How to disable 'X-Frame-Options' response header in Spring Security?

Question

I have CKeditor on my JSP and whenever I upload something, the following error pops out:

 Refused to display 'http://localhost:8080/xxx/xxx/upload-image?CKEditor=text&CKEditorFuncNum=1&langCode=ru' in a frame because it set 'X-Frame-Options' to 'DENY'.

I have tried removing Spring Security and everything works like a charm.

• How can I disable this in Spring Security XML file?
• What should I write between <http> tags?

Wend

None of the answers below yet address whether it's possible to apply SAMEORIGIN or ALLOW at the controller method level - anyone know? – Postglacial

Answer 1

By default X-Frame-Options is set to denied, to prevent clickjacking attacks. To override this, you can add the following into your spring security config

<http>    
    <headers>
        <frame-options policy="SAMEORIGIN"/>
    </headers>
</http>

Here are available options for policy

• DENY - is a default value. With this the page cannot be displayed in a frame, regardless of the site attempting to do so.
• SAMEORIGIN - I assume this is what you are looking for, so that the page will be (and can be) displayed in a frame on the same origin as the page itself
• ALLOW-FROM - Allows you to specify an origin, where the page can be displayed in a frame.

For more information take a look here.

And here to check how you can configure the headers using either XML or Java configs.

Note, that you might need also to specify appropriate strategy, based on needs.

Omeara

What is the namespace for this http and headers tags? – Precautious

Is it possible to apply this as the controller method level? – Janaye

If you need to configure it within WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter's configure method, write the following code: http.headers().frameOptions().sameOrigin(); – Chiekochien

@Omeara I use spring 3.1 and this is not supported, any workaround you might suggest? – Boyish

@Boyish docs.spring.io/spring-security/site/docs/current/reference/html/… it is supported. Could you please share what you have tried and didn't work? – Omeara

When I have applied xrfameoptions in spring security XML, it is set on all response headers except for login page. I wonder what went wrong?! – Gallonage

Answer 2

If you're using Java configs instead of XML configs, put this in your WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter.configure(HttpSecurity http) method:

http.headers().frameOptions().disable();

Fourposter

Using disable() is an option but if it's on the same server, use http.headers().frameOptions().sameOrigin(); – Arriola

what if i mix :-) – Noxious

.headers(headers -> headers .frameOptions(FrameOptionsConfig::disable)) – Interrupter

Answer 3

Most likely you don't want to deactivate this Header completely, but use SAMEORIGIN. If you are using the Java Configs (Spring Boot) and would like to allow the X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN, then you would need to use the following.

---

For older Spring Security versions:

http
   .headers()
       .addHeaderWriter(new XFrameOptionsHeaderWriter(XFrameOptionsHeaderWriter.XFrameOptionsMode.SAMEORIGIN))

---

For newer versions like Spring Security 4.0.2:

http
   .headers()
      .frameOptions()
         .sameOrigin();

Transformation

How to configure this in Spring 3.2.12? – Precautious

Migrating from 3.X to 4.X and ran into this as it was just appending based on the first example. thx. – Gratulation

Thanks. http.headers().frameOptions().sameorigin(); worked for me. – Thermonuclear

Answer 4

If using XML configuration you can use

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" 
       xmlns:security="http://www.springframework.org/schema/security"> 
<security:http>
    <security:headers>
         <security:frame-options disabled="true"></security:frame-options>
    </security:headers>
</security:http>
</beans>

Derwood

Answer 5

If you are using Spring Security's Java configuration, all of the default security headers are added by default. They can be disabled using the Java configuration below:

@EnableWebSecurity
@Configuration
public class WebSecurityConfig extends
   WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {

  @Override
  protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
    http
      .headers().disable()
      ...;
  }
}

Unvoiced

Answer 6

If you're using Spring Boot, the simplest way to disable the Spring Security default headers is to use security.headers.* properties. In particular, if you want to disable the X-Frame-Options default header, just add the following to your application.properties:

security.headers.frame=false

There is also security.headers.cache, security.headers.content-type, security.headers.hsts and security.headers.xss properties that you can use. For more information, take a look at SecurityProperties.

Salter

In Spring Boot 2.x this method is deprecated. "The security auto-configuration is no longer customizable. Provide your own WebSecurityConfigurer bean instead." – Cauterize

Answer 7

You should configure multiple HttpSecurity instances.

Here is my code where only /public/** requests are without X-Frame-Options header.

@Configuration
public class SecurityConfig {

/**
 * Public part - Embeddable Web Plugin
 */

@Configuration
@Order(1)
public static class EmbeddableWebPluginSecurityConfigurationAdapter extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
    protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
        // Disable X-Frame-Option Header
        http.antMatcher("/public/**").headers().frameOptions().disable();
    }
}

/**
 * Private part - Web App Paths
 */

@Configuration
@EnableOAuth2Sso
public static class SSOWebSecurityConfigurerAdapter extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
    @Override
    protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {

        http
                .csrf().disable()
                .antMatcher("/**")
                .authorizeRequests()
                .antMatchers("/public/**", "/", "/login**", "/webjars/**", "/error**", "/static/**", "/robots", "/robot", "/robot.txt", "/robots.txt")
                .permitAll()
                .anyRequest()
                .authenticated()
                .and().logout().logoutRequestMatcher(new AntPathRequestMatcher("/logout"))
                .logoutSuccessUrl("/bye");
    }

    /**
     * Public API endpoints
     */

    @Override
    public void configure(WebSecurity web) throws Exception {
        web.ignoring().antMatchers("/api/**");
    }
  }
}

Eccrine

how do you prevent overriding existing rules when calling antMatcher(String)? – Rebellious

Answer 8

.csrf().disable() its to dangerous.

test:

.headers().frameOptions().sameOrigin()

Frederickafredericks

Answer 9

with lambda_dsl (spring security 6.2 and prepare for 7.x)

http.headers(header.frameOptions(frameOptions -> Customizer.withDefaults());)

http.headers(header->{header.frameOptions(FrameOptionsConfig::sameOrigin);})

http.headers(header->{header.frameOptions(FrameOptionsConfig::disable);})

Zehe

Perhaps you could edit your answer and provide some explanation as to how these lambdas solve the issue described in the posted question? – Idola