Security Method Annotations with Java Configuration and Spring Security 3.2

Question

I am having some issues getting my application set up using method level annotation controlled by @EnableGlobalMethodSecurity I am using Servlet 3.0 style initialization using

public class SecurityWebApplicationInitializer extends AbstractSecurityWebApplicationInitializer {

    public SecurityWebApplicationInitializer() {
        super(MultiSecurityConfig.class);
    }
}

I have attempted 2 different ways of initialising an AuthenticationManager both with their own issues. Please note that not using @EnableGlobalMethodSecurity results in a successful server start up and all of the form security executes as expected. My issues arise when I add @EnableGlobalMethodSecurity and @PreAuthorize("hasRole('ROLE_USER')") annotations on my controller.

I am attempting to set up form-based and api-based security independently. The method based annotations need only work for the api security.

One configuration was the following.

@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity
@EnableGlobalMethodSecurity(prePostEnabled=true)
public class MultiSecurityConfig {

    @Configuration
    @Order(1)
    public static class ApiWebSecurityConfigurationAdapter extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
        protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
            http.antMatcher("/api/**").httpBasic();
        }

        protected void registerAuthentication(AuthenticationManagerBuilder auth) throws Exception {
            auth.inMemoryAuthentication()
                .withUser("user").password("password").roles("USER").and()
                .withUser("admin").password("password").roles("USER", "ADMIN");
        }
    }

    @Configuration
    public static class FormWebSecurityConfigurerAdapter extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
        public void configure(WebSecurity web) throws Exception {
            web.ignoring().antMatchers("/static/**","/status");
        }

        protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
            http.authorizeRequests().anyRequest().hasRole("USER").and()
                .formLogin().loginPage("/login").permitAll();
        }

        protected void registerAuthentication(AuthenticationManagerBuilder auth) throws Exception {
            auth.inMemoryAuthentication()
                .withUser("user").password("password").roles("USER").and()
                .withUser("admin").password("password").roles("USER", "ADMIN");
        }
    }

}

This is not ideal as I really want only a single registration of the authentication mechanism but the main issue is that it results in the following exception:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Expecting to only find a single bean for type interface org.springframework.security.authentication.AuthenticationManager, but found []

As far as I am aware @EnableGlobalMethodSecurity sets up its own AuthenticationManager so I'm not sure what the problem is here.

The second configuration is as follows.

@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity
@EnableGlobalMethodSecurity(prePostEnabled=true)
public class MultiSecurityConfig {

    @Bean
    protected AuthenticationManager authenticationManager() throws Exception {
        return new AuthenticationManagerBuilder(ObjectPostProcessor.QUIESCENT_POSTPROCESSOR)
                .inMemoryAuthentication()
                    .withUser("user").password("password").roles("USER").and()
                    .withUser("admin").password("password").roles("USER", "ADMIN").and()
                    .and()
                .build();
    }

    @Configuration
    @Order(1)
    public static class ApiWebSecurityConfigurationAdapter extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
        @Override protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
            http.antMatcher("/api/**").httpBasic();
        }
    }

    @Configuration
    public static class FormWebSecurityConfigurerAdapter extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
        public void configure(WebSecurity web) throws Exception {
            web.ignoring().antMatchers("/static/**","/status");
        }

        protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
            http.authorizeRequests().anyRequest().hasRole("USER").and()
                .formLogin().loginPage("/login").permitAll();
        }
    }

}

This config actually starts successfully but with an exception

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: A parent AuthenticationManager or a list of AuthenticationProviders is required
at org.springframework.security.authentication.ProviderManager.checkState(ProviderManager.java:117)
at org.springframework.security.authentication.ProviderManager.<init>(ProviderManager.java:106)
at org.springframework.security.config.annotation.authentication.builders.AuthenticationManagerBuilder.performBuild(AuthenticationManagerBuilder.java:221)

and when I test I found that the security doesn't work.

I've been looking at this for a couple of days now and even after diving into spring security implementation code I can't seem to find what is wrong with my configuration.

I am using spring-security-3.2.0.RC1 and spring-framework-3.2.3.RELEASE.

Answer 1

When you use the protected registerAuthentication methods on WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter it is scoping the Authentication to that WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter so EnableGlobalMethodSecurity cannot find it. If you think about this...it makes sense since the method is protected.

The error you are seeing is actually a debug statement (note the level is DEBUG). The reason is that Spring Security will try a few different ways to automatically wire the Global Method Security. Specifically EnableGlobalMethodSecurity will try the following ways to try and get the AuthenticationManager:

• If you extend GlobalMethodSecurityConfiguration and override the registerAuthentication it will use the AuthenticationManagerBuilder that was passed in. This allows for isolating the AuthenticationManager in the same way you can do so with WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter
• Try to build from the global shared instance of AuthenticationManagerBuilder, if it fails it logs the error message you are seeing (Note the logs also state "This is ok for now, we will try using an AuthenticationManager directly")
• Try to use an AuthenticationManager that is exposed as a bean.

For your code, you are going to be best off using something like the following:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity
@EnableGlobalMethodSecurity(prePostEnabled=true)
public class MultiSecurityConfig {
    // Since MultiSecurityConfig does not extend GlobalMethodSecurityConfiguration and
    // define an AuthenticationManager, it will try using the globally defined
    // AuthenticationManagerBuilder to create one

    // The @Enable*Security annotations create a global AuthenticationManagerBuilder 
    // that can optionally be used for creating an AuthenticationManager that is shared
    // The key to using it is to use the @Autowired annotation
    @Autowired
    public void registerSharedAuthentication(AuthenticationManagerBuilder auth) throws Exception {
        auth
            .inMemoryAuthentication()
                .withUser("user").password("password").roles("USER").and()
                .withUser("admin").password("password").roles("USER", "ADMIN");
    }

    @Configuration
    @Order(1)
    public static class ApiWebSecurityConfigurationAdapter extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
        // Since we didn't specify an AuthenticationManager for this class,
        // the global instance is used


        protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
            http
                .antMatcher("/api/**")
                .httpBasic();
        }
    }

    @Configuration
    public static class FormWebSecurityConfigurerAdapter extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
        // Since we didn't specify an AuthenticationManager for this class,
        // the global instance is used

        public void configure(WebSecurity web) throws Exception {
            web
                .ignoring()
                    .antMatchers("/static/**","/status");
        }

        protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
            http
                .authorizeRequests()
                    .anyRequest().hasRole("USER")
                    .and()
                .formLogin()
                    .loginPage("/login")
                    .permitAll();
        }
    }

}

NOTE: More documentation around this will be getting added to the reference in the coming days.