Spring Boot is well suited for web application development.
You can create a self-contained HTTP server by using embedded Tomcat, Jetty, Undertow, or Netty.
Most web applications use the spring-boot-starter-web
module to get up and running quickly.
You can also choose to build reactive web applications by using the spring-boot-starter-webflux
module.
If you have not yet developed a Spring Boot web application, you can follow the "Hello World!" example in the Getting started section.
1. Servlet Web Applications
If you want to build servlet-based web applications, you can take advantage of Spring Boot’s auto-configuration for Spring MVC.
1.1. The “Spring Web MVC Framework”
The Spring Web MVC framework (often referred to as “Spring MVC”) is a rich “model view controller” web framework.
Spring MVC lets you create special @Controller
or @RestController
beans to handle incoming HTTP requests.
Methods in your controller are mapped to HTTP by using @RequestMapping
annotations.
The following code shows a typical @RestController
that serves JSON data:
@RestController
@RequestMapping("/users")
public class MyRestController {
private final UserRepository userRepository;
private final CustomerRepository customerRepository;
public MyRestController(UserRepository userRepository, CustomerRepository customerRepository) {
this.userRepository = userRepository;
this.customerRepository = customerRepository;
}
@GetMapping("/{userId}")
public User getUser(@PathVariable Long userId) {
return this.userRepository.findById(userId).get();
}
@GetMapping("/{userId}/customers")
public List<Customer> getUserCustomers(@PathVariable Long userId) {
return this.userRepository.findById(userId).map(this.customerRepository::findByUser).get();
}
@DeleteMapping("/{userId}")
public void deleteUser(@PathVariable Long userId) {
this.userRepository.deleteById(userId);
}
}
@RestController
@RequestMapping("/users")
class MyRestController(private val userRepository: UserRepository, private val customerRepository: CustomerRepository) {
@GetMapping("/{userId}")
fun getUser(@PathVariable userId: Long): User {
return userRepository.findById(userId).get()
}
@GetMapping("/{userId}/customers")
fun getUserCustomers(@PathVariable userId: Long): List<Customer> {
return userRepository.findById(userId).map(customerRepository::findByUser).get()
}
@DeleteMapping("/{userId}")
fun deleteUser(@PathVariable userId: Long) {
userRepository.deleteById(userId)
}
}
“WebMvc.fn”, the functional variant, separates the routing configuration from the actual handling of the requests, as shown in the following example:
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
public class MyRoutingConfiguration {
private static final RequestPredicate ACCEPT_JSON = accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON);
@Bean
public RouterFunction<ServerResponse> routerFunction(MyUserHandler userHandler) {
return route()
.GET("/{user}", ACCEPT_JSON, userHandler::getUser)
.GET("/{user}/customers", ACCEPT_JSON, userHandler::getUserCustomers)
.DELETE("/{user}", ACCEPT_JSON, userHandler::deleteUser)
.build();
}
}
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
class MyRoutingConfiguration {
@Bean
fun routerFunction(userHandler: MyUserHandler): RouterFunction<ServerResponse> {
return RouterFunctions.route()
.GET("/{user}", ACCEPT_JSON, userHandler::getUser)
.GET("/{user}/customers", ACCEPT_JSON, userHandler::getUserCustomers)
.DELETE("/{user}", ACCEPT_JSON, userHandler::deleteUser)
.build()
}
companion object {
private val ACCEPT_JSON = accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
}
}
@Component
public class MyUserHandler {
public ServerResponse getUser(ServerRequest request) {
...
return ServerResponse.ok().build();
}
public ServerResponse getUserCustomers(ServerRequest request) {
...
return ServerResponse.ok().build();
}
public ServerResponse deleteUser(ServerRequest request) {
...
return ServerResponse.ok().build();
}
}
@Component
class MyUserHandler {
fun getUser(request: ServerRequest?): ServerResponse {
return ServerResponse.ok().build()
}
fun getUserCustomers(request: ServerRequest?): ServerResponse {
return ServerResponse.ok().build()
}
fun deleteUser(request: ServerRequest?): ServerResponse {
return ServerResponse.ok().build()
}
}
Spring MVC is part of the core Spring Framework, and detailed information is available in the reference documentation. There are also several guides that cover Spring MVC available at spring.io/guides.
You can define as many RouterFunction beans as you like to modularize the definition of the router.
Beans can be ordered if you need to apply a precedence.
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1.1.1. Spring MVC Auto-configuration
Spring Boot provides auto-configuration for Spring MVC that works well with most applications.
The auto-configuration adds the following features on top of Spring’s defaults:
-
Inclusion of
ContentNegotiatingViewResolver
andBeanNameViewResolver
beans. -
Support for serving static resources, including support for WebJars (covered later in this document).
-
Automatic registration of
Converter
,GenericConverter
, andFormatter
beans. -
Support for
HttpMessageConverters
(covered later in this document). -
Automatic registration of
MessageCodesResolver
(covered later in this document). -
Static
index.html
support. -
Automatic use of a
ConfigurableWebBindingInitializer
bean (covered later in this document).
If you want to keep those Spring Boot MVC customizations and make more MVC customizations (interceptors, formatters, view controllers, and other features), you can add your own @Configuration
class of type WebMvcConfigurer
but without @EnableWebMvc
.
