application-sevlet communication and authentication question

[Fusun Eryoldas <FE...@KBSI.com>]

Hello, 
I am using Tomcat 3.2.3 and form based authentication. My question is
about how to do authentication when the client is a standalone java
application. Since it is an application, there is no browser involved.
Therefore, using cookies option would not make any sense.  
Following is that what I am doing in my java code for sevlet
communication: 
(The name of the servlet which is secured by the form based
authentication is "ListClients")

URL url = new URL("http://localhost:8080/myapplication/ListClients");

URLConnection URLcon = url.openConnection();
URLcon.setDoOutput(true);   
URLcon.setUseCaches(false); 
URLcon.setAllowUserInteraction(true);
 
String userSignature = "j_username="  + URLEncoder.encode("joe") +
                                 "&j_password=" +
URLEncoder.encode("pssjoe");
   
DataOutputStream printout = new
DataOutputStream(URLcon.getOutputStream()); 
printout.writeBytes(userSignature);      
printout.flush();      
printout.close();          

DataInputStream in = new DataInputStream(URLcon.getInputStream());

String stline;
while((stline = in.readLine()) != null)
      System.out.println(stline);
in.close();  

Although I send the j_username and j_password to the servlet, the only
thing I can get as a response from the servlet
is my login html page. 
I think for some reason, I can not accomplish to create a session. 

I would really apprecite If you could help me with this. 
Thanks, 
Fusun