rules for usernames in windows domain

Question

I'm working on a app that uses Jespa to do transparent SSO. I'm using the NtlmSecurityProvider. In my code, when I get the username looks like this: "DOMAINNAME\username"

e.g.

<% out.println(request.getRemoteUser()); %>

prints this: MYDOMAIN\myusername

Here's my question:

Will it always look like that, with the domain name and the username? or is it just the way our user accounts in our domain are set up? Like, if I switched to a different windows domain, could I potentially get just the username without the domain and the backslash?

Thanks!

Answer 1

This is probably more a support question for the Jespa folks. The output is reliant on the behavior of their API.

In general, though, best practice for Windows is to always use DOMAIN\username format or username@domain format.

If you're worried about the format changing then I would suggest you write a class / method / utility that knows how to parse the results of getRemoteUser() and returns the parts to your app as you deem necessary. Then if it ever does change you only have to change on piece of code to fix your app.