One of the neat features of the Axway/Vordel API Server is the fact that you can extend it using Java. There are a number of ways of doing this, but a really neat way is to run your Java class through a Scripting Filter. Here is a guide to calling your own, or third-pary, Java classes from the Axway/Vordel API Server.

My use case is that I want to use OpenID for single-sign-on using a Google login. I found a nice implementation of OpenID called JOpenID and downloaded it as a jar file. I then placed the JOpenId-1.08.jar file into the /ext/lib folder of my API Server installation. I then placed this new class under /ext/lib on the API Server also, so that it will be picked up by the API Server runtime. Note that, for v7 onward, this must be placed under the /ext/lib instance you want to extend. You can find the correct instance by following the "groups" then "topologylinks" path under the API Server installation. This effectively puts it onto the classpath for that API Server instance.

JOpenID includes a class called OpenIdManager which has a method called getAuthenticationUrl that constructs the URL which directs the user to Google for SSO to a particular endpoint. I want to call that method from the API Server. However, from a Scripting Filter, I can only run a public static method of a class.

So, what I did was to make a class called "OpenIDEngine", and I gave it a public static method called "GetURL". In that method, I create an instance of OpenIdManager and I call OpenIdManager.getAuthenticationUrl to get the URL for me. This is what I will call from my Scripting Filter.

Here's the code I wrote:


package org.expressme.openid;

public class OpenIDEngine {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        System.out.println(GetURL("http://vordelapiserver/openId","http://vordelapiserver", "Google"));
    }
    
    public static String GetURL(String ReturnTo, String Realm, String Endpoint)
    {
        OpenIdManager manager = new OpenIdManager();
        manager.setReturnTo(ReturnTo);
        manager.setRealm(Realm);
        manager.setTimeOut(10000);
        Endpoint endpoint = manager.lookupEndpoint(Endpoint);
        Association association = manager.lookupAssociation(endpoint);
        String url = manager.getAuthenticationUrl(endpoint, association);
        return url;
    }
}