Service Builder Concept

Service Builder

Service Builder is a model-driven code generation tool built by Liferay to automate the creation of interfaces and classes for database persistence and a service layer. Service Builder will generate most of the common code needed to implement find, create, update, and delete operations on the database, allowing you to focus on the higher level aspects of service design.

The service layer generated by Service Builder, has an implementation class that is responsible to handle retrieving and storing data classes and adding the necessary business logic around them. This layer can optionally be composed of two layers, the local service and the remote service. The local service contains the business logic and accesses the persistence layer. It can be invoked by client code running in the same Java Virtual Machine. The remote service usually ads a code to check security and is meant to be accessible from anywhere over the Internet or your local network. Service Builder automatically generates the code necessary to allow access to the remote services using SOAP, JSON and Java RMI.

Define the Model

The first step in using Service Builder is to define your model classes and their attributes in a service.xml file. For convenience, we will define the service within the my-greeting portlet, although it should be placed inside a new portlet. Create a file named service.xml in portlets/my-greeting-portlet/docroot/WEB-INF inside the Plugins SDK and add the following content:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE service-builder PUBLIC "-//Liferay//DTD Service Builder 6.0.0//EN" "http://www.liferay.com/dtd/liferay-service-builder_6_0_0.dtd">
<service-builder package-path="com.sample.portlet.library">
    <namespace>Library</namespace>
    <entity name="Book" local-service="true" remote-service="true">

        <!-- PK fields -->

        <column name="bookId" type="long" primary="true" />

        <!-- Group instance -->

        <column name="groupId" type="long" />

        <!-- Audit fields -->

        <column name="companyId" type="long" />
        <column name="userId" type="long" />
        <column name="userName" type="String" />
        <column name="createDate" type="Date" />
        <column name="modifiedDate" type="Date" />

        <!-- Other fields -->

        <column name="title" type="String" />
    </entity>
</service-builder>

Overview of service.xml

<service-builder package-path="com.sample.portlet.library">

This specifies the package path that the class will generate to. In this example, classes will generate to WEB-INF/src/com/sample/portlet/library/

<namespace>Library</namespace>

The namespace element must be a unique namespace for this component. Table names will be prepended with this namepace.

<entity name="Book" local-service="true" remote-service="false">

The entity name is the database table you want to create.

<column name="title" type="String" />

Columns specified in service.xml will be created in the database with a data type appropriate to the Java type. Accessors will be automatically generated for these attributes in the model class.

Tip: Always consider adding two long fields called groupId and companyId to your data models. These two fields will allow your portlet to support the multi-tenancy features of Liferay so that each community or organization (for each portal instance) can have its own independent data.

Generate the Service

Open a terminal window in your portlets/my-greeting-portlet directory and enter this command:

ant build-service

The service has been generated successfully when you see "BUILD SUCCESSFUL." In the terminal window, you should see that a large number of files have been generated. An overview of these files is provided below:

• Persistence
  • BookPersistence - book persistence interface @generated
  • BookPersistenceImpl - book persistence @generated
  • BookUtil - book persistence util, instances BookPersistenceImpl @generated
• Local Service
  • BookLocalServiceImpl - local service implementation. This is the only class within the local service that you will be able to modify manually. Your business logic will be here.
  • BookLocalService - local service interface @generated
  • BookLocalServiceBaseImpl - local service base @generated @abstract
  • BookLocalServiceUtil - local service util, instances BookLocalServiceImpl @generated
  • BookLocalServiceWrapper - local service wrapper, wraps BookLocalServiceImpl @generated
• Remote Service
  • BookServiceImpl - remove service implementation. Put here the code that adds additional security checks and invokes the local service.
  • BookService - remote service interface @generated
  • BookServiceBaseImpl - remote service base @generated @abstract
  • BookServiceUtil - remote service util, instances BookServiceImpl @generated
  • BookServiceWrapper - remote service wrapper, wraps BookServiceImpl @generated
  • BookServiceSoap - soap remote service, proxies BookServiceUtil @generated
  • BookSoap - soap book model, similar to BookModelImpl, does not implement Book @generated
  • BookServiceHttp - http remote service, proxies BookServiceUtil @generated
  • BookJSONSerializer - json serializer, converts Book to JSON array @generated
• Model
  • BookModel - book base model interface @generated
  • BookModelImpl - book base model @generated
  • Book - book model interface @generated
  • BookImpl - book model implementation. You can use this class to add additional methods to your model other than the autogenerated field getters and setters.
  • BookWrapper - book wrapper, wraps Book @generated

Out of all of these classes only three can be manually modified: BookLocalServiceImpl, BookServiceImpl and BookImpl.

