How to read the LTPA Token using API

Recently i had a requirement to read the LTPA Token from API and pass it to the third party application that i am using

We have two options to do this

• Cookie: You can use the LtpaToken from the cookie. This approach works in all cases but one, which is that as soon as you login the first request wont have this cookie.


• Programmatic API: You can always read the LtpaToken from the cookie

 private String doesLTPATokenCookieExists(PortletRequest servletRequest){
  HttpServletRequest servletRequest =(PortletRequest)request;

  Cookie[] cookie =servletRequest.getCookies();
  for(int i = 0 ; i < cookie.length ;i++){
    System.out.println("Cookie Name " + cookie[i].getName() );
    if( cookie[i].getName().equals("LtpaToken"))
      return cookie[i].getValue();
    }
  return false;
}

In cases where the portlet is rendering on a first page that gets invoked after login the LtpaToken wont be there in the cookie. The basic idea is portal server will generate LtpaToken and send it in first response and thereafter the request will always have the LtpaToken cookie but that first request wont have the LtpaToken cookie, in those cases we can use this programmatic method for reading cookie

private  String getSecurityToken(){
  byte[] token = null;
  try{
    // Get current security subject
    Subject security_subject = WSSubject.getRunAsSubject();
    if (security_subject != null){
      // Get all security credentials from the security subject
      Set security_credentials =
          security_subject.getPublicCredentials(WSCredential.class);

      // Get the first credential
      WSCredential security_credential = 
   (WSCredential)security_credentials.iterator().next();
      String user = (String) security_credential.getSecurityName();
      if(user.equalsIgnoreCase("UNAUTHENTICATED")){
        return null;
      }
      token = security_credential.getCredentialToken();
      if(token == null){
        return null;
      }
      String ltpaToken = 
   com.ibm.ws.webservices.engine.encoding.Base64.encode(token);
      return ltpaToken;
    }
  }
  catch (Exception e){
    e.printStackTrace();
  }
  return null;
}