Java – Spring MVC – Checking if User is already logged in via Spring Security

javaSecurityspringspring-mvcspring-security

I have a Spring MVC application.It uses its own custom Login page. Upon successful login, a 'LOGGED_IN_USER' object is placed in the HTTPSession.

I want to allow only authenticated users to access URLs. I know i can achieve this by using a web filter. But, This part i want to do using Spring Security (my check will remain the same – look for 'LOGGED_IN_USER' object in HTTPSession, if present you are logged in).

My constraint is i cannot change Login behavior at present – that will not use Spring Security yet.

What aspect of Spring Security can i use to achieve this part alone – check if the request is authenticated (from logged in user)?

Best Answer

There are at least 4 different ways:

spring security XML configuration

this is the easiest way

<security:http auto-config="true" use-expressions="true" ...>
   ...
  <security:intercept-url pattern="/forAll/**" access="permitAll" />
  <security:intercept-url pattern="/**" access="isAuthenticated()" />
</security:http>

Per @Secured Annotation

requires <global-method-security secured-annotations="enabled" />

@Secured("ROLE_ADMIN")
@RequestMapping(params = "onlyForAdmins")    
public ModelAndView onlyForAdmins() {
    ....
}

Per @PreAuthorize Annotation

requires <global-method-security pre-post-annotations="enabled" />

 @PreAuthorize("isAuthenticated()")
 @RequestMapping(params = "onlyForAuthenticated")
 public ModelAndView onlyForAuthenticatedUsers() {
     ....
 }

Programmatic

 SecurityContextHolder.getContext().getAuthentication() != null &&
 SecurityContextHolder.getContext().getAuthentication().isAuthenticated() &&
 //when Anonymous Authentication is enabled
 !(SecurityContextHolder.getContext().getAuthentication() 
          instanceof AnonymousAuthenticationToken)

Custom Expression

If the built-in expressions are not enough, you can extend them. How to extend the SpEL Expressions for the method annotations is discussed for example here:

But for the interceptor <security:intercept-url ... access="myCustomAuthenticatedExpression" /> there is a slightly different approach possible, that does not need to deal with the private class problem. -- I have only done it for Spring Security 3.0, but I hope it works for 3.1 too.

1.) you need to create a new class that extends from WebSecurityExpressionRoot (Prefix Web is the important part!).

public class MyCustomWebSecurityExpressionRoot
         extends WebSecurityExpressionRoot {
     public MyCustomWebSecurityExpressionRoot(Authentication a,
                 FilterInvocation f) {
          super(a, f);
     }

     /** That method is the one that does the expression evaluation! */
     public boolean myCustomAuthenticatedExpression() {
        return super.request.getSession().getValue("myFlag") != null;
     }
}

2.) you need a extend the DefaultWebSecurityExpressionRootHandler to have a handler that provides your custom expression root

 public class MyCustomWebSecurityExpressionHandler
              extends DefaultWebSecurityExpressionHandler {

      @Override        
      public EvaluationContext createEvaluationContext(Authentication a,
                FilterInvocation f) {
          StandardEvaluationContext ctx =
                   (StandardEvaluationContext) super.createEvaluationContext(a, f);

           WebSecurityExpressionRoot myRoot =
                    new MyCustomWebSecurityExpressionRoot(a, f);

           ctx.setRootObject(myRoot);
           return ctx;
      }
 }

3.) Then you need to register your handler with the voters

<security:http use-expressions="true"
 access-decision-manager-ref="httpAccessDecisionManager" ...>
      ...
    <security:intercept-url pattern="/restricted/**"
              access="myCustomAuthenticatedExpression" />         
      ...
</security:http>

<bean id="httpAccessDecisionManager"
      class="org.springframework.security.access.vote.AffirmativeBased">
    <constructor-arg name="decisionVoters">
            <list>
                <ref bean="webExpressionVoter" />
            </list>
    </constructor-arg>
</bean>

<bean id="webExpressionVoter"
      class="org.springframework.security.web.access.expression.WebExpressionVoter">
    <property name="expressionHandler"
              ref="myCustomWebSecurityExpressionHandler" />
</bean>

<bean id="myCustomWebSecurityExpressionHandler"
    class="MyCustomWebSecurityExpressionHandler" />