If you want to provide custom instances of RequestMappingHandlerMapping
, RequestMappingHandlerAdapter
, or ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver
, and still keep the Spring Boot MVC customizations, you can declare a bean of type WebMvcRegistrations
and use it to provide custom instances of those components.
If you want to take complete control of Spring MVC, you can add your own @Configuration
annotated with @EnableWebMvc
, or alternatively add your own @Configuration
-annotated DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration
as described in the Javadoc of @EnableWebMvc
.
Spring MVC uses a different If you want to customize the |
1.1.2. HttpMessageConverters
Spring MVC uses the HttpMessageConverter
interface to convert HTTP requests and responses.
Sensible defaults are included out of the box.
For example, objects can be automatically converted to JSON (by using the Jackson library) or XML (by using the Jackson XML extension, if available, or by using JAXB if the Jackson XML extension is not available).
By default, strings are encoded in UTF-8
.
If you need to add or customize converters, you can use Spring Boot’s HttpMessageConverters
class, as shown in the following listing:
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
public class MyHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration {
@Bean
public HttpMessageConverters customConverters() {
HttpMessageConverter<?> additional = new AdditionalHttpMessageConverter();
HttpMessageConverter<?> another = new AnotherHttpMessageConverter();
return new HttpMessageConverters(additional, another);
}
}
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
class MyHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration {
@Bean
fun customConverters(): HttpMessageConverters {
val additional: HttpMessageConverter<*> = AdditionalHttpMessageConverter()
val another: HttpMessageConverter<*> = AnotherHttpMessageConverter()
return HttpMessageConverters(additional, another)
}
}
Any HttpMessageConverter
bean that is present in the context is added to the list of converters.
You can also override default converters in the same way.
1.1.3. MessageCodesResolver
Spring MVC has a strategy for generating error codes for rendering error messages from binding errors: MessageCodesResolver
.
If you set the spring.mvc.message-codes-resolver-format
property PREFIX_ERROR_CODE
or POSTFIX_ERROR_CODE
, Spring Boot creates one for you (see the enumeration in DefaultMessageCodesResolver.Format
).
1.1.4. Static Content
By default, Spring Boot serves static content from a directory called /static
(or /public
or /resources
or /META-INF/resources
) in the classpath or from the root of the ServletContext
.
It uses the ResourceHttpRequestHandler
from Spring MVC so that you can modify that behavior by adding your own WebMvcConfigurer
and overriding the addResourceHandlers
method.
In a stand-alone web application, the default servlet from the container is also enabled and acts as a fallback, serving content from the root of the ServletContext
if Spring decides not to handle it.
Most of the time, this does not happen (unless you modify the default MVC configuration), because Spring can always handle requests through the DispatcherServlet
.
By default, resources are mapped on /**
, but you can tune that with the spring.mvc.static-path-pattern
property.
For instance, relocating all resources to /resources/**
can be achieved as follows:
spring.mvc.static-path-pattern=/resources/**
spring:
mvc:
static-path-pattern: "/resources/**"
You can also customize the static resource locations by using the spring.web.resources.static-locations
property (replacing the default values with a list of directory locations).
The root servlet context path, "/"
, is automatically added as a location as well.
In addition to the “standard” static resource locations mentioned earlier, a special case is made for Webjars content.
Any resources with a path in /webjars/**
are served from jar files if they are packaged in the Webjars format.
Do not use the src/main/webapp directory if your application is packaged as a jar.
Although this directory is a common standard, it works only with war packaging, and it is silently ignored by most build tools if you generate a jar.
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Spring Boot also supports the advanced resource handling features provided by Spring MVC, allowing use cases such as cache-busting static resources or using version agnostic URLs for Webjars.
To use version agnostic URLs for Webjars, add the webjars-locator-core
dependency.
Then declare your Webjar.
Using jQuery as an example, adding "/webjars/jquery/jquery.min.js"
results in "/webjars/jquery/x.y.z/jquery.min.js"
where x.y.z
is the Webjar version.
If you use JBoss, you need to declare the webjars-locator-jboss-vfs dependency instead of the webjars-locator-core .
Otherwise, all Webjars resolve as a 404 .
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To use cache busting, the following configuration configures a cache busting solution for all static resources, effectively adding a content hash, such as <link href="/css/spring-2a2d595e6ed9a0b24f027f2b63b134d6.css"/>
, in URLs:
spring.web.resources.chain.strategy.content.enabled=true
spring.web.resources.chain.strategy.content.paths=/**
spring:
web:
resources:
chain:
strategy:
content:
enabled: true
paths: "/**"
Links to resources are rewritten in templates at runtime, thanks to a ResourceUrlEncodingFilter that is auto-configured for Thymeleaf and FreeMarker.
You should manually declare this filter when using JSPs.
Other template engines are currently not automatically supported but can be with custom template macros/helpers and the use of the ResourceUrlProvider .
