Why is 'permitAll()' not working?

Question

Mention worthy: I am following a tutorial about Securing GWT apps with Spring Security.

---

I don't get this. I can't seem to get permitAll to work as I need it to.

This is my current configuration:

<http auto-config="true">
    <intercept-url pattern="/**" access="permitAll" />
    <form-login 
        login-page="/login" 
        default-target-url="/welcome" 
        authentication-failure-url="/login?error" 
        username-parameter="username"
        password-parameter="password" />
</http>

If I'm accessing my site on //localhost:8080 the site gets not entirely loaded because the request

//localhost:8080/app/xsrf

is 403 Forbidden for some reason. The way I configured Spring Security should not be the problem here if I understood it correctly.

I does not work if I simply add

<intercept-url pattern="/**" access="permitAll" />

to <http ..> what does work is adding this:

<http pattern="/app/xsrf" security="none"/>

I would like to understand why because this is not how I wan to configure Spring Security.. adding every single URL that is supposed to be permitted.

An additional problem I am facing is that for whatever reason (perhaps the same) I cannot access //localhost:8080/login. Which means If I submit my login to /login I am getting 403 Forbidden.

Now, one would think that adding <http pattern="/login" security="none"/> would help here but no. If I add that to my configuration I am getting 404 Not Found on this particular URL.

This starts to drive me insane as I am stuck here for so many days I don't dare to tell you. Your help shall be appreciated and rewarded.

---

Entire applicationContext-service.xml

<beans:beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/security"
    xmlns:beans="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:security="http://www.springframework.org/schema/security"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans 
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-4.1.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/security 
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/security/spring-security-4.0.xsd">

    <!-- Imports -->
    <beans:import resource="applicationContext-jooq.xml"/>

    <!-- /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// -->
    <!-- // BEGIN Spring Security -->

    <http pattern="/app/xsrf" security="none"/>
    <!-- <http pattern="/login" security="none"/> -->

    <http auto-config="true">
        <intercept-url pattern="/**" access="permitAll" />

        <form-login 
            login-page="/login" 
            default-target-url="/welcome" 
            authentication-failure-url="/login?error" 
            username-parameter="username"
            password-parameter="password" />
    </http>

    <beans:bean id="authenticationListener" 
            class="com.mz.server.web.auth.CustomAuthenticationListener"/>

    <beans:bean id="authenticationProvider" 
            class="com.mz.server.web.auth.CustomAuthenticationProvider"/>

    <beans:bean id="userDetailsService" 
            class="com.mz.server.web.service.CustomUserDetailsService"/>

    <authentication-manager alias="authenticationManager">
        <authentication-provider ref="authenticationProvider"/>
    </authentication-manager>

    <!-- // END Spring Security -->
    <!-- /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// -->
    <!-- // BEGIN Services -->

    <beans:bean id="loginService" class="com.mz.server.web.service.LoginService">
        <beans:constructor-arg ref="dslContext" />
    </beans:bean>

    <!-- // END Services -->

</beans:beans>

---

Edit:

Reduced applicationContext-service.xml

<beans:beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/security"
    xmlns:beans="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"

    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans 
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-4.1.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/security 
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/security/spring-security-4.0.xsd">

    <!-- Imports -->
    <beans:import resource="applicationContext-jooq.xml"/>

    <!-- //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// -->
    <!-- // BEGIN Spring Security -->

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

    <http auto-config="true">
        <intercept-url pattern="/**" access="permitAll" />
    </http>

    <!-- // END Spring Security-->

</beans:beans>

This is the web.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd"
    version="3.0">

    <display-name>GWT Application | mz</display-name>

    <welcome-file-list> <!-- Default page to serve -->
        <welcome-file>index.html</welcome-file>
    </welcome-file-list>

    <!-- //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// -->
    <!-- // BEGIN Filters -->

    <!-- Spring Security -->

    <filter>
        <filter-name>springSecurityFilterChain</filter-name>
        <filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.DelegatingFilterProxy</filter-class>
    </filter>

    <filter-mapping>
        <filter-name>springSecurityFilterChain</filter-name>
        <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
    </filter-mapping>

    <!-- // END FILTERS -->
    <!-- //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// -->
    <!-- // BEGIN Listeners -->

    <listener>
        <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
    </listener>

    <listener>
        <listener-class>com.mz.server.web.ServerConfig</listener-class>
    </listener>

    <!-- // END Listeners -->
    <!-- //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// -->
    <!-- // BEGIN Servlets -->

    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>login</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>com.mz.server.web.servlet.LoginServletImpl</servlet-class>
    </servlet>
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>login</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/app/login</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>

    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>xsrf</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>com.google.gwt.user.server.rpc.XsrfTokenServiceServlet</servlet-class>
    </servlet>
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>xsrf</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/app/xsrf</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>

    <servlet> <!-- Dispatcher Servlet for REST API for Mobile Devices -->
        <servlet-name>mobile-restapi</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>
            org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet
        </servlet-class>
        <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
    </servlet>    
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>mobile-restapi</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/app/restapi/*</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>

    <!-- // END Servlets -->
    <!-- //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// -->
    <!-- // BEGIN Context Parameter -->

    <context-param>
        <param-name>
            gwt.xsrf.session_cookie_name
        </param-name>
        <param-value>
            mzsid
        </param-value>
    </context-param>

    <context-param>
        <param-name>
            contextConfigLocation
        </param-name>
        <param-value>
            classpath:/**/spring-config.xml
            classpath*:applicationContext-service.xml
        </param-value>
    </context-param>

    <!-- // END Context Parameter -->
    <!-- //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// -->

</web-app>

Answer 1

It appears that the error was in web.xml. Instead of <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern> (as stated in the tutorial I was following) it should be /**:

<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>springSecurityFilterChain</filter-name>
    <!-- It appears that this should say '/**' and not '/*' as stated in many
        tutorials 
        (e.g. http://websystique.com/spring-security/spring-security-4-hello-world-annotation-xml-example/).  -->
    <url-pattern>/**</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>

Interestingly is that I'm now getting the following "INFO":

INFO: Suspicious url pattern: "/**" in context [] - see section SRV.11.2 of the Servlet specification

All I can say is that this is starting to feel personal ..