How to configure Spring Security URL authorisation? - spring-security

Question

I have configured my SecurityFilterChain thus:
#EnableWebSecurity
public class WebSecurityConfig {
....
#Bean
public SecurityFilterChain configure(final HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
http
.csrf().disable()
.cors().disable()
.authorizeRequests()
.antMatchers(HttpMethod.DELETE, "/api/user/*").access("hasRole('ADMIN')")
.antMatchers(HttpMethod.POST, "/api/user").access("hasRole('ADMIN')")
.antMatchers("/auth/login").anonymous()
.anyRequest().authenticated()
.and()
.sessionManagement()
.sessionCreationPolicy(SessionCreationPolicy.STATELESS)
.and()
.addFilterBefore(jwtRequestFilter, UsernamePasswordAuthenticationFilter.class);
}
Yet, the URL paths are open to any authenticated user irregardless of the assigned role.
I have debugged the request filter to confirm that the Principal has the right role yet a USER role can call the protected URLs successfully.
I am using Spring Boot 2.7.5.

Answer 1

If the path you're calling matches the authorization rule that you've declared as the last one (i.e. anyRequest().authenticated()), that implies that your test-requests don't match any of your rules that are meant to guard URLs that should be accessible only for Admins, namely:
.antMatchers(HttpMethod.DELETE, "/api/user/*").access("hasRole('ADMIN')")
.antMatchers(HttpMethod.POST, "/api/user").access("hasRole('ADMIN')")
Reminder: the matching rule declared first always weens
So, either HTTP-method or URL don't match (or both). For instance, if you're sending GET request, these restrictions would not be applied.
Regarding the URL, it should match exactly because you're using antMatchers(). I.e. path "/api/user" would not match other existing aliases of that path like "/api/user/" (more on that see here).
That's one of the reasons why in Spring Security 6.0 antMatchers() (as well as mvcMathcers() and regexMatchers()) have been removed from the API and replaced requestMatchers().
So make sure that HTTP-method is correct and path you're calling matchers exactly, and consider updating the Spring dependencies and switching to using new request-securing methods.
If you have no planes to update soon, then you can make use of the mvcMatchers(), which use Spring MVC matching rules (i.e. they take into consideration all the existing aliases of the given path), instead of antMatchers().
Here's an example of how your configuration might be implemented with Spring Security 6.0 and Lambda DSL (if you feel more comfortable with chaining configuration options using and() this flavor of DSL is still supported as well):
#Configuration
public class SecurityConfig {
#Bean
public SecurityFilterChain configure(final HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
return http
.csrf(csrf -> csrf.disable())
.cors(cors -> cors.disable())
.authorizeHttpRequests(auth -> auth
.requestMatchers(HttpMethod.DELETE, "/api/user/*").hasRole("ADMIN") // in Spring Security 6.0 method access() has been changed, and you don't need it anyway to verify the Role
.requestMatchers(HttpMethod.POST, "/api/user").hasRole("ADMIN")
.requestMatchers("/auth/login").anonymous()
.anyRequest().authenticated()
)
.sessionManagement(sm -> sm.sessionCreationPolicy(SessionCreationPolicy.STATELESS))
.addFilterBefore(jwtRequestFilter, UsernamePasswordAuthenticationFilter.class)
.build();
}
}