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When loading resources dynamically with, for example, a JavaScript module loader, renaming files is not an option. That is why other strategies are also supported and can be combined. A "fixed" strategy adds a static version string in the URL without changing the file name, as shown in the following example:
spring.web.resources.chain.strategy.content.enabled=true
spring.web.resources.chain.strategy.content.paths=/**
spring.web.resources.chain.strategy.fixed.enabled=true
spring.web.resources.chain.strategy.fixed.paths=/js/lib/
spring.web.resources.chain.strategy.fixed.version=v12
spring:
web:
resources:
chain:
strategy:
content:
enabled: true
paths: "/**"
fixed:
enabled: true
paths: "/js/lib/"
version: "v12"
With this configuration, JavaScript modules located under "/js/lib/"
use a fixed versioning strategy ("/v12/js/lib/mymodule.js"
), while other resources still use the content one (<link href="/css/spring-2a2d595e6ed9a0b24f027f2b63b134d6.css"/>
).
See WebProperties.Resources
for more supported options.
This feature has been thoroughly described in a dedicated blog post and in Spring Framework’s reference documentation. |
1.1.5. Welcome Page
Spring Boot supports both static and templated welcome pages.
It first looks for an index.html
file in the configured static content locations.
If one is not found, it then looks for an index
template.
If either is found, it is automatically used as the welcome page of the application.
1.1.6. Path Matching and Content Negotiation
Spring MVC can map incoming HTTP requests to handlers by looking at the request path and matching it to the mappings defined in your application (for example, @GetMapping
annotations on Controller methods).
Spring Boot chooses to disable suffix pattern matching by default, which means that requests like "GET /projects/spring-boot.json"
will not be matched to @GetMapping("/projects/spring-boot")
mappings.
This is considered as a best practice for Spring MVC applications.
This feature was mainly useful in the past for HTTP clients which did not send proper "Accept" request headers; we needed to make sure to send the correct Content Type to the client.
Nowadays, Content Negotiation is much more reliable.
There are other ways to deal with HTTP clients that do not consistently send proper "Accept" request headers.
Instead of using suffix matching, we can use a query parameter to ensure that requests like "GET /projects/spring-boot?format=json"
will be mapped to @GetMapping("/projects/spring-boot")
:
spring.mvc.contentnegotiation.favor-parameter=true
spring:
mvc:
contentnegotiation:
favor-parameter: true
Or if you prefer to use a different parameter name:
spring.mvc.contentnegotiation.favor-parameter=true
spring.mvc.contentnegotiation.parameter-name=myparam
spring:
mvc:
contentnegotiation:
favor-parameter: true
parameter-name: "myparam"
Most standard media types are supported out-of-the-box, but you can also define new ones:
spring.mvc.contentnegotiation.media-types.markdown=text/markdown
spring:
mvc:
contentnegotiation:
media-types:
markdown: "text/markdown"
Suffix pattern matching is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. If you understand the caveats and would still like your application to use suffix pattern matching, the following configuration is required:
spring.mvc.contentnegotiation.favor-path-extension=true
spring.mvc.pathmatch.use-suffix-pattern=true
spring:
mvc:
contentnegotiation:
favor-path-extension: true
pathmatch:
use-suffix-pattern: true
Alternatively, rather than open all suffix patterns, it is more secure to only support registered suffix patterns:
spring.mvc.contentnegotiation.favor-path-extension=true
spring.mvc.pathmatch.use-registered-suffix-pattern=true
spring:
mvc:
contentnegotiation:
favor-path-extension: true
pathmatch:
use-registered-suffix-pattern: true
As of Spring Framework 5.3, Spring MVC supports several implementation strategies for matching request paths to Controller handlers.
It was previously only supporting the AntPathMatcher
strategy, but it now also offers PathPatternParser
.
Spring Boot now provides a configuration property to choose and opt in the new strategy:
spring.mvc.pathmatch.matching-strategy=path-pattern-parser
spring:
mvc:
pathmatch:
matching-strategy: "path-pattern-parser"
For more details on why you should consider this new implementation, see the dedicated blog post.
PathPatternParser is an optimized implementation but restricts usage of
some path patterns variants
and is incompatible with suffix pattern matching (spring.mvc.pathmatch.use-suffix-pattern ,
spring.mvc.pathmatch.use-registered-suffix-pattern ) or mapping the DispatcherServlet
with a servlet prefix (spring.mvc.servlet.path ).
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1.1.7. ConfigurableWebBindingInitializer
Spring MVC uses a WebBindingInitializer
to initialize a WebDataBinder
for a particular request.
If you create your own ConfigurableWebBindingInitializer
@Bean
, Spring Boot automatically configures Spring MVC to use it.
1.1.8. Template Engines
As well as REST web services, you can also use Spring MVC to serve dynamic HTML content. Spring MVC supports a variety of templating technologies, including Thymeleaf, FreeMarker, and JSPs. Also, many other templating engines include their own Spring MVC integrations.
Spring Boot includes auto-configuration support for the following templating engines:
If possible, JSPs should be avoided. There are several known limitations when using them with embedded servlet containers. |
When you use one of these templating engines with the default configuration, your templates are picked up automatically from src/main/resources/templates
.
Depending on how you run your application, your IDE may order the classpath differently. Running your application in the IDE from its main method results in a different ordering than when you run your application by using Maven or Gradle or from its packaged jar. This can cause Spring Boot to fail to find the expected template. If you have this problem, you can reorder the classpath in the IDE to place the module’s classes and resources first. |
1.1.9. Error Handling
By default, Spring Boot provides an /error
mapping that handles all errors in a sensible way, and it is registered as a “global” error page in the servlet container.
