The final mile: Upgrade to Grails 2.4.3 and use Spring Security REST plugin

After I wrote down this series of Create a restful application with AngularJS and Grails, I have received some feedback from my blogspot and mail. I decide to update this sample to the latest Grails and use the Spring Security REST plugin instead of my customized solution, it is more powerful and flexible.

Upgrade to Grails 2.4.3

1. Update the Grails version to 2.4.3, which is the newest when I wrote this. You can change the value in application.properties file directly or using grails command to complete the work.
   

   grails set-grails-version 2.4.3
   

2. Please read the Upgrading from Grails 2.3 section of the official reference document to update dependencies manually. Note: The upgrade command was removed in Grails 2.4, currently this manual approach is the only way to upgrade your application to the latest 2.4.x.
3. Make sure all things are done well. Run the application via command line.
   

   grails run-app
   

If there is no exception or error info displayed in the console, that means you have upgraded your application successfully. Congratulations!

Configure Spring Security REST Plugin

Spring Security REST plugin is an extension of Spring Security plugin which allow you create stateless, token-based authentication for your REST API.

1. Open BuildConfig.groovy file, and add Spring Security REST Plugin in the plugins section.
   

   compile ":spring-security-rest:1.4.0", {
       excludes: 'spring-security-core'
   }
   

2. Add the basic configuration in the Config.groovy file.
   

   //Config for Spring Security REST plugin
   
   //login
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.login.active=true
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.login.endpointUrl="/api/login"
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.login.failureStatusCode=401
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.login.useJsonCredentials=true
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.login.usernamePropertyName='username'
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.login.passwordPropertyName='password'
   
   //logout
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.logout.endpointUrl='/api/logout'
   
   
   //token generation
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.generation.useSecureRandom=true
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.generation.useUUID=false
   
   //token storage
   // use memcached.
   //grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.storage.useMemcached  false
   //grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.storage.memcached.hosts   localhost:11211
   //grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.storage.memcached.username    ''
   //grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.storage.memcached.password    ''
   //grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.storage.memcached.expiration  3600
   
   //use GROM
   //grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.storage.useGorm   false
   //grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.storage.gorm.tokenDomainClassName null
   //grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.storage.gorm.tokenValuePropertyName   tokenValue
   //grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.storage.gorm.usernamePropertyName username
   //class AuthenticationToken {
   //
   //  String tokenValue
   //  String username
   //}
   
   //use cache as storage
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.storage.useGrailsCache=true
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.storage.grailsCacheName='xauth-token'
   
   //token rendering
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.rendering.usernamePropertyName='username'
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.rendering.authoritiesPropertyName='roles'
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.rendering.tokenPropertyName='token'
   
   
   //token validate
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.validation.useBearerToken = true
   
   //if disable 'Bearer', you can configure a custom header.
   //grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.validation.useBearerToken = false
   //grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.rendering.tokenPropertyName   access_token
   //grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.validation.headerName = 'x-auth-token'
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.validation.active=true
   grails.plugin.springsecurity.rest.token.validation.endpointUrl='/api/validate'
   
   grails{
       plugin{
           springsecurity{
               filterChain{
                   chainMap = [
                       '/api/guest/**': 'anonymousAuthenticationFilter,restTokenValidationFilter,restExceptionTranslationFilter,filterInvocationInterceptor',
                       '/api/**': 'JOINED_FILTERS,-exceptionTranslationFilter,-authenticationProcessingFilter,-securityContextPersistenceFilter',  // Stateless chain
                       '/**': 'JOINED_FILTERS,-restTokenValidationFilter,-restExceptionTranslationFilter'                                          // Traditional chain
                   ]
               }
   
               rest {
                   token { validation { enableAnonymousAccess = true } }
               }
           }
       }
   }
   

More details for the configuration, please read the plugin docs.

Configure CORS

By default there is a CORS plugin included as a dependency of Spring security REST Plugin.
Of course, you can declare it in BuildConfig.groovy file explicitly.

runtime ":cors:1.1.6"

Add the following configuration in Config.groovy file.

//cors config.
cors.enabled=true
cors.url.pattern = '/api/*'
cors.headers=[
    'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*',
    'Access-Control-Allow-Credentials': true,
    'Access-Control-Allow-Headers': 'origin, authorization, accept, content-type, x-requested-with',
    'Access-Control-Allow-Methods': 'GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE, OPTIONS',
    'Access-Control-Max-Age': 3600
    ]

Update frontend codes

Due to the modification of the backend codes, you could have to change the authentication in the frontend codes.
Change the login code fragment in the app.js file.

$http.post(apiUrl+'/login', {username: username, password: password})
      .success(function(user){
            console.log('logged in successfully!')
            $rootScope.user = user;
            $http.defaults.headers.common['Authorization'] = 'Bearer '+user.token;
            $cookieStore.put('user', user);
            $rootScope.$broadcast('event:loginConfirmed');                               
       });

Run the project

1. I have committed the codes into my github account. Clone it into your system.
   

   git clone https://github.com/hantsy/angularjs-grails-sample
   

2. Run the backend application. Go to the server folder, and execute the following command to start up the Grails application which works as a REST producer.
   

   grails run-app
   

3. Run the frontend application. Go to the client folder, and run the following to serve the frontend application.
   

   node scripts\web-server.js
   

4. Open your favorite browser and navigate http://localhost:8000/app.

Enjoy!