Declarative Security

Declarative security means that the security mechanism for an application is declared and handled external to the application. Deployment descriptors describe the J2SE application's security structure, including security roles, access control, and authentication requirements.

Sun Java System Web Server supports the DTDs specified by the J2SE 1.3 specification, and has additional security elements included in its own deployment descriptors. Declarative security is the application deployer's responsibility.