how to get the url of the initially requested page? - jsf

Question

I use the following web.xml setting to direct unlogged-in user to /faces/loginPage.xhtml.
In /faces/loginPage.xhtml I will authenticate the user and redirect the user to the home page.
Now I want to redirect the user to the page she initially requested, instead of the home page. How do I do that? Specifically, how to get the url of the initially requested page?
<security-constraint>
<display-name>MyConstraint</display-name>
<web-resource-collection>
<web-resource-name>wrcoll</web-resource-name>
<description />
<url-pattern>/faces/secured/*</url-pattern>
</web-resource-collection>
<auth-constraint>
<description />
<role-name>myUser</role-name>
</auth-constraint>
</security-constraint>
<login-config>
<auth-method>FORM</auth-method>
<realm-name>my_ldap_domain</realm-name>
<form-login-config>
<form-login-page>/faces/loginPage.xhtml</form-login-page>
<form-error-page>/error.xhtml</form-error-page>
</form-login-config>
</login-config>

Answer 1

You seem to be performing the login through a JSF managed bean instead of through j_security_check. Because if you were using the latter, this is already automatically taken into account.
The FORM based authentication login page is been displayed by a RequestDispatcher#forward() the usual Servlet API way. So the request URI of the initially requested page is available as a request attribute with the name as specified by RequestDispatcher.FORWARD_REQUEST_URI, which has a value of "javax.servlet.forward.request_uri".
So, in EL context it's available as
#{requestScope['javax.servlet.forward.request_uri']}
And in JSF context it's available as
String originalURL = (String) FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getExternalContext().getRequestMap().get("javax.servlet.forward.request_uri");
This needs to be collected on the initial request, not on the form submit. Easiest would be to grab it in the constructor of a #ViewScoped managed bean which is attached to the page. An alternative with a #RequestScoped bean is to enclose a plain HTML <input type="hidden"> in with that value in the login form and set it as #ManagedProperty.