Spring Test & Security: How to mock authentication?

I was trying to figure out how to unit test if my the URLs of my controllers are properly secured. Just in case someone changes things around and accidentally removes security settings.

My controller method looks like this:

@RequestMapping("/api/v1/resource/test") 
@Secured("ROLE_USER")
public @ResonseBody String test() {
    return "test";
}

I set up a WebTestEnvironment like so:

import javax.annotation.Resource;
import javax.naming.NamingException;
import javax.sql.DataSource;

import org.junit.Before;
import org.junit.runner.RunWith;
import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Qualifier;
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.security.authentication.UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken;
import org.springframework.security.core.userdetails.UserDetails;
import org.springframework.security.core.userdetails.UserDetailsService;
import org.springframework.security.web.FilterChainProxy;
import org.springframework.test.context.ActiveProfiles;
import org.springframework.test.context.ContextConfiguration;
import org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner;
import org.springframework.test.context.web.WebAppConfiguration;
import org.springframework.test.web.servlet.MockMvc;
import org.springframework.test.web.servlet.setup.MockMvcBuilders;
import org.springframework.web.context.WebApplicationContext;

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextConfiguration({ 
        "file:src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/spring/security.xml",
        "file:src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/spring/applicationContext.xml",
        "file:src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/spring/servlet-context.xml" })
public class WebappTestEnvironment2 {

    @Resource
    private FilterChainProxy springSecurityFilterChain;

    @Autowired
    @Qualifier("databaseUserService")
    protected UserDetailsService userDetailsService;

    @Autowired
    private WebApplicationContext wac;

    @Autowired
    protected DataSource dataSource;

    protected MockMvc mockMvc;

    protected final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(this.getClass());

    protected UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken getPrincipal(String username) {

        UserDetails user = this.userDetailsService.loadUserByUsername(username);

        UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken authentication = 
                new UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken(
                        user, 
                        user.getPassword(), 
                        user.getAuthorities());

        return authentication;
    }

    @Before
    public void setupMockMvc() throws NamingException {

        // setup mock MVC
        this.mockMvc = MockMvcBuilders
                .webAppContextSetup(this.wac)
                .addFilters(this.springSecurityFilterChain)
                .build();
    }
}

In my actual test I tried to do something like this:

import static org.springframework.test.web.servlet.request.MockMvcRequestBuilders.get;
import static org.springframework.test.web.servlet.result.MockMvcResultMatchers.status;

import org.junit.Test;
import org.springframework.mock.web.MockHttpSession;
import org.springframework.security.authentication.UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken;
import org.springframework.security.core.context.SecurityContextHolder;
import org.springframework.security.web.context.HttpSessionSecurityContextRepository;

import eu.ubicon.webapp.test.WebappTestEnvironment;

public class CopyOfClaimTest extends WebappTestEnvironment {
    
    @Test
    public void signedIn() throws Exception {
        
        UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken principal = 
                this.getPrincipal("test1");

        SecurityContextHolder.getContext().setAuthentication(principal);        
        
        super.mockMvc
            .perform(
                    get("/api/v1/resource/test")
//                    .principal(principal)
                    .session(session))
            .andExpect(status().isOk());
    }

}

I picked this up here:

• http://java.dzone.com/articles/spring-test-mvc-junit-testing">http://java.dzone.com/articles/spring-test-mvc-junit-testing</a> here:
• http://techdive.in/solutions/how-mock-securitycontextholder-perfrom-junit-tests-spring-controller">http://techdive.in/solutions/how-mock-securitycontextholder-perfrom-junit-tests-spring-controller</a> or here:
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5403818/how-to-junit-tests-a-preauthorize-annotation-and-its-spring-el-specified-by-a-s">https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5403818/how-to-junit-tests-a-preauthorize-annotation-and-its-spring-el-specified-by-a-s</a>

