Using JWT with Spring Security OAuth (legacy stack)

1. Overview

In this tutorial, we’ll discuss how to get our Spring Security OAuth2 implementation to make use of JSON Web Tokens.

We’re also continuing to build on top of the previous article in this OAuth series.

Before we get started – one important note. Keep in mind that the Spring Security core team is in the process of implementing a new OAuth2 stack – with some aspects already out and some still in progress.

For the version of this article using the new Spring Security 5 stack, have a look at our article Using JWT with Spring Security OAuth.

Alright, let’s jump right in.

2. Maven Configuration

First, we need to add spring-security-jwt dependency to our pom.xml:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-security-jwt</artifactId>
</dependency>

Note that we need to add spring-security-jwt dependency to both the Authorization Server and Resource Server.

3. Authorization Server

Next, we will configure our Authorization Server to use JwtTokenStore – as follows:

@Configuration
@EnableAuthorizationServer
public class OAuth2AuthorizationServerConfig extends AuthorizationServerConfigurerAdapter {
    @Override
    public void configure(AuthorizationServerEndpointsConfigurer endpoints) 
      throws Exception {
        endpoints.tokenStore(tokenStore())
                 .accessTokenConverter(accessTokenConverter())
                 .authenticationManager(authenticationManager);
    }

    @Bean
    public TokenStore tokenStore() {
        return new JwtTokenStore(accessTokenConverter());
    }

    @Bean
    public JwtAccessTokenConverter accessTokenConverter() {
        JwtAccessTokenConverter converter = new JwtAccessTokenConverter();
        converter.setSigningKey("123");
        return converter;
    }

    @Bean
    @Primary
    public DefaultTokenServices tokenServices() {
        DefaultTokenServices defaultTokenServices = new DefaultTokenServices();
        defaultTokenServices.setTokenStore(tokenStore());
        defaultTokenServices.setSupportRefreshToken(true);
        return defaultTokenServices;
    }
}

Note that we used a symmetric key in our JwtAccessTokenConverter to sign our tokens – which means we will need to use the same exact key for the Resources Server as well.

4. Resource Server

Now, let’s take a look at our Resource Server configuration – which is very similar to the config of the Authorization Server:

@Configuration
@EnableResourceServer
public class OAuth2ResourceServerConfig extends ResourceServerConfigurerAdapter {
    @Override
    public void configure(ResourceServerSecurityConfigurer config) {
        config.tokenServices(tokenServices());
    }

    @Bean
    public TokenStore tokenStore() {
        return new JwtTokenStore(accessTokenConverter());
    }

    @Bean
    public JwtAccessTokenConverter accessTokenConverter() {
        JwtAccessTokenConverter converter = new JwtAccessTokenConverter();
        converter.setSigningKey("123");
        return converter;
    }

    @Bean
    @Primary
    public DefaultTokenServices tokenServices() {
        DefaultTokenServices defaultTokenServices = new DefaultTokenServices();
        defaultTokenServices.setTokenStore(tokenStore());
        return defaultTokenServices;
    }
}

Keep in mind that we’re defining these two servers as entirely separate and independently deployable. That’s the reason we need to declare some of the same beans again here, in the new configuration.

5. Custom Claims in the Token

Let’s now set up some infrastructure to be able to add a few custom claims in the Access Token. The standard claims provided by the framework are all well and good, but most of the time we’ll need some extra information in the token to utilize on the client side.

We’ll define a TokenEnhancer to customize our Access Token with these additional claims.

In the following example, we will add an extra field “organization” to our Access Token – with this CustomTokenEnhancer:

public class CustomTokenEnhancer implements TokenEnhancer {
    @Override
    public OAuth2AccessToken enhance(
      OAuth2AccessToken accessToken, 
      OAuth2Authentication authentication) {
        Map<String, Object> additionalInfo = new HashMap<>();
        additionalInfo.put(
          "organization", authentication.getName() + randomAlphabetic(4));
        ((DefaultOAuth2AccessToken) accessToken).setAdditionalInformation(
          additionalInfo);
        return accessToken;
    }
}

Then, we’ll wire that into our Authorization Server configuration – as follows:

@Override
public void configure(
  AuthorizationServerEndpointsConfigurer endpoints) throws Exception {
    TokenEnhancerChain tokenEnhancerChain = new TokenEnhancerChain();
    tokenEnhancerChain.setTokenEnhancers(
      Arrays.asList(tokenEnhancer(), accessTokenConverter()));

    endpoints.tokenStore(tokenStore())
             .tokenEnhancer(tokenEnhancerChain)
             .authenticationManager(authenticationManager);
}

@Bean
public TokenEnhancer tokenEnhancer() {
    return new CustomTokenEnhancer();
}

With this new configuration up and running – here’s what a token token payload would look like:

{
    "user_name": "john",
    "scope": [
        "foo",
        "read",
        "write"
    ],
    "organization": "johnIiCh",
    "exp": 1458126622,
    "authorities": [
        "ROLE_USER"
    ],
    "jti": "e0ad1ef3-a8a5-4eef-998d-00b26bc2c53f",
    "client_id": "fooClientIdPassword"
}

5.1. Use the Access Token in the JS Client

Finally, we’ll want to make use of the token information over in our AngualrJS client application. We’ll use the angular-jwt library for that.

