Spring Cloud Zuul API gateway doesn't forward JWT token for stateless sessions

Question

I am trying to implement Microservices architecture backend using Spring Boot 1.5.6.RELEASE and Spring Cloud Dalston.SR3 that would be consumed by mobile/web endpoints.

API Gateway application

@SpringBootApplicatio
@EnableEurekaClient
@EnableZuulProxy
public class GatewayApplication {

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

API security

@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity
@Order(ManagementServerProperties.ACCESS_OVERRIDE_ORDER)
@EnableOAuth2Sso
public class WebSecurityConfiguration extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {

    @Override
    public void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {

        // @formatter:off
        http
            .sessionManagement()
                .sessionCreationPolicy(SessionCreationPolicy.STATELESS)
            .and()
                .authorizeRequests()
                    .antMatchers("/sign-up", "/login")
                        .permitAll()
                .anyRequest()
                    .authenticated()
            .and()
                .csrf()
                    .ignoringAntMatchers("/sign-up", "/login")
                    .csrfTokenRepository(CookieCsrfTokenRepository.withHttpOnlyFalse());
        // @formatter:on
    }
}

Gradle security related dependencies

   // Spring OAuth2 security
    compile("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-security")
    compile("org.springframework.security.oauth:spring-security-oauth2")
    compile("org.springframework.cloud:spring-cloud-starter-oauth2")
    compile("org.springframework.security:spring-security-jwt")

Zuul routes

zuul:
  ignoredServices: '*'
  routes:
    user-service:
      path: /user-service/**
      stripPrefix: false
      serviceId: user-webservice
      sensitiveHeaders:
    task-service:
      path: /task-service/**
      stripPrefix: false
      serviceId: task-webservice
      sensitiveHeaders:
    user:
      path: /userauth/**
      stripPrefix: false
      serviceId: auth-server
      sensitiveHeaders:

I am able to get the access token from the authorization server(stateless sessions - no JSESSIONID cookie)

curl -D - --request POST -u acme:acmesecret "http://localhost:8899/userauth/oauth/token?grant_type=password&username=<...>&password=<...>"

{"access_token":"eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJleHAiOjE1MDQ3ODg4NzgsInVzZXJfbmFtZSI6IjcyMTk2MTk2NDEiLCJhdXRob3JpdGllcyI6WyJST0xFX1BBVElFTlQiXSwianRpIjoiZThhMzBjNmQtZjA2MS00MWEzLWEyZGItYTZiN2ZjYTI5ODk1IiwiY2xpZW50X2lkIjoiYWNtZSIsInNjb3BlIjpbIm9wZW5pZCJdfQ.AhF_kqfsRYM1t1HVT........

I can use the access token to request data from the authorization server or another resource

curl -D - --request GET -H "Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1...." http://localhost:8899/userauth/me

{"authorities":[{"authority":"ROLE_P.........}

curl -D - --request GET -H "Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsInR5......." http://localhost:8081/user-service/

[{"firstName":"Anil".....}]

However for the same requests routed through the API gateway, it fails at the Gateway itself and is filtered as AnonymousAuthenticationToken.

curl -D - --request GET -H "Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1...." http://localhost:8765/user-service/

HTTP/1.1 302 Set-Cookie: XSRF-TOKEN=b5a1c34e-e83c-47ea-86a6-13a237c027d4; Path=/ Location: http://localhost:8765/login

I was assuming that with @EnableZuulProxy and @EnableOAuth2Sso, Zuul would take care to forward the bearer token to the downstream services but that is not happening. I already have a working sample that uses HTTP session and browser redirection to get the API gateway to pass tokens - https://github.com/anilallewar/microservices-basics-spring-boot

But I am struggling to get it to work with Stateless sessions, any pointers what might be missing on the Zuul API gateway side?

Scotch

Have you got this to work? I am stuck on the same issue. Can you please shed some light? – Exocarp

Answer 1

Zuul considers Authorization header as a sensitive header by default and does not pass it to downstream requests. To override this, you can modify sensitiveHeaders in Zuul configuration either globally (for all routes):

zuul:
  # exclude Authorization from sensitive headers
  sensitiveHeaders: Cookie,Set-Cookie
  ignoredServices: '*'

Or for a specific route:

zuul:
  ignoredServices: '*'
  routes:
    user-service:
      path: /user-service/**
      stripPrefix: false
      serviceId: user-webservice
      # exclude Authorization from sensitive headers
      sensitiveHeaders: Cookie,Set-Cookie

To find more about the problem, check this question:

Authorization header not passed by ZuulProxy starting with Brixton.RC1

Bureaucracy

The sensitive headers are already set to empty ( sensitiveHeaders: ) if you look at the original question. That definitely is not the issue. – Scotch

Answer 2

I was assuming that with @EnableZuulProxy and @EnableOAuth2Sso, Zuul would take care to forward the bearer token to the downstream services but that is not happening.

I assumed the same thing, but in my (painful) experience, @EnableOAuth2Sso secures all endpoints with SSO and blocks even the requests with a Bearer token from getting to downstream services. I had to change my gateway to disable authentication on the routes that lead to my resources, so that the request with a Bearer token could get through.

Try adding /user-service/** and /task-service/** to your permitAll() matcher:

@Override
public void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {

    // @formatter:off
    http
        .sessionManagement()
            .sessionCreationPolicy(SessionCreationPolicy.STATELESS)
        .and()
            .authorizeRequests()
                .antMatchers("/sign-up", "/login", "/task-service/**", "/user-service/**")
                    .permitAll()
            .anyRequest()
                .authenticated()
        .and()
            .csrf()
                .ignoringAntMatchers("/sign-up", "/login")
                .csrfTokenRepository(CookieCsrfTokenRepository.withHttpOnlyFalse());
    // @formatter:on
}

Worn

Thanks Alex.This saved my day. Yes i also noticed that i had to authorize the request to each microservice with @EnableOAuth2Sso. I could still notice this in spring boot 2.0. – Swordplay