This package contains `Authenticator` implementations for the various supported authentication methods (BASIC, DIGEST, and FORM). In addition, there is a convenience base class, `AuthenticatorBase`, for customized `Authenticator` implementations.

If you are using the standard context configuration class (`org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig`) to configure the Authenticator associated with a particular context, you can register the Java class to be used for each possible authentication method by modifying the following Properties file:

        src/share/org/apache/catalina/startup/Authenticators.properties

Each of the standard implementations extends a common base class (`AuthenticatorBase`), which is configured by setting the following JavaBeans properties (with default values in square brackets):

- cache - Should we cache authenticated Principals (thus avoiding per-request lookups in our underlying `Realm`) if this request is part of an HTTP session? [true]
- debug - Debugging detail level for this component. [0]

The standard authentication methods that are currently provided include:

- BasicAuthenticator - Implements HTTP BASIC authentication, as described in RFC 2617.
- DigestAuthenticator - Implements HTTP DIGEST authentication, as described in RFC 2617.
- FormAuthenticator - Implements FORM-BASED authentication, as described in the Servlet API Specification.