Question

Spring Security 3 reference says that:

5.3 Authentication

Spring Security can participate in many different authentication
environments. While we recommend people use Spring Security for
authentication and not integrate with existing Container Managed
Authentication, it is nevertheless supported – as is integrating with
your own proprietary authentication system.

I couldn’t understand what to do for security according to that text. Can anybody explain me?

LINK: http://static.springsource.org/spring-security/site/docs/3.0.x/reference/technical-overview.html#tech-intro-authentication

Answer 1

My interpretation:

Spring Security can participate in many different authentication
environments.

It supports different, external authentication systems like Microsoft Active Directory, Single-sign-on systems, etc.

While we recommend people use Spring Security for authentication and not integrate with existing Container Managed Authentication,[…]

It is not recommended to activate container managed security modules, like Tomcat authentication function (J2EE security).

[…] it is nevertheless supported[…]

as defined – it is supported.

[…] – as is integrating with your own proprietary authentication system.

I suppose this references back to quote #1, they support proprietary authentication systems as well, e.g. home-grown systems.