Ok, it's starting to make more sense (though the behavior has changed since since moving to seam 2 from 1.2) I have several components.xml files, each of which configure the Identity authenticate-method to use a different auth component & method: a.war: <security:identity authenticate-method="#{authA.authenticate}" /> b.war: <security:identity authenticate-method="#{authB.authenticate}" /> When I login to "b" it will call the authentication-method declared for a.war (instead of the one configured in b.war/WEB-INF/components.xml). View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4122316#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...