Solutions for Java User Account Management

Question

I currently work on a Java web application that has relies on a permissions mechanism to manage user content. This of course means that we need to manage users. Our current user management system is an in house system that manage info about users, groups, and user and permissions in an RDBMS. The system works but is a hassle to maintain. I'd like to find a way to simplify things.

It seems that packages to manage users must be commonly used out there on the internet machine given that user management is a core piece of functionality of many web apps. What solution to you use to manage users? It seems that something like the Spring Security package may work, but I'd like to get a handle on what's available before locking myself into Spring Security.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You are looking for something like LDAP or Active Directory to manage your users. You would use Spring Security to apply/enforce your security information that you store in LDAP. Pretty sure you can configure any App Server to use LDAP for basic authentication and authorization features out of the box.