Sample application demonstrating Auth0, Grails 3, and Spring Security integration for a Grails 3 MVC application

This is a companion sample for the Auth0 Spring Security MVC library. Please refer to that library and documentation for further information specific to the library itself.

This sample application shows you how to:

1. Configure and run your Grails 3 application with Auth0 (Lock or Auth0.js) and Spring Security
2. 100% Java Configuration (Annotations)
3. Secure one or more URL endpoints with Role / Authority based permissions (ROLE_USER, ROLE_ADMIN etc)
4. Secure Java Services using method level security annotations for role based access control

Let's get started - it only takes a few minutes to have a working application with all the above.

Prerequisites

In order to run this example you will need to have Java 7+, and Grails 3 installed.

Check the Grails documentation for details on installing Grails 3. sdkman is one useful tool for this purpose.

Check installed successfully with:

grails --version

FYI only, in creating this sample, the following SDK versions were used:

Grails Version: 3.1.9
Groovy Version: 2.4.7
JVM Version: 1.8.0_77

Setup

Create an Auth0 Account (if not already done so - free!).

From the Auth0 Dashboard

Create an application - for the purposes of this sample - app

Ensure you add the following to the settings.

Allowed Callback URL:

http://localhost:3099/callback

Ensure you add the following to the settings.

Allowed Logout URLs:

http://localhost:3099/logout

Add one or more connections to your application - for instance Google Social Connection, or username-password DB connection.

Add Role Based Authorization By Creating an Auth0 Rule

Since this sample applies Role based authorization on the Home Page (defaults to requiring ROLE_ADMIN), go to Rules (in the Auth0 dashboard) and create the following new Rule (just copy and paste the snippet below into a new rule):

function (user, context, callback) {
  user.app_metadata = user.app_metadata || {};
  // You can add a Role based on what you want
  // Here, we simply check domain
  var addRolesToUser = function(user, cb) {
    if (user.email.indexOf('@gmail.com') > -1) {
      cb(null, ['ROLE_ADMIN']);
   } else if (user.email.indexOf('@auth0.com') > -1) {
      cb(null, ['ROLE_ADMIN']);
    } else {
      cb(null, ['ROLE_USER']);
    }
  };

  addRolesToUser(user, function(err, roles) {
    if (err) {
      callback(err);
    } else {
      user.app_metadata.roles = roles;
      auth0.users.updateAppMetadata(user.user_id, user.app_metadata)
        .then(function(){
          callback(null, user, context);
        })
        .catch(function(err){
          callback(err);
        });
    }
  });
}

In our simple Rule above, we add ROLE_ADMIN to any user profiles whose email addresses are gmail.com and auth0.com domains. Otherwise, we only provide ROLE_USER role. Our Spring Security Sample app will read this information from the UserProfile and apply the granted authorities when checking authorization access to secured endpoints configured with Role based permissions Obviously, please modify the rule to your needs (for example the email domain you will be using etc if not gmail).

Inside the Application

Authentication and authorization settings

Here is our sample AppConfig entry where we specify the endpoints security settings - defined under src/com.auth0.example.AppConfig.java

  // Apply the Authentication and Authorization Strategies your application endpoints require
    http.authorizeRequests()
            .antMatchers("/", "/css/**", "/fonts/**", "/assets/**", "/login").permitAll()
            .antMatchers("/portal/**").hasAnyAuthority("ROLE_USER", "ROLE_ADMIN")
            .antMatchers(securedRoute).authenticated();
    }

Here, we only allow users with ROLE_USER or ROLE_ADMIN to access the home page.

Update configuration information

Enter your:

client_id, issuer, client_secret, and domain information into grails-app/conf/auth0.properties

An example of populated values is shown below (please use your own values):

auth0.domain: arcseldon.auth0.com
auth0.issuer: https://arcseldon.auth0.com/
auth0.clientId: 7JbjgoK7BAuLL4AL6x8pOYfNSiBeZMdW
auth0.clientSecret: dn0p_95MmZKMDoXXXXXXXkE5Uu1Opo9oXXXXaho03P9Q907oHUE

Note:

auth0.defaultAuth0WebSecurityEnabled: false - this ensures we do not autowire the default configuration file provided with the auth0-spring-security-mvc library itself. That is a default configuration suitable only for simpler applications seeking to have an out of the box secured endpoint URL - similar to auth0-servlet library.

For details on the other settings, please check the README for the library this sample depends on Auth0 Spring Security MVC. In particular, this section on default configuration which lists each property together with a description on its purpose.

Build and Run

In order to build and run the project execute:

gradle bootRun

Then, go to http://localhost:3099/.

The Grails landing page has been left with the sample so you can see the Controllers used, and get general information on the Grails application itself. Since it launches from the root URL it is unsecured and hence available on startup.

To login, go to http://localhost:3099/login - you can click on the LoginController link if you like.

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Screenshots of the overall flow (minus growler notifications):

1. Grails

2.Login

3. Home

That's it!

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License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2013 AUTH10 LLC

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.