Yet if one looks closely this only helps when not sending actual requests to URLs, but only when testing services on a function level. In my case an "access denied" exception was thrown:

org.springframework.security.access.AccessDeniedException: Access is denied
	at org.springframework.security.access.vote.AffirmativeBased.decide(AffirmativeBased.java:83) ~[spring-security-core-3.1.3.RELEASE.jar:3.1.3.RELEASE]
	at org.springframework.security.access.intercept.AbstractSecurityInterceptor.beforeInvocation(AbstractSecurityInterceptor.java:206) ~[spring-security-core-3.1.3.RELEASE.jar:3.1.3.RELEASE]
	at org.springframework.security.access.intercept.aopalliance.MethodSecurityInterceptor.invoke(MethodSecurityInterceptor.java:60) ~[spring-security-core-3.1.3.RELEASE.jar:3.1.3.RELEASE]
	at org.springframework.aop.framework.ReflectiveMethodInvocation.proceed(ReflectiveMethodInvocation.java:172) ~[spring-aop-3.2.1.RELEASE.jar:3.2.1.RELEASE]
        ...

The following two log messages are noteworthy basically saying that no user was authenticated indicating that setting the Principal did not work, or that it was overwritten.

14:20:34.454 [main] DEBUG o.s.s.a.i.a.MethodSecurityInterceptor - Secure object: ReflectiveMethodInvocation: public java.util.List test.TestController.test(); target is of class [test.TestController]; Attributes: [ROLE_USER]
14:20:34.454 [main] DEBUG o.s.s.a.i.a.MethodSecurityInterceptor - Previously Authenticated: org.springframework.security.authentication.AnonymousAuthenticationToken@9055e4a6: Principal: anonymousUser; Credentials: [PROTECTED]; Authenticated: true; Details: org.springframework.security.web.authentication.WebAuthenticationDetails@957e: RemoteIpAddress: 127.0.0.1; SessionId: null; Granted Authorities: ROLE_ANONYMOUS

Seaching for answer I couldn't find any to be easy and flexible at the same time, then I found the Spring Security Reference and I realized there are near to perfect solutions. AOP solutions often are the greatest ones for testing, and Spring provides it with @WithMockUser, @WithUserDetails and @WithSecurityContext, in this artifact:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-security-test</artifactId>
    <version>4.2.2.RELEASE</version>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

In most cases, @WithUserDetails gathers the flexibility and power I need.

How @WithUserDetails works?

Basically you just need to create a custom UserDetailsService with all the possible users profiles you want to test. E.g

@TestConfiguration
public class SpringSecurityWebAuxTestConfig {

    @Bean
    @Primary
    public UserDetailsService userDetailsService() {
        User basicUser = new UserImpl("Basic User", "[email protected]", "password");
        UserActive basicActiveUser = new UserActive(basicUser, Arrays.asList(
                new SimpleGrantedAuthority("ROLE_USER"),
                new SimpleGrantedAuthority("PERM_FOO_READ")
        ));

        User managerUser = new UserImpl("Manager User", "[email protected]", "password");
        UserActive managerActiveUser = new UserActive(managerUser, Arrays.asList(
                new SimpleGrantedAuthority("ROLE_MANAGER"),
                new SimpleGrantedAuthority("PERM_FOO_READ"),
                new SimpleGrantedAuthority("PERM_FOO_WRITE"),
                new SimpleGrantedAuthority("PERM_FOO_MANAGE")
        ));

        return new InMemoryUserDetailsManager(Arrays.asList(
                basicActiveUser, managerActiveUser
        ));
    }
}

Now we have our users ready, so imagine we want to test the access control to this controller function:

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/foo")
public class FooController {

    @Secured("ROLE_MANAGER")
    @GetMapping("/salute")
    public String saluteYourManager(@AuthenticationPrincipal User activeUser)
    {
        return String.format("Hi %s. Foo salutes you!", activeUser.getUsername());
    }
}

