From autoplot.org

Purpose: Summarize finding related to the problem where Java Webstart inserts an authentication dialog, preventing Autoplot's keychain from better handling the URL.

Introduction: Java Webstart registers an Authenticator dialog that catches when authentication is needed for a restricted site, thus preventing Autoplot from managing credentials. This may actually be a good thing, meaning Autoplot could not be used to hijack credentials to a restricted site, but it does prevent the .keychain.txt feature from working.

1. Test Script

This test script demonstrates the bug (or feature, depending on how you see it):

from java.net import URL
import sys
u= URL( 'http://www.rbsp-ect.lanl.gov/data_prot/' )
#u= URL( 'http://www.rbsp-ect.lanl.gov/' )
c= u.openConnection()
i= c.getInputStream()
b= i.read()
while ( b!=-1 ):
   sys.stdout.write( '%c' % b )
   b= i.read()

2. Solutions

One solution is to turn off this dialog completely. Edit ~/.java/deployment/deployment.properties, adding "deployment.security.authenticator=false". Run this twice (I think), and you should see the effect. One negative aspect of this is that all javaws will use this rule now. We tried setting this in the .jnlp but this has no effect.