ajax login with spring webMVC and spring security - ajax

Question

I've been using Spring Security 3.0 for our website login mechanism using a dedicated login webpage. Now I need that login webpage to instead be a lightbox/popup window on every webpage in our site where upon logging in I get an AJAX result whether it was successful or not. What's the best way to go about this with Spring Security and Spring webmvc 3.0?

Answer 1

At the client-side you may simulate a normal form submission to your login url via ajax. For example, in jQuery:
$.ajax({
url: "${pageContext.request.contextPath}/j_spring_security_check",
type: "POST",
data: $("#loginFormName").serialize(),
beforeSend: function (xhr) {
xhr.setRequestHeader("X-Ajax-call", "true");
},
success: function(result) {
if (result == "ok") {
...
} else if (result == "error") {
...
}
}
});
At the server side, you may customize AuthenticationSuccessHandler and AuthenticationFailureHandler to return a value instead of redirect. Because you probably need a normal login page as well (for attempt to access a secured page via direct url), you should tell ajax calls from normal calls, for example, using header:
public class AjaxAuthenticationSuccessHandler implements AuthenticationSuccessHandler {
private AuthenticationSuccessHandler defaultHandler;
public AjaxAuthenticationSuccessHandler() {
}
public AjaxAuthenticationSuccessHandler(AuthenticationSuccessHandler defaultHandler) {
this.defaultHandler = defaultHandler;
}
public void onAuthenticationSuccess(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response, Authentication auth)
throws IOException, ServletException {
if ("true".equals(request.getHeader("X-Ajax-call"))) {
response.getWriter().print("ok");
response.getWriter().flush();
} else {
defaultHandler.onAuthenticationSuccess(request, response, auth);
}
}
}

Answer 2

I did something similar (thanks axtavt):
public class AjaxAuthenticationSuccessHandler extends
SimpleUrlAuthenticationSuccessHandler {
public void onAuthenticationSuccess(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response, Authentication auth)
throws IOException, ServletException {
if ("XMLHttpRequest".equals(request.getHeader("X-Requested-With"))) {
response.getWriter().print(
"{success:true, targetUrl : \'"
+ this.getTargetUrlParameter() + "\'}");
response.getWriter().flush();
} else {
super.onAuthenticationSuccess(request, response, auth);
}
}}
I chose to extend the simple success handler for the default behavior on non-Ajax requests. Here's the XML to make it work:
<http auto-config="false" use-expressions="true" entry-point-ref="authenticationProcessingFilterEntryPoint">
<custom-filter position="FORM_LOGIN_FILTER" ref="authenticationFilter" />
...
...
</http>
<beans:bean id="authenticationProcessingFilterEntryPoint"
class="org.springframework.security.web.authentication.LoginUrlAuthenticationEntryPoint">
<beans:property name="loginFormUrl" value="/index.do" />
<beans:property name="forceHttps" value="false" />
</beans:bean>
<beans:bean id="authenticationFilter" class=
"org.springframework.security.web.authentication.UsernamePasswordAuthenticationFilter">
<beans:property name="authenticationManager" ref="authenticationManager"/>
<beans:property name="filterProcessesUrl" value="/j_spring_security_check"/>
<beans:property name="sessionAuthenticationStrategy" ref="sas" />
<beans:property name="authenticationFailureHandler" ref="failureHandler"/>
<beans:property name="authenticationSuccessHandler" ref="successHandler"/>
</beans:bean>
<beans:bean id="successHandler" class="foo.AjaxAuthenticationSuccessHandler">
<beans:property name="defaultTargetUrl" value="/login.html"/>
</beans:bean>
<beans:bean id="failureHandler" class="foo.AjaxAuthenticationFailureHandler" />