Spring Security 3.1 Update

Since Spring Security 3.1 it is a bit easier to implement a custom expression. One does not longer need to sublcass WebSecurityExpressionHandler and override createEvaluationContext. Instead one sublass AbstractSecurityExpressionHandler<FilterInvocation> or its subclass DefaultWebSecurityExpressionHandler and override SecurityExpressionOperations createSecurityExpressionRoot(final Authentication a, final FilterInvocation f).

 public class MyCustomWebSecurityExpressionHandler
              extends DefaultWebSecurityExpressionHandler {

      @Override        
      public SecurityExpressionOperations createSecurityExpressionRoot(
                Authentication a,
                FilterInvocation f) {
           WebSecurityExpressionRoot myRoot =
                    new MyCustomWebSecurityExpressionRoot(a, f);

           myRoot.setPermissionEvaluator(getPermissionEvaluator());
           myRoot.setTrustResolver(this.trustResolver);
           myRoot.setRoleHierarchy(getRoleHierarchy());
           return myRoot;
      }
 }

Related Solutions

Java – Unit testing with Spring Security

Just do it the usual way and then insert it using SecurityContextHolder.setContext() in your test class, for example:

Controller:

Authentication a = SecurityContextHolder.getContext().getAuthentication();

Test:

Authentication authentication = Mockito.mock(Authentication.class);
// Mockito.whens() for your authorization object
SecurityContext securityContext = Mockito.mock(SecurityContext.class);
Mockito.when(securityContext.getAuthentication()).thenReturn(authentication);
SecurityContextHolder.setContext(securityContext);

Java – RESTful Authentication via Spring

We managed to get this working exactly as described in the OP, and hopefully someone else can make use of the solution. Here's what we did:

Set up the security context like so:

<security:http realm="Protected API" use-expressions="true" auto-config="false" create-session="stateless" entry-point-ref="CustomAuthenticationEntryPoint">
    <security:custom-filter ref="authenticationTokenProcessingFilter" position="FORM_LOGIN_FILTER" />
    <security:intercept-url pattern="/authenticate" access="permitAll"/>
    <security:intercept-url pattern="/**" access="isAuthenticated()" />
</security:http>

<bean id="CustomAuthenticationEntryPoint"
    class="com.demo.api.support.spring.CustomAuthenticationEntryPoint" />

<bean id="authenticationTokenProcessingFilter"
    class="com.demo.api.support.spring.AuthenticationTokenProcessingFilter" >
    <constructor-arg ref="authenticationManager" />
</bean>

As you can see, we've created a custom AuthenticationEntryPoint, which basically just returns a 401 Unauthorized if the request wasn't authenticated in the filter chain by our AuthenticationTokenProcessingFilter.

CustomAuthenticationEntryPoint:

public class CustomAuthenticationEntryPoint implements AuthenticationEntryPoint {
    @Override
    public void commence(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response,
            AuthenticationException authException) throws IOException, ServletException {
        response.sendError( HttpServletResponse.SC_UNAUTHORIZED, "Unauthorized: Authentication token was either missing or invalid." );
    }
}

AuthenticationTokenProcessingFilter:

public class AuthenticationTokenProcessingFilter extends GenericFilterBean {

    @Autowired UserService userService;
    @Autowired TokenUtils tokenUtils;
    AuthenticationManager authManager;
    
    public AuthenticationTokenProcessingFilter(AuthenticationManager authManager) {
        this.authManager = authManager;
    }

    @Override
    public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response,
            FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
        @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
        Map<String, String[]> parms = request.getParameterMap();

        if(parms.containsKey("token")) {
            String token = parms.get("token")[0]; // grab the first "token" parameter
            
            // validate the token
            if (tokenUtils.validate(token)) {
                // determine the user based on the (already validated) token
                UserDetails userDetails = tokenUtils.getUserFromToken(token);
                // build an Authentication object with the user's info
                UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken authentication = 
                        new UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken(userDetails.getUsername(), userDetails.getPassword());
                authentication.setDetails(new WebAuthenticationDetailsSource().buildDetails((HttpServletRequest) request));
                // set the authentication into the SecurityContext
                SecurityContextHolder.getContext().setAuthentication(authManager.authenticate(authentication));         
            }
        }
        // continue thru the filter chain
        chain.doFilter(request, response);
    }
}

Obviously, TokenUtils contains some privy (and very case-specific) code and can't be readily shared. Here's its interface:

public interface TokenUtils {
    String getToken(UserDetails userDetails);
    String getToken(UserDetails userDetails, Long expiration);
    boolean validate(String token);
    UserDetails getUserFromToken(String token);
}

That ought to get you off to a good start.