Question

How do I use Spring Security in a standalone application. I just need to use the Authentication portion of Spring Security. I need to authenticate users against Windows Active Directory. There are lots of examples in the web for using spring security in Servlets but couldn’t find much for using them in standalone applications.

I am only looking for something to complete this method

boolean isValidCredentials(String username, String password)
{
    //TODO use spring security for authentication here..
}

Answer 1

You can use the ActiveDirectoryLdapAuthenticationProvider from spring-security-ldap if you just need to do authentication.

Just create a bean in your application context like:

<bean id="adAuthProvider" class="org.springframework.security.ldap.authentication.ad.ActiveDirectoryLdapAuthenticationProvider">
    <constructor-arg value="your.domain" />
    <constructor-arg value="ldap://your.ad.server" />
</bean>

Then use it like

try {
    adAuthProvider.authenticate(new UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken("user", "password"));
} catch (AuthenticationException ae) {
    // failed
}