Write the Local Service Class

In the file overview above, you will see that BookLocalService is the interface for the local service. It contains the signatures of every method in BookLocalServiceBaseImpl and BookLocalServiceImpl. BookLocalServiceBaseImpl contains a few automatically generated methods providing common functionality. Since this class is generated, you should never modify it, or your changes will be overwritten the next time you run Service Builder. Instead, all custom code should be placed in BookLocalServiceImpl.

Open the following file:

/docroot/WEB-INF/src/com/sample/portlet/library/service/impl/BookLocalServiceImpl.java

We will be adding the database interaction methods to this service layer class. Add the following method to the BookLocalServiceImpl class:

public Book addBook(long userId, String title)
        throws PortalException, SystemException {
    User user = UserUtil.findByPrimaryKey(userId);
    Date now = new Date();
    long bookId = CounterLocalServiceUtil.increment(Book.class.getName());

    Book book = bookPersistence.create(bookId);

    book.setTitle(title);
    book.setCompanyId(user.getCompanyId());
    book.setUserId(user.getUserId());
    book.setUserName(user.getFullName());
    book.setCreateDate(now);
    book.setModifiedDate(now);
    book.setTitle(title);

    return bookPersistence.update(book);
}

Before you can use this new method, you must add its signature to the BookLocalService interface by running service builder again.

Navigate to the root folder of your portlet in the terminal and run:

ant build-service

Service Builder looks through BookLocalServiceImpl and automatically copies the signatures of each method into the interface. You can now add a new book to the database by making the following call

BookLocalServiceUtil.addBook(userId, "A new title");

Built-In Liferay Services

In addition to the services you create using Service Builder, your portlets may also access a variety of services built into Liferay. These include UserService, OrganizationService, GroupService, CompanyService, ImageService, LayoutService, OrganizationService, PermissionService, UserGroupService, and RoleService. For more information on these services, see Liferay in Action and Liferay's Javadocs. 

Security and Permissions Service

Liferay Portal implements a fine-grained permissions system, which developers can use to implement access security into their custom portlets, giving administrators and users a lot more control over their portlets and content. This section of the document will provide a reference for implementing security into custom portlets.

• Overview

Adding fine-grained permissions to custom portlets consists of four main steps (also known as DRAC):

• Define all resources and their permissions.
• Register all the resources defined in step 1 into the permissions system. This is also known simply as "adding resources."
• Associate the necessary permissions to these resources.
• Check permission before returning resources.

• Implementing Permissions

In this section, each of the four main steps in adding Liferay's security feature into custom portlets (built on top of the Liferay portal) will be explained. The following are two definitions that are important to remember.

Resource - A generic term for any object represented in the portal. Examples of resources include portlets (e.g., Message Boards, Calendar, etc.), Java classes (e.g., Message Board Topics, Calendar Events, etc.), and files (e.g., documents, images, etc.)

Permission - An action acting on a resource. For example, the view in "viewing the calendar portlet" is defined as a permission in Liferay.

Keep in mind that the permission for a portlet resource is implemented a little differently from the other resources such as Java classes and files. In each of the subsections below, the permission implementation for the portlet resource is explained first, then the model (and file) resource.