For machine clients, it produces a JSON response with details of the error, the HTTP status, and the exception message.
For browser clients, there is a “whitelabel” error view that renders the same data in HTML format (to customize it, add a View
that resolves to error
).
There are a number of server.error
properties that can be set if you want to customize the default error handling behavior.
See the “Server Properties” section of the Appendix.
To replace the default behavior completely, you can implement ErrorController
and register a bean definition of that type or add a bean of type ErrorAttributes
to use the existing mechanism but replace the contents.
The BasicErrorController can be used as a base class for a custom ErrorController .
This is particularly useful if you want to add a handler for a new content type (the default is to handle text/html specifically and provide a fallback for everything else).
To do so, extend BasicErrorController , add a public method with a @RequestMapping that has a produces attribute, and create a bean of your new type.
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You can also define a class annotated with @ControllerAdvice
to customize the JSON document to return for a particular controller and/or exception type, as shown in the following example:
@ControllerAdvice(basePackageClasses = SomeController.class)
public class MyControllerAdvice extends ResponseEntityExceptionHandler {
@ResponseBody
@ExceptionHandler(MyException.class)
public ResponseEntity<?> handleControllerException(HttpServletRequest request, Throwable ex) {
HttpStatus status = getStatus(request);
return new ResponseEntity<>(new MyErrorBody(status.value(), ex.getMessage()), status);
}
private HttpStatus getStatus(HttpServletRequest request) {
Integer code = (Integer) request.getAttribute(RequestDispatcher.ERROR_STATUS_CODE);
HttpStatus status = HttpStatus.resolve(code);
return (status != null) ? status : HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR;
}
}
@ControllerAdvice(basePackageClasses = [SomeController::class])
class MyControllerAdvice : ResponseEntityExceptionHandler() {
@ResponseBody
@ExceptionHandler(MyException::class)
fun handleControllerException(request: HttpServletRequest, ex: Throwable): ResponseEntity<*> {
val status = getStatus(request)
return ResponseEntity(MyErrorBody(status.value(), ex.message), status)
}
private fun getStatus(request: HttpServletRequest): HttpStatus {
val code = request.getAttribute(RequestDispatcher.ERROR_STATUS_CODE) as Int
val status = HttpStatus.resolve(code)
return status ?: HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR
}
}
In the preceding example, if YourException
is thrown by a controller defined in the same package as SomeController
, a JSON representation of the CustomErrorType
POJO is used instead of the ErrorAttributes
representation.
In some cases, errors handled at the controller level are not recorded by the metrics infrastructure. Applications can ensure that such exceptions are recorded with the request metrics by setting the handled exception as a request attribute:
@Controller
public class MyController {
@ExceptionHandler(CustomException.class)
String handleCustomException(HttpServletRequest request, CustomException ex) {
request.setAttribute(ErrorAttributes.ERROR_ATTRIBUTE, ex);
return "errorView";
}
}
@Controller
class MyController {
@ExceptionHandler(CustomException::class)
fun handleCustomException(request: HttpServletRequest, ex: CustomException?): String {
request.setAttribute(ErrorAttributes.ERROR_ATTRIBUTE, ex)
return "errorView"
}
}
Custom Error Pages
If you want to display a custom HTML error page for a given status code, you can add a file to an /error
directory.
Error pages can either be static HTML (that is, added under any of the static resource directories) or be built by using templates.
The name of the file should be the exact status code or a series mask.
For example, to map 404
to a static HTML file, your directory structure would be as follows:
src/ +- main/ +- java/ | + <source code> +- resources/ +- public/ +- error/ | +- 404.html +- <other public assets>
To map all 5xx
errors by using a FreeMarker template, your directory structure would be as follows:
src/ +- main/ +- java/ | + <source code> +- resources/ +- templates/ +- error/ | +- 5xx.ftlh +- <other templates>
For more complex mappings, you can also add beans that implement the ErrorViewResolver
interface, as shown in the following example:
public class MyErrorViewResolver implements ErrorViewResolver {
@Override
public ModelAndView resolveErrorView(HttpServletRequest request, HttpStatus status, Map<String, Object> model) {
// Use the request or status to optionally return a ModelAndView
if (status == HttpStatus.INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE) {
// We could add custom model values here
new ModelAndView("myview");
}
return null;
}
}
class MyErrorViewResolver : ErrorViewResolver {
override fun resolveErrorView(request: HttpServletRequest, status: HttpStatus,
model: Map<String, Any>): ModelAndView? {
// Use the request or status to optionally return a ModelAndView
if (status == HttpStatus.INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE) {
// We could add custom model values here
return ModelAndView("myview")
}
return null
}
}
You can also use regular Spring MVC features such as @ExceptionHandler
methods and @ControllerAdvice
.
The ErrorController
then picks up any unhandled exceptions.
Mapping Error Pages outside of Spring MVC
For applications that do not use Spring MVC, you can use the ErrorPageRegistrar
interface to directly register ErrorPages
.
This abstraction works directly with the underlying embedded servlet container and works even if you do not have a Spring MVC DispatcherServlet
.
