Hi,

I would like to implement a user base (using J2EE declarative security) 
with the following relationship hierarchy :

Users:
user = 100, usergroup = 11;

UserGroups:
usergroup = 10, groupname=agent, parentgroup = 5;
usergroup = 11, groupname=privatesupplier, parentgroup = 5;
usergroup = 5, groupname=supplier, parentgroup = 1;
usergroup = 1, groupname=user, parentgroup=0;

This is so that if I say userInRole(supplier) I know I'm dealing with 
all users in this group as well as all users in all child groups. Or in 
other words I need to know whether a user is a descendent of a 
particular ancestor.

How could I implement this using principals, roles and rolegroups? I 
mean how do the three relate?

Thanks
Joe