AuthenticationHandler.java

package com.bradmcevoy.http;

/**
 * Implementations of this interface are authentication methods for use
 * with HTTP.
 *
 * These include basic, digest, ntlm etc
 *
 * @author brad
 */
public interface AuthenticationHandler {
    /**
     * Returns true if this supports authenticating with the given Auth data
     * on the given resource.
     *
     * Only the first AuthenticationHandler which returns true for supports
     * will be used for authentication. Ie supports implementations should be
     * mutually exclusive
     *
     * @param r
     * @param auth
     * @return
     */
    boolean supports(Resource r, Request request);

    /**
     * Authenticate the details in the request for access to the given
     * resource.
     *
     * @param resource
     * @param request
     * @return
     */
    Object authenticate( Resource resource, Request request);

    
    /**
     * Create a challenge for this authentication method. This should be completely
     * formatted as per http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2617
     * 
     * @param resource
     * @param request
     * @return
     */
    String getChallenge( Resource resource, Request request );

    /**
     * Returns true if this authentication handler is compatible with the given
     * resource
     *
     * This is used when authorisation has failed, in generating challenge responses
     *
     * If you don't want to add a challenge response, return false
     * 
     * @param resource
     * @return - true if this can authenticate the resource, and it should issue a
     * http challenge
     */
    boolean isCompatible( Resource resource );
}