Spring security workflow

Question

I'm new to Spring Security, and I can't grasp the basic workflow of it. I read again and again the official documentation but I feel more confused. I can't figure out what are exactly :

• authentication manager/provider
• authentication object
• user detail
• user details service

It seems that authentication object is built thanks to user detail but the latter need the former to be built (that's what I understood from the doc).

Does anyone have a simple explanation on how all of these things are used ?

Answer 1

Authentication manager allows multiple authentication providers (eg an in memory db and a normal db?). Authentication provider looks up a user details implementation, via whichever user details service has been specified. The authentication object is then created from that.

User service and user details implementation are completely independent of spring security, you do not need spring security to use them.

[Ref docs]