Using Spring security test to test a secured Spring MVC controller

Question

following the documentation about using Spring Security Test to write tests for a spring MVC app that is wired behind Spring Security.

This is a vanilla spring-boot application employing a typical spring-security wiring. Here's the main Application.java

@SpringBootApplication
public class Application {

    private static final Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(Application.class);

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(Application.class);
    }
}

Here's the wiring for the spring-security:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity
public class SecurityConfiguration extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {

    @Autowired
    @Qualifier("customUserDetailsService")
    UserDetailsService userDetailsService;

    @Autowired
    public void configureGlobalSecurity(AuthenticationManagerBuilder auth) throws Exception {
        auth.userDetailsService(userDetailsService);
    }

    @Override
    protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
        http.authorizeRequests()
                .antMatchers("/","/sign_up").permitAll()
                .anyRequest().authenticated()
                .and()
            .formLogin()
                .and()
            .csrf()
                .and()
            .exceptionHandling()
                .accessDeniedPage("/access_denied")
                .and()
            .logout()
                .permitAll();
    }
}

As you may see, all requests require to be authenticated except for those for "/" and "/sign_up". I have verified by deploying the application that the authentication schemes work just fine.

---

Now comes the interesting part: writing spring mvc tests. The link I provided gives some nice ways to write such tests where the spring-security-test framework allows inserting mock users/security-contexts. I've taken the approach of

1. defining a mock UserDetails interface, and
2. using a SecurityContextFactory to create a SecurityContext, which
3. should be inserted into the application context during test launch.

The code for 1. is as follows:

@WithSecurityContext(factory=WithMockUserDetailsSecurityContextFactory.class)
public @interface WithMockUserDetails {
    String firstName() default "apil";
    String lastName() default "tamang";
    String password() default "test";
    long id() default 999;
    String email() default "apil@test.com";


}

The code for 2. is as follows:

final class WithMockUserDetailsSecurityContextFactory
    implements WithSecurityContextFactory<WithMockUserDetails>{


    @Override
    public SecurityContext createSecurityContext(WithMockUserDetails mockUserDetails) {


        /*
         * Use an anonymous implementation for 'UserDetails' to return a
         * mock authentication object, which is then set to the SecurityContext
         * for the test runs.
         */
        UserDetails principal=new UserDetails() {
            @Override
            public Collection<? extends GrantedAuthority> getAuthorities() {

                //another anonmyous interface implementation.
                GrantedAuthority auth=new GrantedAuthority() {
                    @Override
                    public String getAuthority() {
                        return "ROLE_USER";
                    }
                };
                List<GrantedAuthority> authorities=new ArrayList<>();
                authorities.add(auth);
                return authorities;
            }

            @Override
            public String getPassword() {
                return mockUserDetails.password();
            }

            @Override
            public String getUsername() {
                return mockUserDetails.email();
            }

            @Override
            public boolean isAccountNonExpired() {
                return true;
            }

            @Override
            public boolean isAccountNonLocked() {
                return true;
            }

            @Override
            public boolean isCredentialsNonExpired() {
                return true;
            }

            @Override
            public boolean isEnabled() {
                return true;
            }
        };
        Authentication authentication=new
                UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken(principal,principal.getPassword(),principal.getAuthorities());
        SecurityContext context= SecurityContextHolder.createEmptyContext();
        context.setAuthentication(authentication);
        return context;
    }
}

---

Finally, here's the test class:

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@SpringApplicationConfiguration(classes = {Application.class})
@WebAppConfiguration
public class UserControllerTest {

    @Autowired
    private WebApplicationContext context;

    @Autowired
    private Filter springSecurityFilterChain;

    private MockMvc mvc;

    @Before
    public void setup(){
        mvc= MockMvcBuilders
                .webAppContextSetup(context)                    
                .apply(springSecurity())
                .build();
    }

    @Test
    public void testRootIsOk() throws Exception {
        mvc.perform(get("/"))
                .andExpect(status().isOk());
    }

    @Test
    public void expectRedirectToLogin() throws Exception {
        mvc.perform(get("/testConnect"))
                .andExpect(redirectedUrl("http://localhost/login"));

    }

    @Test
    @WithMockUserDetails
    public void testAuthenticationOkay() throws Exception {
        mvc.perform(get("/testConnect"))
                .andExpect(content().string("good request."));
    }

}

Output of Test Run:

1. Test 1 passes.
2. Test 2 passes.
3. Test 3 fails. Expected output but got <>.

Very likely Test 3 failed because of the 'SecurityContext' never got appropriately populated. As per the documentation, it should have worked. Not sure what I missed. Any help is much appreciated.

Answer 1

You'll need to add

@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)

to your custom annotation in order to retain annotation information at runtime. Otherwise WithSecurityContextTestExecutionListener can't detect your annotation.