For your custom portlet, Liferay portal needs to know whether there are resources that require permission and whether there are custom permissions. The default configuration is encapsulated in an XML file found in the portal source under the /portal-impl/classes/resource-actions directory; you might use it as a reference to create a similar file for your portlet. There is also a Sample Permissions portlet available in the Plugins project on SourceForge. If your portlet only needs the view and the configuration permission, and that the portlet doesn't use any models with permission, then you do not need to create this XML file. The reason is that all portlets in Liferay automatically inherit these permissions. However, if your portlet does have custom permission and/or uses models that have custom permissions, then you will need to create an XML file defining the resources and actions. Let's take a look at blogs.xml in portal/portal-impl/classes/resource-actions and see how the blogs portlet defined these resources and actions:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<resource-action-mapping>
<portlet-resource>
<portlet-name>33</portlet-name>
<supports>
<action-key>ADD_ENTRY</action-key>
<action-key>CONFIGURATION</action-key>
<action-key>VIEW</action-key>
</supports>
<community-defaults>
<action-key>VIEW</action-key>
</community-defaults>
<guest-defaults>
<action-key>VIEW</action-key>
</guest-defaults>
<guest-unsupported>
<action-key>ADD_ENTRY</action-key>
</guest-unsupported>
</portlet-resource>
<model-resource>
<model-name>com.liferay.portlet.blogs.model.BlogsEntry</model-name>
<portlet-ref>
<portlet-name>33</portlet-name>
</portlet-ref>
<supports>
<action-key>ADD_DISCUSSION</action-key>
<action-key>DELETE</action-key>
<action-key>DELETE_DISCUSSION</action-key>
<action-key>PERMISSIONS</action-key>
<action-key>UPDATE</action-key>
<action-key>UPDATE_DISCUSSION</action-key>
<action-key>VIEW</action-key>
</supports>
<community-defaults>
<action-key>ADD_DISCUSSION</action-key>
<action-key>VIEW</action-key>
</community-defaults>
<guest-defaults>
<action-key>VIEW</action-key>
</guest-defaults>
<guest-unsupported>
<action-key>ADD_DISCUSSION</action-key>
<action-key>DELETE</action-key>
<action-key>DELETE_DISCUSSION</action-key>
<action-key>PERMISSIONS</action-key>
<action-key>UPDATE</action-key>
<action-key>UPDATE_DISCUSSION</action-key>
</guest-unsupported>
</model-resource>
</resource-action-mapping>

In the XML, the first thing defined is the portlet itself. Right under the root element <resource-action-mapping>, we have a child element called <portlet-resource>. In this element, we define the portlet name, which is 33 in our case. Next, we list all the actions this portlet supports under the <supports> tag. Keep in mind that this is at the portlet level. To understand what should be listed here, developers should ask themselves what actions belong to the portlet itself or what actions are performed on the portlet that may require a security check. In our case, users need permission to add an entry (ADD_ENTRY), configure blogs portlet settings (CONFIGURATION), and view the blogs itself (VIEW). Each of these supported permissions is within its own <action-key> tag. After we've defined all the actions that require a check, we move on to define some of the default permission settings. The community-defaults tag defines what actions are permitted by default for this portlet on the community (group) page upon which the portlet resides. To put it another way, what should a user that has access to the community in which this portlet resides be able to do minimally? For the blogs portlet, a user with access to the community containing the blogs portlet should be able to view it. Likewise, the guest-defaults tag defines what actions are permitted by default to guests visiting a layout containing this portlet. So if a guest has access to the community page that contains a blogs portlet, the guest should, at the very least, be able to view the portlet according to blogs.xml (not necessarily the content of the portlet). Otherwise, the guest will see an error message within the portlet. Depending on your custom portlet, you may add more actions here that make sense. The guest-unsupported tag contains actions that a visiting guest should never be able to do. For example, the guest visiting the blogs portlet should never be able to add a blog entry since the blog belongs to either a user or a group of users. So even if a user wants to grant guests the ability to add a blog entry to her blog, there is no way for her to grant that permission because the blogs.xml doesn't permit such an action for guests.

After defining the portlet as a resource, we move on to define models within the portlet that also require access check. The model resource is surrounded by the <model-resource> tag. Within this tag, we first define the model name. This must be the fully qualified Java class name of the model. Next we define the portlet name that this model belongs to under the portlet-ref tag. Though unlikely, a model can belong to multiple portlets, which you may use multiple <portlet-name> tags to define. Similar to the portlet resource element, the model resource element also allows you to define a supported list of actions that require permission to perform. You must list out all the performable actions that require a permission check. As you can see for a blog entry, a user must have permission in order to add comments to an entry, delete an entry, change the permission setting of an entry, update an entry, or simply to view an entry. The <community-defaults> tag, the <guest-defaults> tag, and the <guest-unsupported> tag are all similar in meaning to what's explained above for a portlet resource.