So what we’re going to do is we’re going to make use of the “organization” claim in our index.html:

<p class="navbar-text navbar-right">{{organization}}</p>

<script type="text/javascript" 
  src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/auth0/angular-jwt/master/dist/angular-jwt.js">
</script>

<script>
var app = 
  angular.module('myApp', ["ngResource","ngRoute", "ngCookies", "angular-jwt"]);

app.controller('mainCtrl', function($scope, $cookies, jwtHelper,...) {
    $scope.organiztion = "";

    function getOrganization(){
    	var token = $cookies.get("access_token");
    	var payload = jwtHelper.decodeToken(token);
    	$scope.organization = payload.organization;
    }
    ...
});

6. Access Extra Claims on Resource Server

But, how can we access that information over on the resource server side?

What we’ll do here is – extract the extra claims from the access token:

public Map<String, Object> getExtraInfo(OAuth2Authentication auth) {
    OAuth2AuthenticationDetails details =
      (OAuth2AuthenticationDetails) auth.getDetails();
    OAuth2AccessToken accessToken = tokenStore
      .readAccessToken(details.getTokenValue());
    return accessToken.getAdditionalInformation();
}

In the following section, we’ll discuss how to add that extra information to our Authentication details by using a custom AccessTokenConverter

6.1. Custom AccessTokenConverter

Let’s create CustomAccessTokenConverter and set Authentication details with access token claims:

@Component
public class CustomAccessTokenConverter extends DefaultAccessTokenConverter {

    @Override
    public OAuth2Authentication extractAuthentication(Map<String, ?> claims) {
        OAuth2Authentication authentication =
          super.extractAuthentication(claims);
        authentication.setDetails(claims);
        return authentication;
    }
}

Note: DefaultAccessTokenConverter used to set Authentication details to Null.

6.2. Configure JwtTokenStore

Next, we’ll configure our JwtTokenStore to use our CustomAccessTokenConverter:

@Configuration
@EnableResourceServer
public class OAuth2ResourceServerConfigJwt
 extends ResourceServerConfigurerAdapter {

    @Autowired
    private CustomAccessTokenConverter customAccessTokenConverter;

    @Bean
    public TokenStore tokenStore() {
        return new JwtTokenStore(accessTokenConverter());
    }

    @Bean
    public JwtAccessTokenConverter accessTokenConverter() {
        JwtAccessTokenConverter converter = new JwtAccessTokenConverter();
        converter.setAccessTokenConverter(customAccessTokenConverter);
    }
    // ...
}

6.3. Extra Claims Available in the Authentication Object

Now that the Authorization Server added some extra claims in the token, we can now access on the Resource Server side, directly in the Authentication object:

public Map<String, Object> getExtraInfo(Authentication auth) {
    OAuth2AuthenticationDetails oauthDetails =
      (OAuth2AuthenticationDetails) auth.getDetails();
    return (Map<String, Object>) oauthDetails
      .getDecodedDetails();
}

6.4. Authentication Details Test

Let’s make sure our Authentication object contains that extra information:

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@SpringBootTest(
  classes = ResourceServerApplication.class, 
  webEnvironment = WebEnvironment.RANDOM_PORT)
public class AuthenticationClaimsIntegrationTest {

    @Autowired
    private JwtTokenStore tokenStore;

    @Test
    public void whenTokenDoesNotContainIssuer_thenSuccess() {
        String tokenValue = obtainAccessToken("fooClientIdPassword", "john", "123");
        OAuth2Authentication auth = tokenStore.readAuthentication(tokenValue);
        Map<String, Object> details = (Map<String, Object>) auth.getDetails();
 
        assertTrue(details.containsKey("organization"));
    }

    private String obtainAccessToken(
      String clientId, String username, String password) {
 
        Map<String, String> params = new HashMap<>();
        params.put("grant_type", "password");
        params.put("client_id", clientId);
        params.put("username", username);
        params.put("password", password);
        Response response = RestAssured.given()
          .auth().preemptive().basic(clientId, "secret")
          .and().with().params(params).when()
          .post("http://localhost:8081/spring-security-oauth-server/oauth/token");
        return response.jsonPath().getString("access_token");
    }
}

Note: we obtained the access token with extra claims from the Authorization Server, then we read the Authentication object from it which contains extra information “organization” in the details object.