Here we have a get mapped function to the route /foo/salute and we are testing a role based security with the @Secured annotation, although you can test @PreAuthorize and @PostAuthorize as well. Let's create two tests, one to check if a valid user can see this salute response and the other to check if it's actually forbidden.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@SpringBootTest(
        webEnvironment = SpringBootTest.WebEnvironment.RANDOM_PORT,
        classes = SpringSecurityWebAuxTestConfig.class
)
@AutoConfigureMockMvc
public class WebApplicationSecurityTest {

    @Autowired
    private MockMvc mockMvc;

    @Test
    @WithUserDetails("[email protected]")
    public void givenManagerUser_whenGetFooSalute_thenOk() throws Exception
    {
        mockMvc.perform(MockMvcRequestBuilders.get("/foo/salute")
                .accept(MediaType.ALL))
                .andExpect(status().isOk())
                .andExpect(content().string(containsString("[email protected]")));
    }

    @Test
    @WithUserDetails("[email protected]")
    public void givenBasicUser_whenGetFooSalute_thenForbidden() throws Exception
    {
        mockMvc.perform(MockMvcRequestBuilders.get("/foo/salute")
                .accept(MediaType.ALL))
                .andExpect(status().isForbidden());
    }
}

As you see we imported SpringSecurityWebAuxTestConfig to provide our users for testing. Each one used on its corresponding test case just by using a straightforward annotation, reducing code and complexity.

Better use @WithMockUser for simpler Role Based Security

As you see @WithUserDetails has all the flexibility you need for most of your applications. It allows you to use custom users with any GrantedAuthority, like roles or permissions. But if you are just working with roles, testing can be even easier and you could avoid constructing a custom UserDetailsService. In such cases, specify a simple combination of user, password and roles with @WithMockUser.

@Target({ElementType.METHOD, ElementType.TYPE})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Inherited
@Documented
@WithSecurityContext(
    factory = WithMockUserSecurityContextFactory.class
)
public @interface WithMockUser {
    String value() default "user";

    String username() default "";

    String[] roles() default {"USER"};

    String password() default "password";
}

The annotation defines default values for a very basic user. As in our case the route we are testing just requires that the authenticated user be a manager, we can quit using SpringSecurityWebAuxTestConfig and do this.

@Test
@WithMockUser(roles = "MANAGER")
public void givenManagerUser_whenGetFooSalute_thenOk() throws Exception
{
    mockMvc.perform(MockMvcRequestBuilders.get("/foo/salute")
            .accept(MediaType.ALL))
            .andExpect(status().isOk())
            .andExpect(content().string(containsString("user")));
}

Notice that now instead of the user [email protected] we are getting the default provided by @WithMockUser: user; yet it won't matter because what we really care about is his role: ROLE_MANAGER.

Conclusions

As you see with annotations like @WithUserDetails and @WithMockUser we can switch between different authenticated users scenarios without building classes alienated from our architecture just for making simple tests. Its also recommended you to see how @WithSecurityContext works for even more flexibility.

Since Spring 4.0+, the best solution is to annotate the test method with @WithMockUser

@Test
@WithMockUser(username = "user1", password = "pwd", roles = "USER")
public void mytest1() throws Exception {
    mockMvc.perform(get("/someApi"))
        .andExpect(status().isOk());
}

Remember to add the following dependency to your project

'org.springframework.security:spring-security-test:4.2.3.RELEASE'

It turned out that the SecurityContextPersistenceFilter, which is part of the Spring Security filter chain, always resets my SecurityContext, which I set calling SecurityContextHolder.getContext().setAuthentication(principal) (or by using the .principal(principal) method). This filter sets the SecurityContext in the SecurityContextHolder with a SecurityContext from a SecurityContextRepository OVERWRITING the one I set earlier. The repository is a HttpSessionSecurityContextRepository by default. The HttpSessionSecurityContextRepository inspects the given HttpRequest and tries to access the corresponding HttpSession. If it exists, it will try to read the SecurityContext from the HttpSession. If this fails, the repository generates an empty SecurityContext.

