AuthenticationManager.java

/*
 * Licensed to Jasig under one or more contributor license
 * agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with this work
 * for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 * Jasig licenses this file to you under the Apache License,
 * Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file
 * except in compliance with the License.  You may obtain a
 * copy of the License at the following location:
 *
 *   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
 * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
 * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
 * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
 * specific language governing permissions and limitations
 * under the License.
 */
package org.jasig.cas.authentication;

/**
 * Authenticates one or more credentials.
 *
 * @author Scott Battaglia
 * @author Marvin S. Addison
 *
 * @since 3.0
 */
public interface AuthenticationManager {

    /** Authentication method attribute name. **/
    String AUTHENTICATION_METHOD_ATTRIBUTE = "authenticationMethod";

    /**
     * Authenticates the provided credentials. On success, an {@link Authentication} object
     * is returned containing metadata about the result of each authenticated credential.
     * Note that a particular implementation may require some or all credentials to be
     * successfully authenticated. Failure to authenticate is considered an exceptional case, and
     * an AuthenticationException is thrown.
     *
     * @param credentials One or more credentials to authenticate.
     *
     * @return Authentication object on success that contains metadata about credentials that were authenticated.
     *
     * @throws AuthenticationException On authentication failure. The exception contains details
     * on each of the credentials that failed to authenticate.
     */
    Authentication authenticate(final Credential... credentials) throws AuthenticationException;
}