What is the use of @EnableWebSecurity in Spring?

Question

As per the Spring documantation:

Add this annotation to an @Configuration class to have the Spring Security configuration defined in any WebSecurityConfigurer or more likely by extending the WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter base class and overriding individual methods:

Or As this @EnableWebSecurity depicts, is used to enable SpringSecurity in our project.

But my question is that even if I don't annotate any of my class with @EnableWebSecurity still the application prompting for username and password.(default behaviour)

So I am receiving the same behaviour with @EnableWebSecurity and without @EnableWebSecurity.

Can someone please explain what exactly is this annotation for?

Answer 1

The @EnableWebSecurity is a marker annotation. It allows Spring to find (it's a @Configuration and, therefore, @Component) and automatically apply the class to the global WebSecurity.

If I don't annotate any of my class with @EnableWebSecurity still the application prompting for username and password.

Yes, it is the default behavior. If you looked at your classpath, you could find other classes marked with that annotation (depends on your dependencies):

• SpringBootWebSecurityConfiguration;
• FallbackWebSecurityAutoConfiguration;
• WebMvcSecurityConfiguration.

Consider them carefully, turn the needed configuration off, or override its behavior.