login-config.xml: ParseException when adding a policy

[bcollet]

Hi all,
I spent the whole day trying to solve this problem, without success. Now I ask the experts... I am using JBoss 4.0.0 with Tomcat.

When I add a new application policy to login-config.xml, I get the following exception at server startup:

2005-01-26 15:47:03,029 WARN [org.jboss.security.auth.login.XMLLoginConfigImpl] End loadConfig, failed to load config: file:/usr/jboss-4.0.0/server/default/conf/login-config.xml
org.jboss.security.auth.login.ParseException: Encountered "<?xml" at line 1, column 1.
Was expecting one of:
 <EOF>
 <IDENTIFIER> ...

Here is the part that I added in login-config.xml:

<application-policy name="testDomain">
 <authentication>
 <login-module code = "org.jboss.security.ClientLoginModule" flag = "required"></login-module>
 <login-module code="org.jboss.security.auth.spi.DatabaseServerLoginModule" flag="required">
 <module-option name = "dsJndiName">java:/DefaultDS</module-option>
 <module-option name = "principalsQuery">... some SQL ...</module-option>
 <module-option name = "rolesQuery">... some SQL ...</module-option>
 </login-module>
 </authentication>
</application-policy>

Unlike the error message suggests, it is not a parsing exception. The XML file is valid.
Am I missing something obvious?
Could it be something missing in other files (auth.conf?)?

It seems that I am almost the only one getting this problem, so it must be blindingly stupid.
Please help!

Bruno Collet
www.practicalsoftwarearchitect.com
- The Paradox of Software Architecture: It is easy to make a complex architecture, but it is difficult to make a simple architecture.

[starksm64]

The login-config.xml is invalid. The last exception comes from trying to parse the file as an auth.conf format file after the xml parse failed. Look in the server.log for the original xml parse error.

[bcollet]

Thanks Scott,
Unfortunately, the server.log gives exactly the same error message.
Something even stranger: when I comment out my new policy, the error still occurs, although the uncommented XML is the same than the original file.
Some other test I did: duplicating an existing policy (and changing its name of course) leads to the same exception.
Any suggestion?

[bcollet]

I found the problem: there was an "é" (French character) in a comment that I added. So now when removing the comment the parsing succeeds.
This is really a tricky error. I am not sure whether it is a JBoss bug or not.
From now on I promise to use only English in comments ;)