After defining your permission scheme for your custom portlet, you then need to tell Liferay the location of this file. For Liferay core, the XML file would normally reside in portal/portal-impl/classes/resource-actions and a reference to the file would appear in the default.xml file. For a plugin, you should put the file in a directory that is in the class path for the project. Then create a properties file for your portlet (the one in the Sample Permissions Portlet is simply called, sample-permissions-portlet.properties) and create a property called resource.actions.configs with a value that points to the the XML file. Below is an example from the Sample Permissions Portlet:

resource.actions.configs=resource-actions/sample-permissions-portlet.xml

• Adding Resource

After defining resources and actions, the next task is to write code that adds resources into the permissions system. A lot of the logic to add resources is encapsulated in the ResourceLocalServiceImpl class. So adding resources is as easy as calling the add resource method in ResourceLocalServiceUtil class.

public void addResources(
String companyId, String groupId, String userId, String name,
String primKey, boolean portletActions,
boolean addCommunityPermissions, boolean addGuestPermissions);

For all the Java objects that require access permission, you need to make sure that they are added as resources every time a new one is created. For example, every time a user adds a new entry to her blog, the addResources(…) method is called to add the new entry to the resource system. Here's an example of the call from the BlogsEntryLocalServiceImpl class.

ResourceLocalServiceUtil.addResources(
entry.getCompanyId(), entry.getGroupId(), entry.getUserId(),
BlogsEntry.class.getName(), entry.getPrimaryKey().toString(),
false, addCommunityPermissions, addGuestPermissions);

The parameters companyId, groupId, and userId should be self explanatory. The name parameter is the fully qualified Java class name for the resource object being added. The primKey parameter is the primary key of the resource object. As for the portletActions parameter, set this to true if you're adding portlet action permissions. In our example, we set it to false because we're adding a model resource, which should be associated with permissions related to the model action defined in blogs.xml. The addCommunityPermissions and the addGuestPermissions parameters are inputs from the user. If set to true, ResourceLocalService will then add the default permissions to the current community group and the guest group for this resource respectively.

If you would like to provide your user the ability to choose whether to add the default community permission and the guest permission for the resources within your custom portlet, Liferay has a custom JSP tag you may use to quickly add that functionality. Simply insert the <liferay-ui:input-permissions /> tag into the appropriate JSP and the checkboxes will show up on your JSP. Of course, make sure the tag is within the appropriate <form> tags.

To prevent having a lot of dead resources taking up space in the Resource_ database table, you must remember to remove them from the Resource_ table when the resource is no longer applicable. Simply call the deleteResource(…) method in ResourceLocalServiceUtil. Here's an example of a blogs entry being removed:

ResourceLocalServiceUtil.deleteResource(
entry.getCompanyId(), BlogsEntry.class.getName(),
Resource.TYPE_CLASS, Resource.SCOPE_INDIVIDUAL,
entry.getPrimaryKey().toString());

• Adding Permission

On the portlet level, no code needs to be written in order to have the permission system work for your custom portlet. Your custom portlet will automatically have all the permission features. If you've defined any custom permissions (supported actions) in your portlet-resource tag in section 3.1, those are automatically added to a list of permissions and users can readily choose them. Of course, for your custom permissions to have any value, you'll need to show or hide certain functionality in your portlet. You can do that by checking the permission first before performing the intended functionality.

In order to allow a user to set permissions on the model resources, you will need to expose the permission interface to the user. This can be done by adding two Liferay UI tags to your JSP. The first one is the <liferay-security:permissionsURL> tag which returns a URL that takes the user to the page to configure the permission settings. The second tag is the <liferay-ui:icon> tag that shows a permission icon to the user. Below is an example found in the file view_entry_content.jspf.

<liferay-security:permissionsURL
modelResource="<%= BlogsEntry.class.getName() %>"
modelResourceDescription="<%= entry.getTitle() %>"
resourcePrimKey="<%= entry.getPrimaryKey().toString() %>"
var="entryURL"
/>

<liferay-ui:icon image="permissions" url="<%= entryURL %>" />

The attributes you need to provide to the first tag are modelResource, modelResourceDescription, resourcePrimKey, and var. The modelResource attribute is the fully qualified Java object class name. It then gets translated in Language.properties to a more readable name.

As for the modelResourceDescription attribute, you can pass in anything that best describes this model instance. In the example, the blogs title was passed in. The resourcePrimKey attribute is simply the primary key of your model instance. The var attribute is the variable name this URL String will get assigned to. This variable is then passed to the <liferay-ui:icon> tag so the permission icon will have the proper URL link. There's also an optional attribute redirect that's available if you want to override the default behavior of the upper right arrow link. That is all you need to do to enable users to configure the permission settings for model resources.

• Checking Permissions

The last major step to implementing permission to your custom portlet is to check permission. This may be done in a couple of places. For example, your business layer should check for permission before deleting a resource, or your user interface should hide a button that adds a model (e.g., a calendar event) if the user does not have permission to do so.

