication for this user is enabled. If it has been disabled, different kinds of users will require different actions to re-enable authentication, and the first step of an authentication operation will throw a NoAuthenticationException.

See Also:: NoAuthenticationException

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