title: Websphere pre-login to j_security_check
body: <p>I am using Websphere with j_security_check and I have a working login filter with CONFIDENTIAL and SSL settings. Due to some complex requirements, I need to process the j_username variable before performing j_security_check.</p>
  
  <p>From one of the <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8678584/prelogin-filter-before-j-security-check">answers found here</a>, it was said that this pre-login processing cannot be done. However, I noted that the previous asker was using Tomcat, while I am using Websphere. I found that there is a solution for my problem <a href="http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wasinfo/v7r0/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.websphere.base.doc%2Finfo%2Faes%2Fae%2Ftsec_servlet.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">over here</a> but it seems that everytime I try to login, I receive a "The website cannot display the page. The website has a programming error."</p>
  
  <p>I tried troubleshooting by checking if the syntax was correct. Found some inconsistencies like  and corrected them as best I could. However, I still keep getting the same error.</p>
  
  <p>Could someone throw me in the right direction? I can provide further info but they are mostly similar to the second link. The only protected folder is in \protected\ and the .java  servlet is located in \WEB-INF\classes.</p>
  
  <p>Thank you.</p>