Similar to the other steps, the default permissions for the portlet resources are automatically checked for you. You do not need to implement anything for your portlet to discriminate whether a user is allowed to view or to configure the portlet itself. However, you do need to implement any custom permission you have defined in your resource-actions XML file. In the blogs portlet example, one custom supported action is ADD_ENTRY. There are two places in the source code that check for this permission. The first one is in the file view_entries.jsp. The presence of the add entry button is contingent on whether the user has permission to add entry (and also whether the user is in tab one).

<%
boolean showAddEntryButton = tabs1.equals("entries") && PortletPermission.contains(permissionChecker, plid, PortletKeys.BLOGS, ActionKeys.ADD_ENTRY);
%>

The second place that checks for the add entry permission is in the file BlogsEntryServiceImpl. (Notice the difference between this file and the BlogsEntryLocalServiceImpl.) In the addEntry(…) method, a call is made to check whether the incoming request has permission to add entry.

PortletPermission.check(
getPermissionChecker(), plid, PortletKeys.BLOGS,
ActionKeys.ADD_ENTRY);

If the check fails, it throws a PrincipalException and the add entry request aborts. You're probably wondering what the PortletPermission and the PermissionChecker classes do. Let's take a look at these two classes.

The PermissionChecker class has a method called hasPermission(…) that checks whether a user making a resource request has the necessary access permission. If the user is not signed in (guest user), it checks for guest permissions. Otherwise, it checks for user permissions. This class is available to you in two places. First in your business logic layer, you can obtain an instance of the PermissionChecker by calling the getPermissionChecker() method inside your ServiceImpl class. This method is available because all ServiceImpl (not LocalServiceImpl) classes extend the PrincipalBean class, which implements the getPermissionChecker() method. The other place where you can obtain an instance of the PermissionChecker class is in your JSP files. If your JSP file contains the portlet tag <portlet:defineObjects /> or includes another JSP file that does, you'll have an instance of the PermissionChecker class available to you via the permissionChecker variable. Now that you know what the PermissionChecker does and how to obtain an instance of it, let's take a look at Liferay's convention in using it.

PortletPermission is a helper class that makes it easy for you to check permission on portlet resources (as opposed to model resources, covered later). It has two static methods called check(…) and another two called contains(…). They are all essentially the same. The two differences between them are:

• One check(…) method and one contains(…) method take in the portlet layout ID variable (plid).
• The check(…) methods throw a new PrincipalException if user does not have permission, and the contains(…) methods return a boolean indicating whether user has permission.

The contains(…) methods are meant to be used in your JSP files since they return a boolean instead of throwing an exception. The check(…) methods are meant to be called in your business layer (ServiceImpl). Let's revisit the blogs portlet example below. (The addEntry(…) method is found in BlogsEntryServiceImpl.)

public BlogsEntry addEntry(
long plid, String title, String content, int displayDateMonth,
int displayDateDay, int displayDateYear, int displayDateHour,
int displayDateMinute, String[] tagsEntries,
boolean addCommunityPermissions, boolean addGuestPermissions,
ThemeDisplay themeDisplay)
throws PortalException, SystemException {

PortletPermissionUtil.check(
getPermissionChecker(), plid, PortletKeys.BLOGS,
ActionKeys.ADD_ENTRY);

return blogsEntryLocalService.addEntry(
getUserId(), plid, title, content, displayDateMonth, displayDateDay,
displayDateYear, displayDateHour, displayDateMinute, tagsEntries,
addCommunityPermissions, addGuestPermissions, themeDisplay);
}

Before the addEntry(…) method calls BlogsEntryLocalServiceUtil.addEntry(…) to add a blogs entry, it calls PortletPermission.check(…) to validate user permission. If the check fails, a PrincipalException is thrown and an entry will not be added. Note the parameters passed into the method. Again, the getPermissionChecker() method is readily available in all ServiceImpl classes. The plid variable is passed into the method by its caller (most likely from a PortletAction class). PortletKeys.BLOGS is just a static String indicating that the permission check is against the blogs portlet. ActionKeys.ADD_ENTRY is also a static String to indicate the action requiring the permission check. You're encouraged to do likewise with your custom portlet names and custom action keys.

Whether you need to pass in a portlet layout ID (plid) depends on whether your custom portlet supports multiple instances. Let's take a look at the message board portlet for example. A community may need three separate page layouts, each having a separate instance of the message board portlet. Only by using the portlet layout ID will the permission system be able to distinguish the three separate instances of the message board portlet. This way, permission can be assigned separately in all three instances. Though in general, most portlets won't need to use the portlet layout ID in relation to the permission system.

