Securing a GWT app with a request param to be checked in a crosscontext attribute - gwt

Question

My application is supposed to received a request parameter called sessionId which is supposed to be used to lookup for a crosscontext attribute.
I was looking at Spring Security to implement this and I think already have a good implementation of my AuthenticationProvider :
public Authentication authenticate(Authentication authentication) throws AuthenticationException {
HttpServletRequest request = ((ServletRequestAttributes) RequestContextHolder.getRequestAttributes()).getRequest();
ServletContext servletContext = request.getSession().getServletContext();
String sessionId = request.getParameter("sessionId");
if (sessionId != null) {
ServletContext sc = request.getSession().getServletContext();
Object obj = sc.getContext("/crosscontext").getAttribute(sessionId);
if (obj != null) {
// return new Authentication
}
} else {
logger.error("No session id provided in the request");
return null;
}
if (!GWT.isProdMode()) {
// return new Authentication
} else {
logger.error("No session id provided in the request");
return null;
}
}
Now, what I would like to do is to configure Spring Security to not prompt for a user name and password, to let it reach this authentication provider call the authenticate method.
How can I achieve this ?

Answer 1

I fixed my issue by reviewing the design of my security and going for something closer to the preauthenticated mechanisms that are already provided by Spring Security.
I extended 2 components of Spring Security.
First one is an AbstractPreAuthenticatedProcessingFilter, usually his role is to provide the principal provided in the headers. In my case, I retrieve the header value and search in the context shared between 2 application for an attribute that corresponds to that header and returns it as principal :
public class MyApplicationPreAuthenticatedProcessingFilter extends AbstractPreAuthenticatedProcessingFilter {
private static final Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(MyApplicationPreAuthenticatedProcessingFilter.class);
#Override
protected Object getPreAuthenticatedPrincipal(HttpServletRequest request) {
if (MyApplicationServerUtil.isProdMode()) {
String principal = request.getHeader("MY_HEADER");
String attribute = (String) request.getSession().getServletContext().getContext("/crosscontext").getAttribute(principal);
logger.info("In PROD mode - Found value in crosscontext: " + attribute);
return attribute;
} else {
logger.debug("In DEV mode - passing through ...");
return "";
}
}
#Override
protected Object getPreAuthenticatedCredentials(HttpServletRequest request) {
return null;
}
}
The other component is the AuthenticationProvider which will just check if the authentication contains a principal when it runs in prod mode (GWT prod) :
public class MyApplicationAuthenticationProvider implements AuthenticationProvider {
private static final Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(MyApplicationAuthenticationProvider.class);
public static final String SESSION_ID = "sessionId";
#Override
public Authentication authenticate(Authentication authentication) throws AuthenticationException {
if (MyApplicationServerUtil.isProdMode()) {
if (StringUtils.isNotEmpty((String) authentication.getPrincipal())) {
logger.warn("Found credentials: " + (String) authentication.getPrincipal());
Authentication customAuth = new CustomAuthentication("ROLE_USER");
customAuth.setAuthenticated(true);
return customAuth;
} else {
throw new PreAuthenticatedCredentialsNotFoundException("Nothing returned from crosscontext for sessionId attribute ["
+ (String) authentication.getPrincipal() + "]");
}
} else {
Authentication customAuth = new CustomAuthentication("ROLE_USER");
customAuth.setAuthenticated(true);
return customAuth;
}
}
#Override
public boolean supports(Class<?> authentication) {
return PreAuthenticatedAuthenticationToken.class.isAssignableFrom(authentication);
}
}
I understand that it might not be the most secure application. However, it will already be running in a secure environment. But if you have suggestions for improvement, they're welcome !