Thus, my solution is to pass a HttpSession along with the request, which holds the SecurityContext:

import static org.springframework.test.web.servlet.request.MockMvcRequestBuilders.get;
import static org.springframework.test.web.servlet.result.MockMvcResultMatchers.status;

import org.junit.Test;
import org.springframework.mock.web.MockHttpSession;
import org.springframework.security.authentication.UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken;
import org.springframework.security.core.context.SecurityContextHolder;
import org.springframework.security.web.context.HttpSessionSecurityContextRepository;

import eu.ubicon.webapp.test.WebappTestEnvironment;

public class Test extends WebappTestEnvironment {
    
    public static class MockSecurityContext implements SecurityContext {

        private static final long serialVersionUID = -1386535243513362694L;

        private Authentication authentication;

        public MockSecurityContext(Authentication authentication) {
            this.authentication = authentication;
        }
	
        @Override
        public Authentication getAuthentication() {
            return this.authentication;
        }
	
        @Override
        public void setAuthentication(Authentication authentication) {
            this.authentication = authentication;
        }
    }

    @Test
    public void signedIn() throws Exception {
        
        UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken principal = 
                this.getPrincipal("test1");

        MockHttpSession session = new MockHttpSession();
        session.setAttribute(
                HttpSessionSecurityContextRepository.SPRING_SECURITY_CONTEXT_KEY, 
                new MockSecurityContext(principal));
        
        
        super.mockMvc
            .perform(
                    get("/api/v1/resource/test")
                    .session(session))
            .andExpect(status().isOk());
    }
}

Add in pom.xml:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-security-test</artifactId>
        <version>4.0.0.RC2</version>
    </dependency>

and use org.springframework.security.test.web.servlet.request.SecurityMockMvcRequestPostProcessors for authorization request. See the sample usage at https://github.com/rwinch/spring-security-test-blog (https://jira.spring.io/browse/SEC-2592).

Update:

4.0.0.RC2 works for spring-security 3.x. For spring-security 4 spring-security-test become part of spring-security (http://docs.spring.io/spring-security/site/docs/4.0.x/reference/htmlsingle/#test, version is the same).

Setting Up is changed: http://docs.spring.io/spring-security/site/docs/4.0.x/reference/htmlsingle/#test-mockmvc

public void setup() {
	mvc = MockMvcBuilders
			.webAppContextSetup(context)
			.apply(springSecurity())  
			.build();
}

Sample for basic-authentication: http://docs.spring.io/spring-security/site/docs/4.0.x/reference/htmlsingle/#testing-http-basic-authentication.

Here is an example for those who want to Test Spring MockMvc Security Config using Base64 basic authentication.

String basicDigestHeaderValue = "Basic " + new String(Base64.encodeBase64(("<username>:<password>").getBytes()));
this.mockMvc.perform(get("</get/url>").header("Authorization", basicDigestHeaderValue).accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)).andExpect(status().isOk());

Maven Dependency

    <dependency>
		<groupId>commons-codec</groupId>
		<artifactId>commons-codec</artifactId>
		<version>1.3</version>
	</dependency>

Short answer:

@Autowired
private WebApplicationContext webApplicationContext;

@Autowired
private Filter springSecurityFilterChain;

@Before
public void setUp() throws Exception {
    final MockHttpServletRequestBuilder defaultRequestBuilder = get("/dummy-path");
    this.mockMvc = MockMvcBuilders.webAppContextSetup(this.webApplicationContext)
            .defaultRequest(defaultRequestBuilder)
            .alwaysDo(result -> setSessionBackOnRequestBuilder(defaultRequestBuilder, result.getRequest()))
            .apply(springSecurity(springSecurityFilterChain))
            .build();
}

private MockHttpServletRequest setSessionBackOnRequestBuilder(final MockHttpServletRequestBuilder requestBuilder,
                                                             final MockHttpServletRequest request) {
    requestBuilder.session((MockHttpSession) request.getSession());
    return request;
}

After perform formLogin from spring security test each of your requests will be automatically called as logged in user.