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
public class MyErrorPagesConfiguration {
@Bean
public ErrorPageRegistrar errorPageRegistrar() {
return this::registerErrorPages;
}
private void registerErrorPages(ErrorPageRegistry registry) {
registry.addErrorPages(new ErrorPage(HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST, "/400"));
}
}
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
class MyErrorPagesConfiguration {
@Bean
fun errorPageRegistrar(): ErrorPageRegistrar {
return ErrorPageRegistrar { registry: ErrorPageRegistry -> registerErrorPages(registry) }
}
private fun registerErrorPages(registry: ErrorPageRegistry) {
registry.addErrorPages(ErrorPage(HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST, "/400"))
}
}
If you register an ErrorPage with a path that ends up being handled by a Filter (as is common with some non-Spring web frameworks, like Jersey and Wicket), then the Filter has to be explicitly registered as an ERROR dispatcher, as shown in the following example:
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@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
public class MyFilterConfiguration {
@Bean
public FilterRegistrationBean<MyFilter> myFilter() {
FilterRegistrationBean<MyFilter> registration = new FilterRegistrationBean<>(new MyFilter());
// ...
registration.setDispatcherTypes(EnumSet.allOf(DispatcherType.class));
return registration;
}
}
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
class MyFilterConfiguration {
@Bean
fun myFilter(): FilterRegistrationBean<MyFilter> {
val registration = FilterRegistrationBean(MyFilter())
// ...
registration.setDispatcherTypes(EnumSet.allOf(DispatcherType::class.java))
return registration
}
}
Note that the default FilterRegistrationBean
does not include the ERROR
dispatcher type.
Error handling in a war deployment
When deployed to a servlet container, Spring Boot uses its error page filter to forward a request with an error status to the appropriate error page. This is necessary as the servlet specification does not provide an API for registering error pages. Depending on the container that you are deploying your war file to and the technologies that your application uses, some additional configuration may be required.
The error page filter can only forward the request to the correct error page if the response has not already been committed.
By default, WebSphere Application Server 8.0 and later commits the response upon successful completion of a servlet’s service method.
You should disable this behavior by setting com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.invokeFlushAfterService
to false
.
If you are using Spring Security and want to access the principal in an error page, you must configure Spring Security’s filter to be invoked on error dispatches.
To do so, set the spring.security.filter.dispatcher-types
property to async, error, forward, request
.
1.1.10. CORS Support
Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) is a W3C specification implemented by most browsers that lets you specify in a flexible way what kind of cross-domain requests are authorized, instead of using some less secure and less powerful approaches such as IFRAME or JSONP.
As of version 4.2, Spring MVC supports CORS.
Using controller method CORS configuration with @CrossOrigin
annotations in your Spring Boot application does not require any specific configuration.
Global CORS configuration can be defined by registering a WebMvcConfigurer
bean with a customized addCorsMappings(CorsRegistry)
method, as shown in the following example:
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
public class MyCorsConfiguration {
@Bean
public WebMvcConfigurer corsConfigurer() {
return new WebMvcConfigurer() {
@Override
public void addCorsMappings(CorsRegistry registry) {
registry.addMapping("/api/**");
}
};
}
}
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
class MyCorsConfiguration {
@Bean
fun corsConfigurer(): WebMvcConfigurer {
return object : WebMvcConfigurer {
override fun addCorsMappings(registry: CorsRegistry) {
registry.addMapping("/api/**")
}
}
}
}
1.2. Embedded Servlet Container Support
For servlet application, Spring Boot includes support for embedded Tomcat, Jetty, and Undertow servers.
Most developers use the appropriate “Starter” to obtain a fully configured instance.
By default, the embedded server listens for HTTP requests on port 8080
.
1.2.1. Servlets, Filters, and listeners
When using an embedded servlet container, you can register servlets, filters, and all the listeners (such as HttpSessionListener
) from the servlet spec, either by using Spring beans or by scanning for servlet components.
Registering Servlets, Filters, and Listeners as Spring Beans
Any Servlet
, Filter
, or servlet *Listener
instance that is a Spring bean is registered with the embedded container.
This can be particularly convenient if you want to refer to a value from your application.properties
during configuration.
By default, if the context contains only a single Servlet, it is mapped to /
.
In the case of multiple servlet beans, the bean name is used as a path prefix.
Filters map to /*
.
If convention-based mapping is not flexible enough, you can use the ServletRegistrationBean
, FilterRegistrationBean
, and ServletListenerRegistrationBean
classes for complete control.
It is usually safe to leave filter beans unordered.
If a specific order is required, you should annotate the Filter
with @Order
or make it implement Ordered
.
You cannot configure the order of a Filter
by annotating its bean method with @Order
.
If you cannot change the Filter
class to add @Order
or implement Ordered
, you must define a FilterRegistrationBean
for the Filter
and set the registration bean’s order using the setOrder(int)
method.
Avoid configuring a filter that reads the request body at Ordered.HIGHEST_PRECEDENCE
, since it might go against the character encoding configuration of your application.
If a servlet filter wraps the request, it should be configured with an order that is less than or equal to OrderedFilter.REQUEST_WRAPPER_FILTER_MAX_ORDER
.
To see the order of every Filter in your application, enable debug level logging for the web logging group (logging.level.web=debug ).
Details of the registered filters, including their order and URL patterns, will then be logged at startup.
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Take care when registering Filter beans since they are initialized very early in the application lifecycle.
If you need to register a Filter that interacts with other beans, consider using a DelegatingFilterProxyRegistrationBean instead.
