Spring Test & Security: How to mock authentication

Question

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 here:
• http://techdive.in/solutions/how-mock-securitycontextholder-perfrom-junit-tests-spring-controller or here:
• How to JUnit tests a @PreAuthorize annotation and its spring EL specified by a spring MVC Controller?

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

Answer 1

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): How to login a user with spring 3.2 new mvc testing