Question

I have 2 spring web apps that provide 2 separate set of services. Web App 1 has Spring Security implemented using a user-based authentication.

Now, Web App 2 needs to access the service of Web App 1. Normally, we would use the RestTemplate class to make requests to other web services.

How do we pass the authentication credentials in the request of Web App 2 to Web App 1

Answer 1

I was in the same situation. Here there is my solution.

Server – spring security config

<sec:http>
    <sec:intercept-url pattern="/**" access="ROLE_USER" method="POST"/>
    <sec:intercept-url pattern="/**" filters="none" method="GET"/>
    <sec:http-basic />
</sec:http>

<sec:authentication-manager alias="authenticationManager">
    <sec:authentication-provider>
        <sec:user-service>
            <sec:user name="${rest.username}" password="${rest.password}" authorities="ROLE_USER"/>
        </sec:user-service>
    </sec:authentication-provider>
</sec:authentication-manager>

Client side RestTemplate config

<bean id="httpClient" class="org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient">
    <constructor-arg ref="httpClientParams"/>
    <property name="state" ref="httpState"/>
</bean>

<bean id="httpState" class="CustomHttpState">
    <property name="credentials" ref="credentials"/>
</bean>

<bean id="credentials" class="org.apache.commons.httpclient.UsernamePasswordCredentials">
    <constructor-arg value="${rest.username}"/>
    <constructor-arg value="${rest.password}"/>
</bean>

<bean id="httpClientFactory" class="org.springframework.http.client.CommonsClientHttpRequestFactory">
    <constructor-arg ref="httpClient"/>
</bean>


<bean class="org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate">
    <constructor-arg ref="httpClientFactory"/>                
</bean>

Custom HttpState implementation

/**
 * Custom implementation of {@link HttpState} with credentials property.
 *
 * @author banterCZ
 */
public class CustomHttpState extends HttpState {

    /**
     * Set credentials property.
     *
     * @param credentials
     * @see #setCredentials(org.apache.commons.httpclient.auth.AuthScope, org.apache.commons.httpclient.Credentials)
     */
    public void setCredentials(final Credentials credentials) {
        super.setCredentials(AuthScope.ANY, credentials);
    }

}

Maven dependency

<dependency>
   <groupId>commons-httpclient</groupId>
   <artifactId>commons-httpclient</artifactId>
   <version>3.1</version>
</dependency>