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1.2.2. Servlet Context Initialization
Embedded servlet containers do not directly execute the jakarta.servlet.ServletContainerInitializer
interface or Spring’s org.springframework.web.WebApplicationInitializer
interface.
This is an intentional design decision intended to reduce the risk that third party libraries designed to run inside a war may break Spring Boot applications.
If you need to perform servlet context initialization in a Spring Boot application, you should register a bean that implements the org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.ServletContextInitializer
interface.
The single onStartup
method provides access to the ServletContext
and, if necessary, can easily be used as an adapter to an existing WebApplicationInitializer
.
Scanning for Servlets, Filters, and listeners
When using an embedded container, automatic registration of classes annotated with @WebServlet
, @WebFilter
, and @WebListener
can be enabled by using @ServletComponentScan
.
@ServletComponentScan has no effect in a standalone container, where the container’s built-in discovery mechanisms are used instead.
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1.2.3. The ServletWebServerApplicationContext
Under the hood, Spring Boot uses a different type of ApplicationContext
for embedded servlet container support.
The ServletWebServerApplicationContext
is a special type of WebApplicationContext
that bootstraps itself by searching for a single ServletWebServerFactory
bean.
Usually a TomcatServletWebServerFactory
, JettyServletWebServerFactory
, or UndertowServletWebServerFactory
has been auto-configured.
You usually do not need to be aware of these implementation classes.
Most applications are auto-configured, and the appropriate ApplicationContext and ServletWebServerFactory are created on your behalf.
|
In an embedded container setup, the ServletContext
is set as part of server startup which happens during application context initialization.
Because of this beans in the ApplicationContext
cannot be reliably initialized with a ServletContext
.
One way to get around this is to inject ApplicationContext
as a dependency of the bean and access the ServletContext
only when it is needed.
Another way is to use a callback once the server has started.
This can be done using an ApplicationListener
which listens for the ApplicationStartedEvent
as follows:
public class MyDemoBean implements ApplicationListener<ApplicationStartedEvent> {
private ServletContext servletContext;
@Override
public void onApplicationEvent(ApplicationStartedEvent event) {
ApplicationContext applicationContext = event.getApplicationContext();
this.servletContext = ((WebApplicationContext) applicationContext).getServletContext();
}
}
1.2.4. Customizing Embedded Servlet Containers
Common servlet container settings can be configured by using Spring Environment
properties.
Usually, you would define the properties in your application.properties
or application.yaml
file.
Common server settings include:
-
Network settings: Listen port for incoming HTTP requests (
server.port
), interface address to bind toserver.address
, and so on. -
Session settings: Whether the session is persistent (
server.servlet.session.persistent
), session timeout (server.servlet.session.timeout
), location of session data (server.servlet.session.store-dir
), and session-cookie configuration (server.servlet.session.cookie.*
). -
Error management: Location of the error page (
server.error.path
) and so on.
Spring Boot tries as much as possible to expose common settings, but this is not always possible.
For those cases, dedicated namespaces offer server-specific customizations (see server.tomcat
and server.undertow
).
For instance, access logs can be configured with specific features of the embedded servlet container.
See the ServerProperties class for a complete list.
|
SameSite Cookies
The SameSite
cookie attribute can be used by web browsers to control if and how cookies are submitted in cross-site requests.
The attribute is particularly relevant for modern web browsers which have started to change the default value that is used when the attribute is missing.
If you want to change the SameSite
attribute of your session cookie, you can use the server.servlet.session.cookie.same-site
property.
This property is supported by auto-configured Tomcat, Jetty and Undertow servers.
It is also used to configure Spring Session servlet based SessionRepository
beans.
For example, if you want your session cookie to have a SameSite
attribute of None
, you can add the following to your application.properties
or application.yaml
file:
server.servlet.session.cookie.same-site=none
server:
servlet:
session:
cookie:
same-site: "none"
If you want to change the SameSite
attribute on other cookies added to your HttpServletResponse
, you can use a CookieSameSiteSupplier
.
The CookieSameSiteSupplier
is passed a Cookie
and may return a SameSite
value, or null
.
There are a number of convenience factory and filter methods that you can use to quickly match specific cookies.
For example, adding the following bean will automatically apply a SameSite
of Lax
for all cookies with a name that matches the regular expression myapp.*
.
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
public class MySameSiteConfiguration {
@Bean
public CookieSameSiteSupplier applicationCookieSameSiteSupplier() {
return CookieSameSiteSupplier.ofLax().whenHasNameMatching("myapp.*");
}
}
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
class MySameSiteConfiguration {
@Bean
fun applicationCookieSameSiteSupplier(): CookieSameSiteSupplier {
return CookieSameSiteSupplier.ofLax().whenHasNameMatching("myapp.*")
}
}
Programmatic Customization
If you need to programmatically configure your embedded servlet container, you can register a Spring bean that implements the WebServerFactoryCustomizer
interface.
WebServerFactoryCustomizer
provides access to the ConfigurableServletWebServerFactory
, which includes numerous customization setter methods.