7. Asymmetric KeyPair

In our previous configuration we used symmetric keys to sign our token:

@Bean
public JwtAccessTokenConverter accessTokenConverter() {
    JwtAccessTokenConverter converter = new JwtAccessTokenConverter();
    converter.setSigningKey("123");
    return converter;
}

We can also use asymmetric keys (Public and Private keys) to do the signing process.

7.1. Generate JKS Java KeyStore File

Let’s first generate the keys – and more specifically a .jks file – using the command line tool keytool:

keytool -genkeypair -alias mytest 
                    -keyalg RSA 
                    -keypass mypass 
                    -keystore mytest.jks 
                    -storepass mypass

The command will generate a file called mytest.jks which contains our keys -the Public and Private keys.

Also make sure keypass and storepass are the same.

7.2. Export Public Key

Next, we need to export our Public key from generated JKS, we can use the following command to do so:

keytool -list -rfc --keystore mytest.jks | openssl x509 -inform pem -pubkey

A sample response will look like this:

-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEAgIK2Wt4x2EtDl41C7vfp
OsMquZMyOyteO2RsVeMLF/hXIeYvicKr0SQzVkodHEBCMiGXQDz5prijTq3RHPy2
/5WJBCYq7yHgTLvspMy6sivXN7NdYE7I5pXo/KHk4nz+Fa6P3L8+L90E/3qwf6j3
DKWnAgJFRY8AbSYXt1d5ELiIG1/gEqzC0fZmNhhfrBtxwWXrlpUDT0Kfvf0QVmPR
xxCLXT+tEe1seWGEqeOLL5vXRLqmzZcBe1RZ9kQQm43+a9Qn5icSRnDfTAesQ3Cr
lAWJKl2kcWU1HwJqw+dZRSZ1X4kEXNMyzPdPBbGmU6MHdhpywI7SKZT7mX4BDnUK
eQIDAQAB
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

We take only our Public key and copy it to our resource server src/main/resources/public.txt:

-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEAgIK2Wt4x2EtDl41C7vfp
OsMquZMyOyteO2RsVeMLF/hXIeYvicKr0SQzVkodHEBCMiGXQDz5prijTq3RHPy2
/5WJBCYq7yHgTLvspMy6sivXN7NdYE7I5pXo/KHk4nz+Fa6P3L8+L90E/3qwf6j3
DKWnAgJFRY8AbSYXt1d5ELiIG1/gEqzC0fZmNhhfrBtxwWXrlpUDT0Kfvf0QVmPR
xxCLXT+tEe1seWGEqeOLL5vXRLqmzZcBe1RZ9kQQm43+a9Qn5icSRnDfTAesQ3Cr
lAWJKl2kcWU1HwJqw+dZRSZ1X4kEXNMyzPdPBbGmU6MHdhpywI7SKZT7mX4BDnUK
eQIDAQAB
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----

Alternatively, we can export only the public key by adding the -noout argument:

keytool -list -rfc --keystore mytest.jks | openssl x509 -inform pem -pubkey -noout

7.3. Maven Configuration

Next, we don’t want the JKS file to be picked up by the maven filtering process – so we’ll make sure to exclude it in the pom.xml:

<build>
    <resources>
        <resource>
            <directory>src/main/resources</directory>
            <filtering>true</filtering>
            <excludes>
                <exclude>*.jks</exclude>
            </excludes>
        </resource>
    </resources>
</build>

If we’re using Spring Boot, we need to make sure that our JKS file is added to application classpath via the Spring Boot Maven Plugin – addResources:

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <addResources>true</addResources>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

7.4. Authorization Server

Now, we will configure JwtAccessTokenConverter to use our KeyPair from mytest.jks – as follows:

@Bean
public JwtAccessTokenConverter accessTokenConverter() {
    JwtAccessTokenConverter converter = new JwtAccessTokenConverter();
    KeyStoreKeyFactory keyStoreKeyFactory = 
      new KeyStoreKeyFactory(new ClassPathResource("mytest.jks"), "mypass".toCharArray());
    converter.setKeyPair(keyStoreKeyFactory.getKeyPair("mytest"));
    return converter;
}

7.5. Resource Server

Finally, we need to configure our resource server to use Public key – as follows:

@Bean
public JwtAccessTokenConverter accessTokenConverter() {
    JwtAccessTokenConverter converter = new JwtAccessTokenConverter();
    Resource resource = new ClassPathResource("public.txt");
    String publicKey = null;
    try {
        publicKey = IOUtils.toString(resource.getInputStream());
    } catch (final IOException e) {
        throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }
    converter.setVerifierKey(publicKey);
    return converter;
}

8. Conclusion

In this quick article we focused on setting up our Spring Security OAuth2 project to use JSON Web Tokens.