Securing Spring Boot API with API key and secret

Create a filter that grabs what ever header(s) you’re using for authentication.

import org.springframework.security.web.authentication.preauth.AbstractPreAuthenticatedProcessingFilter;

public class APIKeyAuthFilter extends AbstractPreAuthenticatedProcessingFilter {

    private String principalRequestHeader;

    public APIKeyAuthFilter(String principalRequestHeader) {
        this.principalRequestHeader = principalRequestHeader;
    }

    @Override
    protected Object getPreAuthenticatedPrincipal(HttpServletRequest request) {
        return request.getHeader(principalRequestHeader);
    }

    @Override
    protected Object getPreAuthenticatedCredentials(HttpServletRequest request) {
        return "N/A";
    }

}

Configure the filter in your Web Security config.

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Value;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.core.annotation.Order;
import org.springframework.security.authentication.AuthenticationManager;
import org.springframework.security.authentication.BadCredentialsException;
import org.springframework.security.config.annotation.web.builders.HttpSecurity;
import org.springframework.security.config.annotation.web.configuration.EnableWebSecurity;
import org.springframework.security.config.annotation.web.configuration.WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter;
import org.springframework.security.config.http.SessionCreationPolicy;
import org.springframework.security.core.Authentication;
import org.springframework.security.core.AuthenticationException;

@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity
@Order(1)
public class APISecurityConfig extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {

    @Value("${yourapp.http.auth-token-header-name}")
    private String principalRequestHeader;

    @Value("${yourapp.http.auth-token}")
    private String principalRequestValue;

    @Override
    protected void configure(HttpSecurity httpSecurity) throws Exception {
        APIKeyAuthFilter filter = new APIKeyAuthFilter(principalRequestHeader);
        filter.setAuthenticationManager(new AuthenticationManager() {

            @Override
            public Authentication authenticate(Authentication authentication) throws AuthenticationException {
                String principal = (String) authentication.getPrincipal();
                if (!principalRequestValue.equals(principal))
                {
                    throw new BadCredentialsException("The API key was not found or not the expected value.");
                }
                authentication.setAuthenticated(true);
                return authentication;
            }
        });
        httpSecurity.
            antMatcher("/api/**").
            csrf().disable().
            sessionManagement().sessionCreationPolicy(SessionCreationPolicy.STATELESS).
            and().addFilter(filter).authorizeRequests().anyRequest().authenticated();
    }

}

I realize I am a little late to the game on this one, but I also managed to get API keys working with Spring Boot in tandem with user-name/password authentication. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of using AbstractPreAuthenticatedProcessingFilter because in reading the JavaDoc, it seemed like a misuse of that particular class.

I ended up creating a new ApiKeyAuthenticationToken class along with a pretty simple raw servlet filter to accomplish this:

import java.util.Collection;

import org.springframework.security.authentication.AbstractAuthenticationToken;
import org.springframework.security.core.GrantedAuthority;
import org.springframework.security.core.Transient;

@Transient
public class ApiKeyAuthenticationToken extends AbstractAuthenticationToken {

    private String apiKey;
    
    public ApiKeyAuthenticationToken(String apiKey, Collection<? extends GrantedAuthority> authorities) {
        super(authorities);
        this.apiKey = apiKey;
        setAuthenticated(true);
    }

    @Override
    public Object getCredentials() {
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public Object getPrincipal() {
        return apiKey;
    }
}

And the filter

import javax.servlet.Filter;
import javax.servlet.FilterChain;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.ServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.ServletResponse;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import org.springframework.security.core.authority.AuthorityUtils;
import org.springframework.security.core.context.SecurityContextHolder;

public class ApiKeyAuthenticationFilter implements Filter {

    static final private String AUTH_METHOD = "api-key";
    
    @Override
    public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain)
            throws IOException, ServletException
    {
        if(request instanceof HttpServletRequest && response instanceof HttpServletResponse) {
            String apiKey = getApiKey((HttpServletRequest) request);
            if(apiKey != null) {
                if(apiKey.equals("my-valid-api-key")) {
                    ApiKeyAuthenticationToken apiToken = new ApiKeyAuthenticationToken(apiKey, AuthorityUtils.NO_AUTHORITIES);
                    SecurityContextHolder.getContext().setAuthentication(apiToken);
                } else {
                    HttpServletResponse httpResponse = (HttpServletResponse) response;
                    httpResponse.setStatus(401);
                    httpResponse.getWriter().write("Invalid API Key");
                    return;
                }
            }
        }
        
        chain.doFilter(request, response);
        
    }

    private String getApiKey(HttpServletRequest httpRequest) {
        String apiKey = null;
        
        String authHeader = httpRequest.getHeader("Authorization");
        if(authHeader != null) {
            authHeader = authHeader.trim();
            if(authHeader.toLowerCase().startsWith(AUTH_METHOD + " ")) {
                apiKey = authHeader.substring(AUTH_METHOD.length()).trim();
            }
        }
        
        return apiKey;
    }
}

All that is left at this point is to inject the filter at the proper location in the chain. In my case, I wanted API key authentication to be evaluated before any user-name / password authentication so that it could authenticate the request before the application tried to redirect to a login page:

@Override
protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
    http
        .csrf()
            .disable()
        .addFilterBefore(new ApiKeyAuthenticationFilter(), UsernamePasswordAuthenticationFilter.class)
        .authorizeRequests()
            .anyRequest()
                .fullyAuthenticated()
                .and()
        .formLogin();
}

One other thing I will say you should watch out for is that your API key authenticated requests don’t create and abandon a bunch of HttpSessions on your server.

The answer from the @MarkOfHall is correct and I just want to add a little more details. After you have the code, you will need to add the property values to the application.properties file as below:

yourapp.http.auth-token-header-name=X-API-KEY
yourapp.http.auth-token=abc123

The set the authentication value in the Postman as below:

You can use Postman but if you use cURL request will be similar provided below:

$ curl -H "X-API-KEY: abc123" "http://localhost:8080/api/v1/property/1"

Unless if provide the correct key and value, the app will not work.