The following example shows programmatically setting the port:
@Component
public class MyWebServerFactoryCustomizer implements WebServerFactoryCustomizer<ConfigurableServletWebServerFactory> {
@Override
public void customize(ConfigurableServletWebServerFactory server) {
server.setPort(9000);
}
}
@Component
class MyWebServerFactoryCustomizer : WebServerFactoryCustomizer<ConfigurableServletWebServerFactory> {
override fun customize(server: ConfigurableServletWebServerFactory) {
server.setPort(9000)
}
}
TomcatServletWebServerFactory
, JettyServletWebServerFactory
and UndertowServletWebServerFactory
are dedicated variants of ConfigurableServletWebServerFactory
that have additional customization setter methods for Tomcat, Jetty and Undertow respectively.
The following example shows how to customize TomcatServletWebServerFactory
that provides access to Tomcat-specific configuration options:
@Component
public class MyTomcatWebServerFactoryCustomizer implements WebServerFactoryCustomizer<TomcatServletWebServerFactory> {
@Override
public void customize(TomcatServletWebServerFactory server) {
server.addConnectorCustomizers((connector) -> connector.setAsyncTimeout(Duration.ofSeconds(20).toMillis()));
}
}
@Component
class MyTomcatWebServerFactoryCustomizer : WebServerFactoryCustomizer<TomcatServletWebServerFactory> {
override fun customize(server: TomcatServletWebServerFactory) {
server.addConnectorCustomizers({ connector -> connector.asyncTimeout = Duration.ofSeconds(20).toMillis() })
}
}
Customizing ConfigurableServletWebServerFactory Directly
For more advanced use cases that require you to extend from ServletWebServerFactory
, you can expose a bean of such type yourself.
Setters are provided for many configuration options. Several protected method “hooks” are also provided should you need to do something more exotic. See the source code documentation for details.
Auto-configured customizers are still applied on your custom factory, so use that option carefully. |
1.2.5. JSP Limitations
When running a Spring Boot application that uses an embedded servlet container (and is packaged as an executable archive), there are some limitations in the JSP support.
-
With Jetty and Tomcat, it should work if you use war packaging. An executable war will work when launched with
java -jar
, and will also be deployable to any standard container. JSPs are not supported when using an executable jar. -
Undertow does not support JSPs.
-
Creating a custom
error.jsp
page does not override the default view for error handling. Custom error pages should be used instead.
2. Reactive Web Applications
Spring Boot simplifies development of reactive web applications by providing auto-configuration for Spring Webflux.
2.1. The “Spring WebFlux Framework”
Spring WebFlux is the new reactive web framework introduced in Spring Framework 5.0. Unlike Spring MVC, it does not require the servlet API, is fully asynchronous and non-blocking, and implements the Reactive Streams specification through the Reactor project.
Spring WebFlux comes in two flavors: functional and annotation-based. The annotation-based one is quite close to the Spring MVC model, as shown in the following example:
@RestController
@RequestMapping("/users")
public class MyRestController {
private final UserRepository userRepository;
private final CustomerRepository customerRepository;
public MyRestController(UserRepository userRepository, CustomerRepository customerRepository) {
this.userRepository = userRepository;
this.customerRepository = customerRepository;
}
@GetMapping("/{userId}")
public Mono<User> getUser(@PathVariable Long userId) {
return this.userRepository.findById(userId);
}
@GetMapping("/{userId}/customers")
public Flux<Customer> getUserCustomers(@PathVariable Long userId) {
return this.userRepository.findById(userId).flatMapMany(this.customerRepository::findByUser);
}
@DeleteMapping("/{userId}")
public Mono<Void> deleteUser(@PathVariable Long userId) {
return this.userRepository.deleteById(userId);
}
}
@RestController
@RequestMapping("/users")
class MyRestController(private val userRepository: UserRepository, private val customerRepository: CustomerRepository) {
@GetMapping("/{userId}")
fun getUser(@PathVariable userId: Long): Mono<User?> {
return userRepository.findById(userId)
}
@GetMapping("/{userId}/customers")
fun getUserCustomers(@PathVariable userId: Long): Flux<Customer> {
return userRepository.findById(userId).flatMapMany { user: User? ->
customerRepository.findByUser(user)
}
}
@DeleteMapping("/{userId}")
fun deleteUser(@PathVariable userId: Long): Mono<Void> {
return userRepository.deleteById(userId)
}
}
“WebFlux.fn”, the functional variant, separates the routing configuration from the actual handling of the requests, as shown in the following example:
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
public class MyRoutingConfiguration {
private static final RequestPredicate ACCEPT_JSON = accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON);
@Bean
public RouterFunction<ServerResponse> monoRouterFunction(MyUserHandler userHandler) {
return route()
.GET("/{user}", ACCEPT_JSON, userHandler::getUser)
.GET("/{user}/customers", ACCEPT_JSON, userHandler::getUserCustomers)
.DELETE("/{user}", ACCEPT_JSON, userHandler::deleteUser)
.build();
}
}
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
class MyRoutingConfiguration {
@Bean
fun monoRouterFunction(userHandler: MyUserHandler): RouterFunction<ServerResponse> {
return RouterFunctions.route(
GET("/{user}").and(ACCEPT_JSON), userHandler::getUser).andRoute(
GET("/{user}/customers").and(ACCEPT_JSON), userHandler::getUserCustomers).andRoute(
DELETE("/{user}").and(ACCEPT_JSON), userHandler::deleteUser)
}
companion object {
private val ACCEPT_JSON = accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
}
}
@Component
public class MyUserHandler {
public Mono<ServerResponse> getUser(ServerRequest request) {
...
