What is a SOAPHandler in WS-Security? (41 of 285 technotes for 2015)

SOAP handler is a SOAP message interceptor, which is able to intercept incoming or outgoing SOAP message and manipulate its values.

“javax.xml.ws.handler.soap.SOAPHandler” is the Interface which needs to be implemented by someone who wants to use the SOAP Handler.

It inherits 4 methods namely

• getHeaders() 
• close()
• handleFault()
• handleMessage()

Any implementation of SOAPHandler interface will implement the handleMessage() operation to intercept the SOAP message.

SampleCode:

public boolean handleMessage(SOAPMessageContext context) {
Boolean isOutboundMessage = (Boolean) context.get(MessageContext.MESSAGE_OUTBOUND_PROPERTY);
if (isOutboundMessage) {
SOAPPart messageSoapPart = context.getMessage().getSOAPPart();
WSSecHeader securityHeader = new WSSecHeader();
try {
securityHeader.insertSecurityHeader(messageSoapPart);
} catch (WSSecurityException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
Map map = new HashMap();
map.put(Constants.MAPPING_ALIAS, “CT_J2C_FDSH_ALIAS”);
CallbackHandler callbackHandler = null;
LoginContext loginContext = null;
try {
callbackHandler = WSMappingCallbackHandlerFactory.getInstance().getCallbackHandler(map, null);
loginContext = new LoginContext(“DefaultPrincipalMapping”, callbackHandler);
loginContext.login();
Subject subject = loginContext.getSubject();
Set credentials = subject.getPrivateCredentials();
PasswordCredential passwordCredential = (PasswordCredential) credentials.iterator().next();
String userid = passwordCredential.getUserName();
String password = new String(passwordCredential.getPassword());
WSSecUsernameToken usernameToken = new WSSecUsernameToken();
usernameToken.setPasswordType(WSConstants.PASSWORD_DIGEST);
usernameToken.setUserInfo(userid, password);
WSSecTimestamp timestamp = new WSSecTimestamp();
usernameToken.build(messageSoapPart, securityHeader);
timestamp.build(messageSoapPart, securityHeader);
} catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println(“FDSHJavaHandler - Exception occured while loggin in”);
}
}
return true;