Provide a utility that automates the conversion to/from
container managed security to/from SecurityFIlter security.
Run a utility program, supply the path to a war file or
exploded war directory structure and automate the
conversion process. Copy new jars, remove security
configuration from web.xml and put it in securityfilter-
config.xml, etc. Provide informative messages about what
the script is doing and potential problems with the
conversion. A similar script to convert an app using
SecurityFilter back to container-managed security would
also be useful.
This would make it easy for an app developer to get started
with SecurityFilter, or switch back to container-managed
security if their deployment requirements/goals change.
This could also be useful for testing web apps to make sure
that securityfilter has the same behavior as container-
managed security on popular server implementations. End
users might find this useful for testing their apps using both
kinds of security as well.
Implementation via Ant might be useful, as it includes tools
tailored to this type of work (dealing with war files, etc).
Custom Ant tasks could be written where more complicated
processing is required. Writing the conversion with Ant has
the additional benefits of being easy to integrate into a
project build for SecurityFilter project testing, and/or
perhaps to help web app developers make thier
build "switchable" between the two different security
implementations. Alternately, perl or one of the other
popular scripting languages might turn out to be the best
implementation method.
