Add Authentication and Authorization to the Application

In this tutorial you add authentication to your application by adding the cds-starter-cloudfoundry dependency, which enables CAP Java’s secure-by-default behavior based on Spring Security.

1. Edit the pom.xml in the srv directory (not the pom.xml file located in the root project folder) and under the <dependencies> tag add the cds-starter-cloudfoundry dependency. Make sure you Save the file.
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   <dependency>
       <groupId>com.sap.cds</groupId>
       <artifactId>cds-starter-cloudfoundry</artifactId>
   </dependency>
   

You will now demonstrate this secure-by-default behavior using the OrdersService. For now, you only require that the user who wants to create the order must be authenticated. CAP provides built-in users that represent common authentication scenarios for local development.

1. Start the application with the command mvn spring-boot:run.

2. Open the requests.http file and execute the first Create Order request by choosing Send Request above it.

3. Observe that the response contains status HTTP/1.1 401.

   

4. To create an order, you need to provide credentials. For local development CAP has built-in mock users. Modify the request like follows:

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   ### Create Order
   
   POST http://localhost:8080/odata/v4/OrdersService/Orders
   Content-Type: application/json
   Authorization: Basic authenticated:
   
   {
     "items": [
       {
         "book_ID": "abed2f7a-c50e-4bc5-89fd-9a00a54b4b16",
         "amount": 2
       }
     ]
   }
   

   Here you have added the Authorization HTTP header to the request and provided the credentials for the built-in authenticated mock user. This user has an empty password.

5. Execute the request again and see that the order is now created.

6. When choosing entities of the OrdersService on the welcome page you will also have to provide credentials now. You can use authenticated user and empty password there as well.

Built-in mock users are good for initial local testing, but you may need separate different users for your application to test it further. You will now add some custom mock users to the application:

1. Add the security section to the application.yaml file under srv/src/main/resources as follows:

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   ---
   spring:
     config.activate.on-profile: default
     sql.init.schema-locations: classpath:schema-h2.sql
   cds:
     datasource:
       auto-config.enabled: false
     security:
       mock:
         users:
           - name: klaus
             password: pass_klaus
             additional:
               firstName: Klaus
               lastName: Sussard
               email: Klaus.Sussard@mail.com
           - name: mia
             password: pass_mia
             additional:
               firstName: Mia
               lastName: Bonnellac
               email: Mia.Bonnellac@mail.com
   

   Here you defined two users that have no explicit role assignment and will implicitly belong to the authenticated-user pseudo-role.

2. Restart your application with the command mvn spring-boot:run. In the startup logs you can observe the created mock users with their user names, roles, and passwords. They are added in addition to the built-in mock users.

   

3. Modify the HTTP request, you have used earlier to include credentials to one of the mock users:

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   ### Create Order
   
   POST http://localhost:8080/odata/v4/OrdersService/Orders
   Content-Type: application/json
   Authorization: Basic klaus:pass_klaus
   
   {
     "items": [
       {
         "book_ID": "abed2f7a-c50e-4bc5-89fd-9a00a54b4b16",
         "amount": 2
       }
     ]
   }
   

4. Choose Send Request above it and see that a new order is created.

The payload of the response contains the name of your user in fields createdBy and modifiedBy, provided by the managed aspect that you added to your domain model earlier.

You will now add a user role Administrators to your application.

1. Add a new mock user to the application.yaml file after the existing users as follows:

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   ---
   spring:
     config.activate.on-profile: default
     sql.init.schema-locations: classpath:schema-h2.sql
   cds:
     datasource:
       auto-config.enabled: false
     security:
       mock:
         users:
           - name: klaus
             password: pass_klaus
             additional:
               firstName: Klaus
               lastName: Sussard
               email: Klaus.Sussard@mail.com
           - name: mia
             password: pass_mia
             additional:
               firstName: Mia
               lastName: Bonnellac
               email: Mia.Bonnellac@mail.com
           - name: sabine
             password: pass_sabine
             roles:
               - Administrators
             additional:
               firstName: Sabine
               lastName: Autumnpike
               email: Sabine.Autumnpike@mail.com
   

   You used the attribute roles to add the Administrators role to that user.

2. Add the annotate definition at the end of the services.cds file in the srv directory to make the AdminService available only to users with an Administrators role:

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   annotate AdminService @(requires: 'Administrators');
   

3. Restart your application with the command mvn spring-boot:run.

4. Add a new request to the requests.http file:

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   ### Read Products
   
   GET http://localhost:8080/odata/v4/AdminService/Products
   Accept: application/json
   Authorization: Basic sabine:pass_sabine
   

5. Choose Send Request above this request and see that you receive the list of products.

6. Remove the Authorization header or change the credentials to a different mock user. Observe that the AdminService is not available to them.

CAP can do more than simple role-based authorizations. To illustrate that, you will implement the following use case:

• Each authenticated user should be able to view only their orders and order items.
• Administrator should be able to view all orders of all users.

You can use the @restrict annotation to add more sophisticated authorization checks to your services.

1. Modify the service definition for OrdersService in the services.cds file in folder srv as follows:

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   // Define Orders Service
   service OrdersService {
       @(restrict: [
           { grant: '*', to: 'Administrators' },
           { grant: '*', where: 'createdBy = $user' }
       ])
       entity Orders as projection on db.Orders;
   
       @(restrict: [
           { grant: '*', to: 'Administrators' },
           { grant: '*', where: 'parent.createdBy = $user' }
       ])
       entity OrderItems as projection on db.OrderItems;
   }
   

   With that you grant administrators access to all orders, while regular users only see the orders that were created by them. As you expose OrderItems as a separate entity, you have to add security configuration there as well. We use a path expression across the parent association, which points to Orders, to limit the items to those belonging to orders that were created by the respective user.

2. Restart your application with the command mvn spring-boot:run.

3. Execute an HTTP request to create orders with credentials of one of the mock users you added earlier:

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   ### Create Order as Mia
   
   POST http://localhost:8080/odata/v4/OrdersService/Orders
   Content-Type: application/json
   Authorization: Basic mia:pass_mia
   
   {
     "items": [
       {
         "book_ID": "fd0c5fda-8811-4e20-bcff-3a776abc290a",
         "amount": 10
       }
     ]
   }
   

   With separate requests you can see that each user, except administrators, only has access to their own orders and items. Execute the following requests by adding them to the requests.http file to verify that:

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   ### Read Orders as Mia
   
   GET http://localhost:8080/odata/v4/OrdersService/Orders?$expand=items
   Accept: application/json
   Authorization: Basic mia:pass_mia
   

   You will see the own orders and items.

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   ### Read Orders as Klaus
   
   GET http://localhost:8080/odata/v4/OrdersService/OrderItems
   Accept: application/json
   Authorization: Basic klaus:pass_klaus
   

   You will not see any items.

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   ### Read Orders as Sabine (Administrator)
   
   GET http://localhost:8080/odata/v4/OrdersService/Orders?$expand=items
   Accept: application/json
   Authorization: Basic sabine:pass_sabine
   

   You will see all orders and items.

Congratulations, you have learned how to add basic security to your application and test it locally. You can model your business users and implement authorization requirements.