How to check security acess (@Secured or @PreAuthorize) before validation (@Valid) in my Controller?

Question

here is my Controller code :

@PreAuthorize("hasRole('CREATE_USER')")
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST, produces = MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE, consumes = MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE)
@ResponseBody
public UserReturnRO createUser(@Valid @RequestBody UserRO userRO) throws BadParameterException{

    return userService.createUser(userRO);
}

My need is when a client without the appropriate role tries to create a user, the controller responds "Not authorized" even if the data sent are not valid. Instead of that, if the client (without the appropriate role) tries to create a user with wrong data, my controller responds with the @Valid message (ex : "password cannot be empty"), while I want it responds "not authorized".

In the PreAuthorized Interface we can find this sentence :

Annotation for specifying a method access-control expression which will be evaluated to decide whether a method invocation is allowed or not.

but it seems that it's not the case.

Answer 1

You can not do this directly, since @Valid is processed before an actual method call and as a result before @PreAuthorize.

But what you can do instead is to inject BindingResult just right after your model (userRO) and in doing so - take control of validation process. Then check if BindingResult has some errors and if so return bad request response (similar to what spring does).

Example:

@ResponseBody
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST, produces = MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE, consumes = MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE)
@PreAuthorize("hasRole('CREATE_USER')")
public ResponseEntity<?> createUser(@RequestBody @Valid UserRO userRO, BindingResult result) {
    if (result.hasErrors()) {
        return ResponseEntity.badRequest().body(result.getAllErrors());
    }
    return ResponseEntity.ok(userService.createUser(userRO));
}