Since the ServiceImpl class extends the PrincipalBean class, it has access to information of the current user making the service request. Therefore, the ServiceImpl class is the ideal place in your business layer to check user permission. Liferay's convention is to implement the actual business logic inside the LocalServiceImpl methods, and then the ServiceImpl calls these methods via the LocalServiceUtil class after the permission check completes successfully. Your PortletAction classes should make calls to ServiceUtil (wrapper to ServiceImpl) guaranteeing that permission is first checked before the request is fulfilled.

Checking model resource permission is very similar to checking portlet resource permission. The only major difference is that instead of calling methods found in the PortletPermission class mentioned previously, you need to create your own helper class to assist you in checking permission. The next section will detail how this is done.

It is advisable to have a helper class to help check permission on your custom models. This custom permission class is similar to the PortletPermission class but is tailored to work with your custom models. While you can implement this class however you like, we encourage you to model your implementation after the PortletPermission class, which contains four static methods. Let's take a look at the BlogsEntryPermission class.

public class BlogsEntryPermission {

public static void check(
PermissionChecker permissionChecker, long entryId, String actionId)
throws PortalException, SystemException {

if (!contains(permissionChecker, entryId, actionId)) {
throw new PrincipalException();
}
}

public static void check(
PermissionChecker permissionChecker, BlogsEntry entry,
String actionId)
throws PortalException, SystemException {

if (!contains(permissionChecker, entry, actionId)) {
throw new PrincipalException();
}
}

public static boolean contains(
PermissionChecker permissionChecker, long entryId, String actionId)
throws PortalException, SystemException {

BlogsEntry entry = BlogsEntryLocalServiceUtil.getEntry(entryId);

return contains(permissionChecker, entry, actionId);
}

public static boolean contains(
PermissionChecker permissionChecker, BlogsEntry entry,
String actionId)
throws PortalException, SystemException {

return permissionChecker.hasPermission(
entry.getGroupId(), BlogsEntry.class.getName(), entry.getEntryId(),
actionId);
}
}

Again, the two check(…) methods are meant to be called in your business layer, while the two contains(…) methods can be used in your JSP files. As you can see, it's very similar to the PortletPermission class. The two notable differences are:

• Instead of having the portletId as one of the parameters, the methods in this custom class take in either an entryId or a BlogsEntry object.
• None of the methods need to receive the portlet layout ID (plid) as a parameter. (Your custom portlet may choose to use the portlet layout ID if need be.)

Let's see how this class is used in the blogs portlet code.

public BlogsEntry getEntry(String entryId) throws PortalException, SystemException {
BlogsEntryPermission.check(
getPermissionChecker(), entryId, ActionKeys.VIEW);
return BlogsEntryLocalServiceUtil.getEntry(entryId);
}

In the BlogsEntryServiceImpl class is a method called getEntry(…). Before this method returns the blogs entry object, it calls the custom permission helper class to check permission. If this call doesn't throw an exception, the entry is retrieved and returned to its caller.

<c:if test="<%= BlogsEntryPermission.contains(permissionChecker, entry, ActionKeys.UPDATE) %>">
<portlet:renderURL windowState="<%= WindowState.MAXIMIZED.toString() %>" var="entryURL">
<portlet:param name="struts_action" value="/blogs/edit_entry" />
<portlet:param name="redirect" value="<%= currentURL %>" />
<portlet:param name="entryId" value="<%= entry.getEntryId() %>" />
</portlet:renderURL>

<liferay-ui:icon image="edit" url="<%= entryURL %>" />
</c:if>

In the view_entry_content.jsp file, the BlogsEntryPermission.contains(…) method is called to check whether or not to show the edit button. That's all there is to it!

Let's review what we've just covered. Implementing permission into your custom portlet consists of four main steps. First step is to define any custom resources and actions. Next step is to implement code to register (or add) any newly created resources such as a BlogsEntry object. The third step is to provide an interface for the user to configure permission. Lastly, implement code to check permission before returning resources or showing custom features. Two major resources are portlets and Java objects. There is not a lot that needs to be done for the portlet resource to implement the permission system since Liferay Portal has a lot of that work done for you. You mainly focus your efforts on any custom Java objects you've built. You're now well on your way to implement security to your custom Liferay portlets!

Contributed By Liferay.com