servlet secure login

[simo_mon]

Hi i am confused about setting up a loginpage using servlets...

original design...

simple html form which redirects to servlet, which tests user name and password
against a database and redirects accordingly... works fine

however, upon further reading i discovered role based authentication, and
the inbuilt servlet security features.. here is the web.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app id="WebApp_ID" version="2.4" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd">
	<display-name>servletSecurity</display-name><description>login forms</description>
	
	
	
	
	<security-constraint>
		<web-resource-collection>
			<web-resource-name>Test</web-resource-name>
			<url-pattern>/LoginForm.html</url-pattern>
			<http-method>GET</http-method>
			<http-method>POST</http-method>
		</web-resource-collection>

		<auth-constraint>
			<role-name>manager</role-name></auth-constraint>
		<user-data-constraint>

			<transport-guarantee>NONE</transport-guarantee>
		</user-data-constraint>


		</security-constraint><login-config>
		<auth-method>FORM</auth-method>
			<form-login-config>
				<form-login-page>/LoginForm.html</form-login-page>
				<form-error-page>/LoginErr.html</form-error-page>
		</form-login-config></login-config>


		<servlet>
				<description></description>
				<display-name>logInCheck</display-name>
				<servlet-name>logInCheck</servlet-name>
				<servlet-class>logInCheck</servlet-class>
		</servlet>

		<servlet-mapping>
			<servlet-name>ApageMaker</servlet-name>
			<url-pattern>/ApageMaker</url-pattern>
		</servlet-mapping>



	<welcome-file-list>
		<welcome-file>index.html</welcome-file>
		<welcome-file>index.htm</welcome-file>
		<welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
		<welcome-file>default.html</welcome-file>
		<welcome-file>default.htm</welcome-file>
		<welcome-file>default.jsp</welcome-file>
		<welcome-file>LoginForm.html</welcome-file>
	</welcome-file-list>
	
</web-app>

now in the first version i had

<FORM ACTION="http://www.working_url.com/servlet/logIn" method="POST"..

which redirected the results ( usrname and password) to a servlet which queries the database and then redirects...

BUT, when i use this method i use

<form action="j_security_check">

which i assume calls some inherited class to get processed ? as it redirects
already to the loginErr.html page...

but how do i process my own username/password list ?
and how do redirect to the login processing servlet loginCheck.java

here's the html of the new login page that corresponds the web.xml...

<form action="j_security_check">
			
			
		<h1 align="center"></br> Login </h1>
			
			<center>
				<table border ="0">
					<tr>
						<td ><h3>user name</br></h3></td>
						<td>
							<input type="text" name =                                                                         "j_username">
						</td>
					</tr>
					
					<tr>
						<td><h3>password</h3></td>
						<td>
							<input type="password" name = "j_password">
						
						</td>
					
					</tr>
				
				
				
				</table>
			
			<input type ="submit" value = "Login!">
			
			</center>

any help would be appreciated ..

thanks

simo_mon