extending/modifying expiring password flow and LDAP properties

[Cantor, Scott]

> So I set in expiring-password-beans.xml
> 
>    <import resource="../../../../conf/authn/ldap-authn-config.xml" />

We don't really support importing things that already make up part of the system, that could have unintended side effects like duplicate copies of things.

In most cases it should be possible to define a shared bean in global.xml and then use it in the other contexts if desired, but LDAP may be a notable exception to that because of all the interdependency.

> The problem is that when Spring instantiantes my bean it complains that
> it cannot resolve the properties in ldap-authn-config.xml like

Your ultimately importing file probably doesn't have the standard bean in it:

    <bean class="org.springframework.context.support.PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer"
        p:placeholderPrefix="%{" p:placeholderSuffix="}" />

All our files do. The reason it's needed is that the %{} syntax isn't really Spring's, it defaults to ${} and that conflicted with Velocity.

> What I really want to do is just modify the DN in my flow. Is there a better
> way that I should be getting a connection to LDAP in my class other than
> injecting an authenticator and then going "upstream" to get the connection
> pool and get a connection?

LDAP's not my specialty but if it were JDBC we would say to define the data source in global.xml and share it.

-- Scott