Custom JDBC (MySQL) Realm Authentication with Livecycle Data Services (or BlazeDS)
LCDS ships with the default Tomcat roles based security ready to go. You simply add some users to the tomcat-users.xml and there you go. This is probably fine for some, but for my needs I want to be able to authenticate against a MySQL database. I addition, I want to use strong encryption to protect my users personal information, as well as potentially sensitive business data. In this article I am going to explain how to configure Tomcat and Livecycle Data Services to do just that. It is actually fairly painless, once you get all the pieces put together. Hopefully this will be an area of the LCDS documentation that will get some attention in the future.
There are many robust frameworks available to Java that provide authentication functionality. In addition to that, they provide a level of complexity that I want to avoid. My primary purpose is creating enterprise Flex/AIR applications with a strong service layer provided by LCDS. I simply don't want to learn the intrict workings of Spring, JBoss Websphere, or any of the other fine solutions that might solve this particular problem. What I want is a simple solution that provides the functionality I need without a host of extra features I won't ever use. My finite capacity for new information needs all the filtering it can get.
