5 Securing RESTful Web Services and Clients

This chapter describes how to secure Java EE web services that conform to the Representational State Transfer (REST) architectural style using Java API for RESTful Web Services (JAX-RS) reference implementation (RI).

This chapter includes the following sections:

About RESTful Web Service Security

You can secure your RESTful web services using one of the following methods to support authentication, authorization, or encryption:

For information about developing RESTful web service clients using Oracle JDeveloper, see "How to Attach Policies to RESTful Web Services and Clients" in Developing Applications with Oracle JDeveloper.

Securing RESTful Web Services and Clients Using OWSM Policies

Only a subset of OWSM security policies are supported for RESTful web services, as described in "Which OWSM Policies Are Supported for RESTful Web Services" in Securing Web Services and Managing Policies with Oracle Web Services Manager.

You can attach OWSM security policies to RESTful web services using one of the following methods:

Example 5-1 provides an example of using WLST to attach the oracle/http_basic_auth_over_ssl_service_policy policy to a RESTful service. For more information, see "Attaching Policies Directly Using WLST" in Securing Web Services and Managing Policies with Oracle Web Services Manager.

Example 5-1 Securing RESTful Web Services Using OWSM Policies With WLST

C:\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common\common\bin> wlst.cmd
...
wls:/offline> connect("weblogic","password","t3://myAdminServer.example.com:7001")
Connecting to t3://myAdminServer.example.com:7001" with userid weblogic ...
Successfully connected to Admin Server "AdminServer" that belongs to domain "my_domain".
 
Warning: An insecure protocol was used to connect to the 
server. To ensure on-the-wire security, the SSL port or 
Admin port should be used instead.
 
wls:/my_domain/serverConfig> beginWSMSession()
Location changed to domainRuntime tree. This is a read-only tree with DomainMBean as the root. 
For more help, use help('domainRuntime')
 
Session started for modification.
wls:/my_domain/serverConfig> selectWSMPolicySubject('weblogic/my_domain/jaxrs_pack', '#jaxrs_pack.war', 'REST-Resource(Jersey)')

The policy subject is selected for modification.

wls:/my_domain/serverConfig> attachWSMPolicy('oracle/http_basic_auth_over_ssl_service_policy')

Policy reference "oracle/http_basic_auth_over_ssl_service_policy" added.

wls:/my_domain/serverConfig> commitWSMSession()

The policy set for subject "/weblogic/my_domain/jaxrs_pack|#jaxrs_pack.war|REST-Resource(Jersey)" was saved successfully.

Securing RESTful Web Services Using web.xml

You secure RESTful web services using the web.xml deployment descriptor as you would for other Java EE Web applications. For complete details, see:

For example, to secure your RESTful web service using basic authentication, perform the following steps:

  1. Define a <security-constraint> for each set of RESTful resources (URIs) that you plan to protect.
  2. Use the <login-config> element to define the type of authentication you want to use and the security realm to which the security constraints will be applied.
  3. Define one or more security roles using the <security-role> tag and map them to the security constraints defined in step 1. For more information, see "security-role" in Developing Applications with the WebLogic Security Service.
  4. To enable encryption, add the <user-data-constraint> element and set the <transport-guarantee> subelement to CONFIDENTIAL. For more information, see "user-data-constraint" in Developing Applications with the WebLogic Security Service.

Example 5-2 Securing RESTful Web Services Using Basic Authentication

The following shows an example of how to secure a Jersey 2.x (JAX-RS 2.0) RESTful web service using basic authentication.

<web-app>
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>RestServlet</servlet-name>

        <servlet-class>org.glassfish.jersey.servlet.ServletContainer</servlet-class>

    </servlet>
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>RestServlet</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>
    <security-constraint>
         <web-resource-collection>
             <web-resource-name>Orders</web-resource-name>
             <url-pattern>/orders</url-pattern>
             <http-method>GET</http-method>
             <http-method>POST</http-method>
         </web-resource-collection>
         <auth-constraint>
             <role-name>admin</role-name> 
         </auth-constraint>
    </security-constraint>
    <login-config>
        <auth-method>BASIC</auth-method>
        <realm-name>default</realm-name>
    </login-config>
    <security-role>
        <role-name>admin</role-name>
    </security-role>
</web-app>

Securing RESTful Web Services Using SecurityContext

The javax.ws.rs.core.SecurityContext interface provides access to security-related information for a request. The SecurityContext provides functionality similar to javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest, enabling you to access the following security-related information:

  • java.security.Principal object containing the name of the user making the request.

  • Authentication type used to secure the resource, such as BASIC_AUTH, FORM_AUTH, and CLIENT_CERT_AUTH.

  • Whether the authenticated user is included in a particular role.

  • Whether the request was made using a secure channel, such as HTTPS.

You access the SecurityContext by injecting an instance into a class field, setter method, or method parameter using the javax.ws.rs.core.Context annotation.

For more information, see the following in the Java EE 7 Specification APIs:

Example 5-3 shows how to inject an instance of SecurityContext into the sc method parameter using the @Context annotation, and check whether the authorized user is included in the admin role before returning the response.

Example 5-3 Securing RESTful Web Service Using SecurityContext

package samples.helloworld;
 
import javax.ws.rs.GET;
import javax.ws.rs.Path;
import javax.ws.rs.Produces;
import javax.ws.rs.core.SecurityContext;
import javax.ws.rs.core.Context;

...

@Path("/stateless")
@Stateless(name = "JaxRSStatelessEJB")
public class StlsEJBApp {
...
        @GET
        @Produces("text/plain;charset=UTF-8")
        @Path("/hello")
        public String sayHello(@Context SecurityContext sc) {
                if (sc.isUserInRole("admin"))  return "Hello World!";
                throw new SecurityException("User is unauthorized.");
        }

Securing RESTful Web Services Using Java Security Annotations

The javax.annotation.security package provides annotations, defined in Table 5-1, that you can use to secure your RESTful web services.

Table 5-1 Annotations for Securing RESTful Web Services

Annotation Description

@DenyAll

Specifies that no security roles are allowed to invoke the specified methods.

@PermitAll

Specifies that all security roles are allowed to invoke the specified methods.

@RolesAllowed

Specifies the list of security roles that are allowed to invoke the methods in the application.

Before you can use the annotations defined in Table 5-1, you must register the roles-allowed feature, as described in "Securing JAX-RS resources with standard javax.annotation.security annotations" in the Jersey 2.21 User Guide.

Example 5-4 shows how to define the security roles that are allowed, by default, to access the methods defined in the helloWorld class. The sayHello method is annotated with the @RolesAllows annotation to override the default and only allow users that belong to the ADMIN security role.

Example 5-4 Securing RESTful Web Service Using Java Security Annotations

package samples.helloworld;
 
import javax.ws.rs.GET;
import javax.ws.rs.Path;
import javax.ws.rs.Produces;
import javax.annotation.Security.RolesAllowed;

 
@Path("/helloworld")
@RolesAllowed({"ADMIN", "ORG1"})
public class helloWorld {

   @GET
   @Path("sayHello")  
   @Produces("text/plain")
   @RolesAllows("ADMIN")
   public String sayHello() {
      return "Hello World!";
   }
}

For more information, see: