title: Getting a value from HttpServletRequest.getRemoteUser() in Tomcat without modifying application
body: <p>(Using Java 6 and Tomcat 6.)</p>
  
  <p>Is there a way for me to get <code>HttpServletRequest.getRemoteUser()</code> to return a value in my development environment (i.e. localhost) without needing to modify my application's web.xml file?</p>
  
  <p>The reason I ask is that the authentication implementation when the app is deployed to a remote environment is handled by a web server and plugged-in tool. Running locally I obviously do not have the plugged-in tool or a separate web server; I just have Tomcat 6. I am trying to avoid adding code to my application merely to support development on my localhost.</p>
  
  <p>I am hoping there is a modification I can make to the context.xml or server.xml files that will let me set the remote user ID or that will try to pull it from a HTTP header or something.</p>