Shing Wai Chan's Weblog

In Servlet 2.5, only @DeclareRoles and @RunAs are supported in servlets. And @DenyAll, @PermitAll, @RolesAllowed are only supported for EJBs. In JSR 315: Java Servlet 3.0 Specification, @DenyAll, @PermitAll, @RolesAllowed will be supported in servlets. Furthermore, it supports JSR 250: Common Annotations for the Java Platform MR1:

• @TransportProtected, a new annotation indicates whether the transport is confidential or none.
• @DenyAll will also be available at the TYPE level.

The mapping of the @DenyAll, @PermitAll, @RolesAllowed and @TransportProtected to security constraint are described in Chapter 13.4.1 of Servlet 3.0 specification. These annotations can be applied to:

• the servlet class
• one of the following methods in HttpServlet:
  • doDelete
  • doGet
  • doHead
  • doOptions
  • doPost
  • doPut
  • doTrace

Note that method level authorization annotations (@DenyAll, @PermitAll, @RolesAllowed) override those in class level for the associated http method. Similarly, method level @TransportProtected overrides the one in class level.

In this blog, we illustrate the usages of these annotations by examples.

Example 1: Type Level

@WebServlet("/myurl")
@RolesAllowed("javaee")
public class TestServlet extends HttpServlet {
    ...
}

In this case, all http methods are protected and accessible only by users with role javaee.

Example 2: Method Level

@WebServlet("/myurl")
public class TestServlet extends HttpServlet {
    @PermitAll
    protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res)
            throws IOException, ServletException {
        ...
    }

    @RolesAllowed("javaee")
    protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res)
            throws IOException, ServletException {
        ...
    }

    @DenyAll
    protected void doTrace(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res)
            throws IOException, ServletException {
        ...
    }
}

The behaviors of the above servlet can be summarized as follows:

Http method	Behavior
GET	all can access GET method
POST	only authenticated users with role javaee can access POST method
TRACE	no one can access TRACE method

Example 3: Type and Method Level

@WebServlet("/myurl")
@RolesAllowed("javaee")
public class TestServlet extends HttpServlet {
    ...

    @RolesAllowed("staff")
    protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res)
            throws IOException, ServletException {
        ...
    }

    @PermitAll
    protected void doTrace(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res)
            throws IOException, ServletException {
        ...
    }
}

The behaviors of the above servlet can be summarized as follows:

Http method	Behavior
POST	only authenticated users with role staff can access POST method
TRACE	all can access TRACE method
methods other than POST and TRACE	only authenticated users with role javaee can access

Example 4: @TransportProtected and @RolesAllowed

@WebServlet("/myurl")
@TransportProtected
public class TestServlet extends HttpServlet {
    ...

    @TransportProtected(false)
    @RolesAllowed("javaee")
    protected void doTrace(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res)
        throws IOException, ServletException {

        ...
    }
}

The behaviors of the above servlet can be summarized as follows:

Http method	Behavior
TRACE	no https, only authenticated users with role javaee can access TRACE method
methods other than TRACE	require https