JSF Authentication Login Logout Database Example

Published on August 3, 2022

JSF Authentication Login Logout Database Example

Authentication mechanism allows users to have secure access to the application by validating the username and password. We will be using JSF view for login, DAO object ,HttpSession for session management, JSF managed bean and mysql database. Lets now look in detail as how to create a JSF login logout authentication mechanism in JSF application. Step 1: Create the table Users in mysql database as

CREATE TABLE Users( 
uid int(20) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, 
uname VARCHAR(60) NOT NULL, 
password VARCHAR(60) NOT NULL, 
PRIMARY KEY(uid));

Here we create user table with uid as the primary key, username and password fields with not null constraints. Step 2: Insert data into the table Users as;

INSERT INTO Users VALUES(1,'adam','adam');

Before we move on to our project related code, below image shows the project structure in Eclipse. Just create a dynamic web project and convert it to maven to get the project stub and then keep on adding different components. Step 3: Create the JSF login page login.xhtml as;

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' ?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "https://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="https://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
	xmlns:h="https://java.sun.com/jsf/html">
<h:head>
	<title>login</title>
</h:head>
<h:body>
	<h:form>
		<h3>JSF Login Logout</h3>
		<h:outputText value="Username" />
		<h:inputText id="username" value="#{login.user}"></h:inputText>
		<h:message for="username"></h:message>
		<br></br><br></br>
		
		<h:outputText value="Password" />
		<h:inputSecret id="password" value="#{login.pwd}"></h:inputSecret>
		<h:message for="password"></h:message>
		<br></br><br></br>
		
		<h:commandButton action="#{login.validateUsernamePassword}"
			value="Login"></h:commandButton>
	</h:form>
</h:body>
</html>

Here we are creating a JSF login view page with username and password fields and set values for these fields through the login managed bean. We invoke the validateUsernamePassword method on click of Login button to validate the username and password. Step 4: Create the managed bean Login.java as;

package com.journaldev.jsf.beans;

import java.io.Serializable;

import javax.faces.application.FacesMessage;
import javax.faces.bean.ManagedBean;
import javax.faces.bean.SessionScoped;
import javax.faces.context.FacesContext;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpSession;

import com.journaldev.jsf.dao.LoginDAO;
import com.journaldev.jsf.util.SessionUtils;

@ManagedBean
@SessionScoped
public class Login implements Serializable {

	private static final long serialVersionUID = 1094801825228386363L;
	
	private String pwd;
	private String msg;
	private String user;

	public String getPwd() {
		return pwd;
	}

	public void setPwd(String pwd) {
		this.pwd = pwd;
	}

	public String getMsg() {
		return msg;
	}

	public void setMsg(String msg) {
		this.msg = msg;
	}

	public String getUser() {
		return user;
	}

	public void setUser(String user) {
		this.user = user;
	}

	//validate login
	public String validateUsernamePassword() {
		boolean valid = LoginDAO.validate(user, pwd);
		if (valid) {
			HttpSession session = SessionUtils.getSession();
			session.setAttribute("username", user);
			return "admin";
		} else {
			FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().addMessage(
					null,
					new FacesMessage(FacesMessage.SEVERITY_WARN,
							"Incorrect Username and Passowrd",
							"Please enter correct username and Password"));
			return "login";
		}
	}

	//logout event, invalidate session
	public String logout() {
		HttpSession session = SessionUtils.getSession();
		session.invalidate();
		return "login";
	}
}

We declare three String variables user, pwd and msg for username, password and error message fields along with the getter and setter methods. We write a method validateUsernamePassword() for validating the username and password field by invoking the LoginDAO class to fetch the username and password from the database and compare it with the front end values passed. If the username and password does not match an error message is displayed as “Incorrect username and password” . Also a logout() method is written to perform logout by invalidating HTTPSession attached. Step 5: Now create the LoginDAO java class as below. Note that database operations code is not optimized to be used in a real project, I wrote it as quickly as possible because the idea is to learn authentication in JSF applications.

package com.journaldev.jsf.dao;

import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.PreparedStatement;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.SQLException;

import com.journaldev.jsf.util.DataConnect;

public class LoginDAO {

	public static boolean validate(String user, String password) {
		Connection con = null;
		PreparedStatement ps = null;

		try {
			con = DataConnect.getConnection();
			ps = con.prepareStatement("Select uname, password from Users where uname = ? and password = ?");
			ps.setString(1, user);
			ps.setString(2, password);

			ResultSet rs = ps.executeQuery();

			if (rs.next()) {
				//result found, means valid inputs
				return true;
			}
		} catch (SQLException ex) {
			System.out.println("Login error -->" + ex.getMessage());
			return false;
		} finally {
			DataConnect.close(con);
		}
		return false;
	}
}

