Dear all, I had a wierd problem working with my own authenticator. The form login page did not appear at all but I got an error message stating "Configuration error: Cannot perform access control without an authenticated principal". By checking the log file, I understood how this error was triggered but still could not solve it. Since the login page did not appear, I had no chance to invoke j_security_check (by clicking the submit button). Consequently the request url did not end with the string "j_security_check". Somewhere in the program, the following check thus failed. // Is this the action request from the login page? boolean loginAction = requestURI.startsWith(contextPath) && requestURI.endsWith(Constants.FORM_ACTION); // No -- Save this request and redirect to the form login page if (!loginAction) { session = getSession(request, true); if (debug >= 1) log("Save request in session '" + session.getId() + "'"); saveRequest(request, session); if (debug >= 1) log("Redirect to login page '" + loginURI + "'"); hres.sendRedirect(hres.encodeRedirectURL(loginURI)); return (false); } So I was redirected to the login page (again it did not appear at all). This time the following check succeeded: // Is this a request for the login page itself? Test here to avoid // displaying it twice (from the user's perspective) -- once because // of the "save and redirect" and once because of the "restore and // redirect" performed below. String loginURI = contextPath + config.getLoginPage(); if (requestURI.equals(loginURI)) { if (debug >= 1) log("Requesting login page normally"); return (true); // Display the login page in the usual manner } I think this code assumes I have been already authenticated. That's why finally I got the error. My questions are: 1. When should the login page appear? I think it should appear before the call of the corresponding authenticator, am I right? 2. Is there some special configuration to bring up the login page for user's custom authenticator? Any suggestions or hints would be greatly appreciated.
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