/**

  * Copyright 2005-2011 The Kuali Foundation

  *

  * Licensed under the Educational Community License, Version 2.0 (the "License");

  * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.

  * You may obtain a copy of the License at

  *

  * http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ecl2.php

  *

  * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software

  * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,

  * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.

  * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and

  * limitations under the License.

  */

 package org.kuali.rice.core.api.security.credentials;

 /**

  * Inteface for abstracting out how we obtain credentials to access secure

  * applications across the bus.

  * 

  * @author Kuali Rice Team (rice.collab@kuali.org)

  * @since 0.9

  */

 public interface CredentialsSource {

     /**

      * Returns the supported CredentialsType. This should never be null.

      * 

      * @return the supported credentials type.

      */

     CredentialsType getSupportedCredentialsType();

     /**

      * Returns the SecurityContext which should have the proper credentials to

      * give to any system requiring credentials. This class has no guarantees

      * what a user will do with the credentials and should thus always return a

      * thread-safe version.

      * 

      * @param serviceDefinition The Service Definition for which we want

      * credentials for.

      * @return the credentials, or null if credentials could not be obtained.

      */

     Credentials getCredentials(String serviceEndpoint);

 }