Troubleshooting Spring Boot with Spring Security Handling 404 Errors on Valid Logins

Table of Contents

Introduction:

Are you facing a perplexing issue with your Spring Boot application that uses Spring Security? Have you noticed that valid login attempts are resulting in frustrating 404 errors? If you’re scratching your head trying to figure out what’s causing this problem, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll dive into the depths of this issue and explore possible solutions to get your application back on track.

Understanding the Problem

When you activate Spring Security in your Spring Boot application using a custom bean with the @PreAuthorize annotation, you might encounter an unexpected behavior. Valid login attempts end up triggering 404 errors, while invalid requests surprisingly return a 200 status code. This issue can be quite baffling, as everything seems to work fine without the PreAuthorize annotation.

Examining the Security Configuration

To shed light on this issue, let’s take a closer look at the security configuration of your application. In your WebSecurityConfiguration class, you have enabled web security and global method security using the @EnableWebSecurity and @EnableGlobalMethodSecurity(prePostEnabled = true) annotations, respectively. These annotations ensure that the security features are active and that method-level authorization is enforced.

Unraveling the Authorization Process

The core of the problem lies in the authorization process performed by Spring Security. The @PreAuthorize(“@mySecurity.check(#car)”) annotation in your Rest controller calls the custom bean method named check, passing the #car parameter. This method checks the given permissions in the JWT (JSON Web Token) and returns either true or false.

Checking for Missing Annotations

One possible cause of the 404 errors is missing annotations in your controller. Ensure that your controller is annotated with @RestController. Additionally, if you’re not using @RestController, you’ll need to add the @ResponseBody annotation to the method in question. This ensures that the method’s return value is treated as the response body.

Debugging the Request Flow

To gain further insight into the issue, it’s helpful to debug the request flow. Set breakpoints in your code and step through the execution to identify the exact point where the 404 error occurs. By closely examining the flow, you can pinpoint any unexpected behavior or missing components.

Investigating View Resolution

The presence of a 404 error suggests that Spring is trying to load an actual view that is not present in your application. Check if you have correctly defined the expected view or resource. In your log, notice the line “Forwarding to [api/v1/car/foobar2] ”. Make sure that the corresponding view or resource exists to avoid the 404 error.

Unveiling the Forbidden Access Mystery

When analyzing the log entries, you might notice that an “AccessDeniedException” is thrown when a not allowed request is made. This suggests that the authorization process is correctly denying access to unauthorized users. However, it still leaves us with the question of why valid requests are resulting in 404 errors.

Solving the 404 Error Dilemma

To overcome the issue of valid requests returning 404 errors, we need to identify any possible discrepancies in the path variables or parameters used in your code. with cutoff of 1000 Spring Boot with Spring Security returns 404 on valid login – What’s the Solution?

Have you ever encountered a frustrating issue when using Spring Boot with Spring Security? You activate Spring Security through a custom bean, and suddenly valid login requests return a 404 error, while invalid requests seem to work just fine. It’s a perplexing situation, and you’re left scratching your head for answers. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Many developers have faced similar problems with Spring Boot and Spring Security.we’ll delve into the issue of Spring Boot with Spring Security returning a 404 error on valid login attempts. We’ll explore a real-life scenario where the authorization is done via JWT (JSON Web Tokens), and the granted authorities are set correctly. You’ll find code snippets, configuration examples, and a step-by-step guide to help you troubleshoot and resolve this puzzling problem.

The Scenario

Let’s set the stage for our investigation. You have a REST controller that implements a method with the @PreAuthorize annotation. This annotation triggers a custom security check defined in a MySecurity component. The purpose of this security check is to determine if the user has the necessary permissions to access a resource. In our case, the resource is related to a car.

Here’s a simplified version of the code:

@RestController
public class CarController {








@Autowired
private MySecurity mySecurity;

@GetMapping("/api/v1/car/{car}")
@PreAuthorize("@mySecurity.check(#car)")
public List<Driver> getAllVersions(@PathVariable String car) {
    // Method implementation
}

}

As you can see, the @PreAuthorize annotation specifies that the mySecurity.check() method should be invoked before allowing access to the getAllVersions() method. The mySecurity.check() method retrieves the user’s authorities from the JWT and checks if they have the necessary permissions for the specified car.

Now, here’s where things get interesting. When you disable the @PreAuthorize annotation and make a request to the /api/v1/car/{car} endpoint without any security checks, everything works fine. However, as soon as you activate the security check, valid requests end up returning a 404 error, while invalid requests return a 200 status code.

Debugging the Issue

Naturally, you start digging into the problem to figure out what’s going wrong. You enable debugging and step through the code. Surprisingly, the PreAuthorize check seems to work correctly, returning true or false based on the user’s permissions. Yet, valid requests still result in a 404 error.

Here’s an example of the request and response when the issue occurs:

GET “/api/v1/car/foobar”
Response: 404 Not Found

It seems that the request is being forwarded to a non-existent resource, causing the 404 error. But why is this happening only with valid requests? And why does everything work fine when the security check is disabled?

Investigating the Root Cause

To unravel this mystery, let’s take a closer look at your project’s configuration. You have a WebSecurityConfiguration class annotated with @Configuration, @EnableWebSecurity, and @EnableGlobalMethodSecurity(prePostEnabled = true). These annotations enable web security and global method security, allowing the use of @PreAuthorize annotations.

Here’s a simplified version of the configuration:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity
@EnableGlobalMethodSecurity(prePostEnabled = true)
public class WebSecurityConfiguration extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
// Configuration details
}

Spring Security, such asspring-boot-starter-security and spring-security-oauth2-autoconfigure. You have also defined a JwtAuthenticationFilter to handle authentication using JWT.

Here’s a simplified version of the JwtAuthenticationFilter:

public class JwtAuthenticationFilter extends OncePerRequestFilter {
// Filter implementation
}

Upon inspecting the code, you notice that the JwtAuthenticationFilter is not being registered in the WebSecurityConfiguration class. This filter is responsible for intercepting requests and validating the JWT token before the security checks are applied.

To resolve the issue, you need to add the JwtAuthenticationFilter to the Spring Security filter chain in your WebSecurityConfiguration class.

Here’s an updated version of the WebSecurityConfiguration:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity
@EnableGlobalMethodSecurity(prePostEnabled = true)
public class WebSecurityConfiguration extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {













@Autowired
private JwtAuthenticationFilter jwtAuthenticationFilter;

@Override
protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
    http
        .addFilterBefore(jwtAuthenticationFilter, UsernamePasswordAuthenticationFilter.class)
        // Configure other security settings
        .authorizeRequests()
            .anyRequest().authenticated();
}

// Other configuration details

}

By adding the jwtAuthenticationFilter before the UsernamePasswordAuthenticationFilter, you ensure that the JWT token is validated before the security checks are applied. This will prevent the 404 error from occurring on valid login attempts.

After making these changes, try running your application and test the login functionality again. Valid login requests should no longer result in a 404 error, and you should be able to access the protected resource successfully.

Remember to adapt the code to your specific implementation and include any additional configuration or customization that you may have in your project.