In the validate() method we first establish connection to the database by invoking the DataConnect class getConnection method. We use PreparedStatement to build the query to fetch the data from the database with the user entered values. If we get any data in result set, it means input is valid and we return true, else false. Step 6: Create the DataConnect.java class as;

package com.journaldev.jsf.util;

import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;

public class DataConnect {

	public static Connection getConnection() {
		try {
			Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");
			Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection(
					"jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/cardb", "pankaj", "pankaj123");
			return con;
		} catch (Exception ex) {
			System.out.println("Database.getConnection() Error -->"
					+ ex.getMessage());
			return null;
		}
	}

	public static void close(Connection con) {
		try {
			con.close();
		} catch (Exception ex) {
		}
	}
}

We load the JDBC driver using Class.forName method and use DriverManager.getConnection method passing the url, username and password to connect to the database. Step 7: Create SessionUtils.java to obtain and manage session related user information.

package com.journaldev.jsf.beans;

import javax.faces.context.FacesContext;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpSession;

public class SessionUtils {

	public static HttpSession getSession() {
		return (HttpSession) FacesContext.getCurrentInstance()
				.getExternalContext().getSession(false);
	}

	public static HttpServletRequest getRequest() {
		return (HttpServletRequest) FacesContext.getCurrentInstance()
				.getExternalContext().getRequest();
	}

	public static String getUserName() {
		HttpSession session = (HttpSession) FacesContext.getCurrentInstance()
				.getExternalContext().getSession(false);
		return session.getAttribute("username").toString();
	}

	public static String getUserId() {
		HttpSession session = getSession();
		if (session != null)
			return (String) session.getAttribute("userid");
		else
			return null;
	}
}

Here we obtain a session for each user logged through the getUserId method thereby associating a session id to a particular user id. Step 8: Create the authorization filter class as;

package com.journaldev.jsf.filter;

import java.io.IOException;
import javax.servlet.Filter;
import javax.servlet.FilterChain;
import javax.servlet.FilterConfig;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.ServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.ServletResponse;
import javax.servlet.annotation.WebFilter;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpSession;

@WebFilter(filterName = "AuthFilter", urlPatterns = { "*.xhtml" })
public class AuthorizationFilter implements Filter {

	public AuthorizationFilter() {
	}

	@Override
	public void init(FilterConfig filterConfig) throws ServletException {

	}

	@Override
	public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response,
			FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
		try {

			HttpServletRequest reqt = (HttpServletRequest) request;
			HttpServletResponse resp = (HttpServletResponse) response;
			HttpSession ses = reqt.getSession(false);

			String reqURI = reqt.getRequestURI();
			if (reqURI.indexOf("/login.xhtml") >= 0
					|| (ses != null && ses.getAttribute("username") != null)
					|| reqURI.indexOf("/public/") >= 0
					|| reqURI.contains("javax.faces.resource"))
				chain.doFilter(request, response);
			else
				resp.sendRedirect(reqt.getContextPath() + "/faces/login.xhtml");
		} catch (Exception e) {
			System.out.println(e.getMessage());
		}
	}

	@Override
	public void destroy() {

	}
}

We implement the standard filter class by overriding the destroy and doFilter methods. In the doFilter method we will redirect user to login page if he tries to access other page without logging in. Step 9: Create admin.xhtml as;

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' ?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
 "https://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="https://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
	xmlns:h="https://java.sun.com/jsf/html">
<h:head>
	<title>Facelet Title</title>
</h:head>
<h:body>
	<h:form>
		<p>Welcome #{login.user}</p>
		<h:commandLink action="#{login.logout}" value="Logout"></h:commandLink>
	</h:form>
</h:body>
</html>

This page is rendered when the user logs in successfully. Logout functionality is implemented by calling the logout method of the Login.java class. Step 10: Create faces-config.xml file as;

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<faces-config version="2.2" xmlns="https://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
	xmlns:xsi="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="https://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee 
	https://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_2_2.xsd">

	<navigation-rule>
		<from-view-id>/login.xhtml</from-view-id>
		<navigation-case>
			<from-outcome>admin</from-outcome>
			<to-view-id>/admin.xhtml</to-view-id>
		</navigation-case>
	</navigation-rule>

</faces-config>

Once done with all the steps specified above run the application and see the following output in the browser. Login Page Authentication Error Page Login Success Page Accessing admin.xhtml while logged in Just click on the Logout link and the session will be invalidated, after that try to access admin.xhtml page and you will be redirected to the login page, go ahead and download the project from below link and try it out.

Download JSF Authentication Login Logout Project

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About the author

Pankaj Kumar

Author

See author profile

Java and Python Developer for 20+ years, Open Source Enthusiast, Founder of https://www.askpython.com/, https://www.linuxfordevices.com/, and JournalDev.com (acquired by DigitalOcean). Passionate about writing technical articles and sharing knowledge with others. Love Java, Python, Unix and related technologies. Follow my X @PankajWebDev

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JSF Authentication Login Logout Database Example

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