Implement a custom SecurityProxy
Take a look at a simple example of a custom SecurityProxy in the context of a trivial stateless session bean. The custom SecurityProxy validates that no one invokes the bean's echo method with a four-letter word as its argument. This is a check that is not possible with role-based security; you cannot define a FourLetterEchoInvoker role because the security context is the method argument, not a property of the caller. The code for the custom SecurityProxy is given in Example 3.1, “Custom EchoSecurityProxy Implementation.� Example 3.1. Custom EchoSecurityProxy Implementation. package org.jboss.book.security.ex1; import java.lang.reflect.Method; import javax.ejb.EJBContext; import org.apache.log4j.Category; import org.jboss.security.SecurityProxy; /** A simple example of a custom SecurityProxy implementation * that demonstrates method argument based security checks. * @author Scott.Stark@jboss.org * @version $Revision: 1.4 $ */ public class EchoSecurityProxy implements SecurityProxy { Category log = Category.getInstance(EchoSecurityProxy.class); Method echo; public void init(Class beanHome, Class beanRemote, Object securityMgr) throws InstantiationException { log.debug("init, beanHome="+beanHome + ", beanRemote="+beanRemote + ", securityMgr="+securityMgr); // Get the echo method for equality testing in invoke try { Class[] params = {String.class}; echo = beanRemote.getDeclaredMethod("echo", params); } catch(Exception e) { String msg = "Failed to find an echo(String) method"; log.error(msg, e); throw new InstantiationException(msg); } } public void setEJBContext(EJBContext ctx) { log.debug("setEJBContext, ctx="+ctx); } public void invokeHome(Method m, Object[] args) throws SecurityException { // We don't validate access to home methods } public void invoke(Method m, Object[] args, Object bean) throws SecurityException { log.debug("invoke, m="+m); // Check for the echo method if (m.equals(echo)) { // Validate that the msg arg is not 4 letter word String arg = (String) args[0]; if (arg == null || arg.length() == 4) throw new SecurityException("No 4 letter words"); } // We are not responsible for doing the invoke } } The EchoSecurityProxy checks that the method to be invoked on the bean instance corresponds to the echo(String) method loaded the init method. If there is a match, the method argument is obtained and its length compared against 4 or null. Either case results in a SecurityException being thrown. Certainly this is a contrived example, but only in its application. It is a common requirement that applications must perform security checks based on the value of method arguments. The point of the example is to demonstrate how custom security beyond the scope of the standard declarative security model can be introduced independent of the bean implementation. This allows the specification and coding of the security requirements to be delegated to security experts. Since the security proxy layer can be done independent of the bean implementation, security can be changed to match the deployment environment requirements.