MPSC Modules was born out of a collection of common code that has been used in various projects over the years. It was time to merge this code together into a manageable package to allow easier maintenance and easier integration into new projects. It was decided to license this common code under an Apache license to allow others to take advantage of the solutions to common problems that are contained within.

There are three separate areas of functionality that are addressed by the code presented here, and these are detailed below.

The security module contains a convenient interface to a series of plugins to access authentication resources. Plugins are supplied for JDBC, XML, and LDAP backends. Additionally, there are convenient Spring controllers to enable simple integration into a Spring MVC web application, JAAS integration, and a permissions system accessible either programmatically or via a set of JSP custom tags.

The Spring extensions module contains, amongst other things, an integration of the Apache Commons Validation package, a set of useful abstract and concrete controllers, a "history stack" implementation allowing seamless production of dynamic breadcrumbs for site navigation, and a useful collection of custom tags.

The general utilities module contains a collection of generally useful classes including, but not limited to, a JDBC library to allow calling of named queries and retrieving disconnected result sets, a debug filter to display all session and request parameters at the bottom of every page, an image processor, and a set of resource locators/loaders.