Spring- Security :java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/springframework/security/context/DelegatingApplicationListener

Question

I am upgrading the Spring-Security version from 3.2.5 to 4.0.1. Unfortunately I have stumbled across a road-block and I would appreciate your help. I am posting the error log, the securityApplicationContext.xml and pom.xml. Kindly have a look.

Error log :

javax.servlet.ServletException: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.springframework.security.web.access.expression.WebSecurityExpressionRoot.setDefaultRolePrefix(Ljava/lang/String;)V
    org.apache.jasper.runtime.PageContextImpl.doHandlePageException(PageContextImpl.java:916)
    org.apache.jasper.runtime.PageContextImpl.handlePageException(PageContextImpl.java:845)
    org.apache.jsp.WEB_002dINF.views.common.footer_jsp._jspService(footer_jsp.java:231)
    org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(HttpJspBase.java:70)

SecurityApplicationContext.xml :

<security:http pattern="/resources/**" security="none"/>

    <security:http create-session="ifRequired" use-expressions="true" auto-config="false" disable-url-rewriting="true">
        <security:form-login login-page="/login" login-processing-url="/j_spring_security_check" default-target-url="/dashboard" always-use-default-target="false" authentication-failure-url="/denied" />
        <security:remember-me key="_spring_security_remember_me" user-service-ref="userDetailsService" token-validity-seconds="1209600" data-source-ref="dataSource"/>
        <security:logout delete-cookies="JSESSIONID" invalidate-session="true" logout-url="/j_spring_security_logout"/>
<!--     <security:intercept-url pattern="/**" requires-channel="https"/> -->
    <security:port-mappings>
        <security:port-mapping http="8080" https="8443"/>
    </security:port-mappings>
    <security:logout logout-url="/logout" logout-success-url="/" success-handler-ref="myLogoutHandler"/>

     <security:session-management session-fixation-protection="migrateSession">
         <security:concurrency-control session-registry-ref="sessionRegistry" max-sessions="5" expired-url="/login"/>
     </security:session-management>


    </security:http>

    <beans:bean id="rememberMeAuthenticationProvider" class="org.springframework.security.web.authentication.rememberme.PersistentTokenBasedRememberMeServices">
        <beans:constructor-arg index="0" value="_spring_security_remember_me"/>
        <beans:constructor-arg index="1" ref="userDetailsService"/>
        <beans:constructor-arg index="2" ref="jdbcTokenRepository"/>
        <property name="alwaysRemember" value="true"/>
    </beans:bean>

    <!--Database management for remember-me -->
    <beans:bean id="jdbcTokenRepository"
                class="org.springframework.security.web.authentication.rememberme.JdbcTokenRepositoryImpl">
        <beans:property name="createTableOnStartup" value="false"/>
        <beans:property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" />
    </beans:bean>

    <!-- Remember me ends here -->
    <security:authentication-manager alias="authenticationManager">
        <security:authentication-provider user-service-ref="LoginServiceImpl">
           <security:password-encoder  ref="encoder"/>
        </security:authentication-provider>
    </security:authentication-manager>

    <beans:bean id="encoder"
                class="org.springframework.security.crypto.bcrypt.BCryptPasswordEncoder">
        <beans:constructor-arg name="strength" value="11" />
    </beans:bean>

    <beans:bean id="daoAuthenticationProvider"
                class="org.springframework.security.authentication.dao.DaoAuthenticationProvider">
                <beans:property name="userDetailsService" ref="LoginServiceImpl"/>
               <beans:property name="passwordEncoder" ref="encoder"/>
    </beans:bean>
</beans>

And POM.xml :

<packaging>war</packaging>
    <properties>
        <java-version>1.8</java-version>
        <org.springframework-version>4.0.6.RELEASE</org.springframework-version>
        <org.aspectj-version>1.7.4</org.aspectj-version>
        <org.slf4j-version>1.7.5</org.slf4j-version>
        <hibernate.version>4.3.9.Final</hibernate.version>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
        <springsecurity.version>4.0.1.RELEASE</springsecurity.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
<!-- Spring Mobile dependencies -->

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.mobile</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-mobile-device</artifactId>
            <version>1.1.3.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>

        <!-- Spring mobile ends here -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
            <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
            <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
        </dependency>
<dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
            <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-tx</artifactId>
            <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
            <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
        </dependency>
  <!-- Spring security dependenciey -->

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-security-web</artifactId>
            <version>${springsecurity.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-security-config</artifactId>
            <version>${springsecurity.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-security-taglibs</artifactId>
            <version>${springsecurity.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
            <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
            <version>1.2</version>
        </dependency>

If there is anything more required, kindly let me know. Thanks a lot. :-)

Answer 1

Adding these security packages will solve the issue. more importantly, spring core should be there.

       <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-security-web</artifactId>
            <version>5.2.1.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-security-config</artifactId>
            <version>5.2.1.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-security-core</artifactId>
            <version>5.2.1.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>

Answer 2

Firstly, you also need the spring-security-core dependency within your pom.xml.

Secondly, the error message you are receiving is to do with incompatible versions between Spring and Spring-Security. I thought using

<org.springframework-version>4.0.6.RELEASE</org.springframework-version> with <springsecurity.version>4.0.1.RELEASE</springsecurity.version> as you currently have would work fine but then I noticed this line in the Spring-Security documentation regarding migration to Spring-Security 4:

"Spring Security 4 now requires Spring 4. This means your first step is to update to Spring 4.1.x."

My configuration also uses Spring version 4.1.1.RELEASE and works well with Spring-Security.

Therefore I'd say your best bet is to upgrade your <org.springframework-version> to version 4.1 or above.