Problem: SecurityAssociationValve Failed to determine servl

[tu_gupta]

Hi all,
I am newbie to jboss AS. I have recently deployed web application on the JBoss Application Server. When I check the log files I see the following error infinite times.
This error is not affecting any functionality of the web application.

What possibly can be the cause of the error ?

regards
Tushar

2005-08-03 09:00:40,812 DEBUG [org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.SecurityAssociationValve] Failed to determine servlet
java.lang.ClassCastException: org.apache.catalina.realm.GenericPrincipal
at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.SecurityAssociationValve.invoke(SecurityAssociationValve.java:133)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardValveContext.invokeNext(StandardValveContext.java:102)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:520)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:137)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardValveContext.invokeNext(StandardValveContext.java:104)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:118)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardValveContext.invokeNext(StandardValveContext.java:102)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:520)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:109)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardValveContext.invokeNext(StandardValveContext.java:104)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:520)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.invoke(ContainerBase.java:929)
at org.apache.coyote.tomcat5.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:160)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:799)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.processConnection(Http11Protocol.java:705)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.TcpWorkerThread.runIt(PoolTcpEndpoint.java:577)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.ThreadPool$ControlRunnable.run(ThreadPool.java:683)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)

[starksm64]

Your not using a final release of jboss I would assume.

[tu_gupta]

hi,
Thanx for such a quick response.
I hava tried deployment on JBoss 4.0.0 and JBoss 4.0.1sp1. Both are giving me the same error.
Regards
Tushar Gupta

[andrepgs]

I have the same problem ... but I use only Tomcat 5.5.9 to publish my projects.

You found a solution to this question?

tks,

André

[andrepgs]

I found the solution at:

http://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/Tomcat/Howto

in section:
"How can I access members of a custom Realm or Principal?"

[]'s
Andre Pastore

[whitingjr]

Hi Scott,

This error is still happening in AS7.1 Beta1 and will be present in the Final version coming out soon.

The reason I raise this is because the valve is throwing an NullPointerException. That occurs for every request which does not have a principle associated with the session. The NPE is being caugth by the catch block and the message is being logged at debug level.

There are two things I raise as a concern.

a) The affect to performance. The situation is the server throws an exception  regardless of the application code for all requests in the given situation.

b) The second is the debug message is in my (humble) opinion using the wrong logging method. Shouldn't the valve rather be logging the message using the debug method rather than debugf ? *

* debugf being the method to use when passing the message format to the logger object.

Do you think these two issues are worthy of a JIRA and a patch ?

Regards,

Jeremy

[jfclere]

Does http://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/HowTo#How_can_I_access_members_of_a_custom_Realm_or_Principal.3F helps?

[whitingjr]

Hi Jean-Frederic,

  Thank you for the suggestion but it isn't necessary relevant to the code that is being discussed. Though I did not provide enough information in my previous post. Additional details from me will explain why.

The code being discussed in this thread is not application code created by users. It is JBoss AS system code. The Valve that is throwing the NPE is

org.jboss.as.web.security.SecurityContextAssociationValve

on line 129

The application I am deploying and testing has no requirements for manipulating the session or the security principle. The resurection of this thread is to highlight the system code could do with patching to prevent it throwing an exception on every web request.

Regards,

Jeremy

[whitingjr]

Hello Jean-Frederic,

  The information you provided will help me with creating a patch. Though the objective of the patch will be to detect null pointers rather than change the behaviour of the valve.

Many thanks,

Jeremy

[jfclere]

Please create a JIRA that looks like a bug.

[whitingjr]

Hi,

Ok I will create a couple of JIRAs, one for the logging method and the second for null pointer handling.

Regards,

Jeremy

[whitingjr]

A JIRA has been raised.

https://issues.jboss.org/browse/AS7-3276

Jeremy