Long answer:

Check this solution (the answer is for spring 4): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14308341/how-to-login-a-user-with-spring-3-2-new-mvc-testing/47069613#47069613

Options to avoid using SecurityContextHolder in tests:

• Option 1: use mocks - I mean mock SecurityContextHolder using some mock library - EasyMock for example
• Option 2: wrap call SecurityContextHolder.get... in your code in some service - for example in SecurityServiceImpl with method getCurrentPrincipal that implements SecurityService interface and then in your tests you can simply create mock implementation of this interface that returns the desired principal without access to SecurityContextHolder.

Pretty Late answer though. But This has worked for me , and could be useful.

While Using Spring Security ans mockMvc, all you need to is use @WithMockUser annotation like others are mentioned.

Spring security also provides another annotation called @WithAnonymousUser for testing unauthenticated requests. However you should be careful here. You would be expecting 401, but I got 403 Forbidden Error by default. In actual scenarios, when you are running actual service, It is redirected and you end up getting the correct 401 response code.Use this annotation for anonymous requests.

You may also think of ommitting the annotaions and simply keep it unauthorized. But this usually raises the correct exceptions(like AuthenticationException), but you will get correct status code if it is handled correctly(If you are using custom handler). I used to get 500 for this. So look for the exceptions raised in the debugger, and check if it is handled rightly and returns the correct status code.

Create a class TestUserDetailsImpl on your test package:

@Service
@Primary
@Profile("test")
public class TestUserDetailsImpl implements UserDetailsService {
    public static final String API_USER = "[email protected]";

    private User getAdminUser() {
        User user = new User();
        user.setUsername(API_USER);

        SimpleGrantedAuthority role = new SimpleGrantedAuthority("ROLE_API_USER");
        user.setAuthorities(Collections.singletonList(role));

        return user;
    }

    @Override
    public UserDetails loadUserByUsername(String username) 
                                         throws UsernameNotFoundException {
        if (Objects.equals(username, ADMIN_USERNAME))
            return getAdminUser();
        throw new UsernameNotFoundException(username);
    }
}

Rest endpoint:

@GetMapping("/invoice")
@Secured("ROLE_API_USER")
public Page<InvoiceDTO> getInvoices(){
   ...
}

Test endpoint:

@Test
@WithUserDetails("[email protected]")
public void testApi() throws Exception {
     ...
}

When using MockMvcBuilders.webAppContextSetup(wac).addFilters(...) than springSecurityFilterChain (more specifically SecurityContextPersistenceFilter) will take over and will remove the SecurityContext prepared by @WithMockUser (pretty silly); this happens because SecurityContextPersistenceFilter tries to "restore" the SecurityContext from the HttpSession where finds none. Well, use this simple AutoStoreSecurityContextHttpFilter defined below which will take care of putting @WithMockUser's preppared SecurityContext into the HttpSession such that later SecurityContextPersistenceFilter will be able to find it.

@ContextConfiguration(...) // the issue doesn't occur when using @SpringBootTest
public class SomeTest {
	@Autowired
	private Filter springSecurityFilterChain;
    private MockMvc mockMvc;

    @BeforeEach
    void setup(WebApplicationContext wac) {
        this.mockMvc = MockMvcBuilders.webAppContextSetup(wac)
                .addFilters(new AutoStoreSecurityContextHttpFilter(), springSecurityFilterChain).build();
    }

    @WithMockUser
    @Test
    void allowAccessToAuthenticated() {
        ...
    }
}

// don't use this Filter in production because it's only intended for tests, to solve the 
// @WithMockUser & springSecurityFilterChain (more specifically SecurityContextPersistenceFilter) "misunderstandings"
public class AutoStoreSecurityContextHttpFilter extends HttpFilter {
	protected void doFilter(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
		req.getSession().setAttribute(HttpSessionSecurityContextRepository.SPRING_SECURITY_CONTEXT_KEY, SecurityContextHolder.getContext());
		super.doFilter(req, res, chain);
	}
}