Use of Spring CSRF with ajax Rest call and HTML page with Thymeleaf

Question

I'm using Spring Security with CSRF and I have a problem with some POST call in my javascript. For my page I use Thymeleaf and HTML 5, for the Rest call to my controller I use jQuery.ajax. If I use the ajax call for my form like this:

$(function() {
    $("#saveCarButton").click(
            function() {
                var form = $("#addCarForm");        
                $.ajax({
                    type : "POST",
                    url : form.attr("action"),
                    data : form.serialize(),
                    // all right with rest call
                    success : function(data) {...}  
                    //error during rest call
                    error : function(data) {
                        window.location.href = "/500";
                    }
                });
            });
});

everything works fine, but when I call for example this function:

jQuery.ajax({
        url : 'upload',
        type: 'POST',
        contentType: false,
        processData: false,
        data:formData,
        beforeSend:function(xhr) {
            waitingModal.showPleaseWait();
        },  
        success: function(data,status,xhr){...}
        error: function(xhr,status,e){
        }
    }).complete(function() {
        //add timeout because otherwise user could see a too fast waiting modal
        setTimeout(function(){
            waitingModal.hidePleaseWait();
        }, 1000);
    });

I receive error 403. Maybe with form, using thymeleaf, it works fine but with the second type of request I have to add CSRF token. I tried with

var token = $("meta[name='_csrf']").attr("content");
var header = $("meta[name='_csrf_header']").attr("content");

and in my html page I added

!--  -->
<meta name="_csrf" th:content="${_csrf.token}"/>
<!-- default header name is X-CSRF-TOKEN -->
<meta name="_csrf_header" th:content="${_csrf.headerName}"/>

Why does it with the form work? I don't have to add nothing when I use form? Is it danger that _csrf and _csrf_header are visible with dev tool of browser? thanks

Answer 1

This solution worked for me Trying to use React/Ajax calls with Spring MVC and Thymeleaf

<meta id="_csrf" name="_csrf" th:content="${_csrf.token}"/>
<meta id="_csrf_header" name="_csrf_header" th:content="${_csrf.headerName}"/>

Ajax:

var token = $('#_csrf').attr('content');
var header = $('#_csrf_header').attr('content');

$.ajax({
                        type: "POST",
                        url: url,
                        beforeSend: function(xhr) {
                            xhr.setRequestHeader(header, token);
                        },

                        success: function(data, textStatus, jqXHR) {
                            alert(status);
                        },
                        error: function(request, status, error) {
                            alert(status);
                        }
                    });