}
public Mono<ServerResponse> getUserCustomers(ServerRequest request) {
...
}
public Mono<ServerResponse> deleteUser(ServerRequest request) {
...
}
}
@Component
class MyUserHandler {
fun getUser(request: ServerRequest?): Mono<ServerResponse> {
return ServerResponse.ok().build()
}
fun getUserCustomers(request: ServerRequest?): Mono<ServerResponse> {
return ServerResponse.ok().build()
}
fun deleteUser(request: ServerRequest?): Mono<ServerResponse> {
return ServerResponse.ok().build()
}
}
WebFlux is part of the Spring Framework and detailed information is available in its reference documentation.
You can define as many RouterFunction beans as you like to modularize the definition of the router.
Beans can be ordered if you need to apply a precedence.
|
To get started, add the spring-boot-starter-webflux
module to your application.
Adding both spring-boot-starter-web and spring-boot-starter-webflux modules in your application results in Spring Boot auto-configuring Spring MVC, not WebFlux.
This behavior has been chosen because many Spring developers add spring-boot-starter-webflux to their Spring MVC application to use the reactive WebClient .
You can still enforce your choice by setting the chosen application type to SpringApplication.setWebApplicationType(WebApplicationType.REACTIVE) .
|
“WebFlux.fn”, the functional variant, separates the routing configuration from the actual handling of the requests, as shown in the following example:
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
public class MyRoutingConfiguration {
private static final RequestPredicate ACCEPT_JSON = accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON);
@Bean
public RouterFunction<ServerResponse> monoRouterFunction(MyUserHandler userHandler) {
return route()
.GET("/{user}", ACCEPT_JSON, userHandler::getUser)
.GET("/{user}/customers", ACCEPT_JSON, userHandler::getUserCustomers)
.DELETE("/{user}", ACCEPT_JSON, userHandler::deleteUser)
.build();
}
}
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
class MyRoutingConfiguration {
@Bean
fun monoRouterFunction(userHandler: MyUserHandler): RouterFunction<ServerResponse> {
return RouterFunctions.route(
GET("/{user}").and(ACCEPT_JSON), userHandler::getUser).andRoute(
GET("/{user}/customers").and(ACCEPT_JSON), userHandler::getUserCustomers).andRoute(
DELETE("/{user}").and(ACCEPT_JSON), userHandler::deleteUser)
}
companion object {
private val ACCEPT_JSON = accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
}
}
@Component
public class MyUserHandler {
public Mono<ServerResponse> getUser(ServerRequest request) {
...
}
public Mono<ServerResponse> getUserCustomers(ServerRequest request) {
...
}
public Mono<ServerResponse> deleteUser(ServerRequest request) {
...
}
}
@Component
class MyUserHandler {
fun getUser(request: ServerRequest?): Mono<ServerResponse> {
return ServerResponse.ok().build()
}
fun getUserCustomers(request: ServerRequest?): Mono<ServerResponse> {
return ServerResponse.ok().build()
}
fun deleteUser(request: ServerRequest?): Mono<ServerResponse> {
return ServerResponse.ok().build()
}
}
WebFlux is part of the Spring Framework and detailed information is available in its reference documentation.
You can define as many RouterFunction beans as you like to modularize the definition of the router.
Beans can be ordered if you need to apply a precedence.
|
To get started, add the spring-boot-starter-webflux
module to your application.
Adding both spring-boot-starter-web and spring-boot-starter-webflux modules in your application results in Spring Boot auto-configuring Spring MVC, not WebFlux.
This behavior has been chosen because many Spring developers add spring-boot-starter-webflux to their Spring MVC application to use the reactive WebClient .
You can still enforce your choice by setting the chosen application type to SpringApplication.setWebApplicationType(WebApplicationType.REACTIVE) .
|
2.1.1. Spring WebFlux Auto-configuration
Spring Boot provides auto-configuration for Spring WebFlux that works well with most applications.
The auto-configuration adds the following features on top of Spring’s defaults:
-
Configuring codecs for
HttpMessageReader
andHttpMessageWriter
instances (described later in this document). -
Support for serving static resources, including support for WebJars (described later in this document).
If you want to keep Spring Boot WebFlux features and you want to add additional WebFlux configuration, you can add your own @Configuration
class of type WebFluxConfigurer
but without @EnableWebFlux
.
If you want to take complete control of Spring WebFlux, you can add your own @Configuration
annotated with @EnableWebFlux
.
2.1.2. HTTP Codecs with HttpMessageReaders and HttpMessageWriters
Spring WebFlux uses the HttpMessageReader
and HttpMessageWriter
interfaces to convert HTTP requests and responses.
They are configured with CodecConfigurer
to have sensible defaults by looking at the libraries available in your classpath.
Spring Boot provides dedicated configuration properties for codecs, spring.codec.*
.
It also applies further customization by using CodecCustomizer
instances.
For example, spring.jackson.*
configuration keys are applied to the Jackson codec.
If you need to add or customize codecs, you can create a custom CodecCustomizer
component, as shown in the following example:
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
public class MyCodecsConfiguration {
@Bean
public CodecCustomizer myCodecCustomizer() {
return (configurer) -> {
configurer.registerDefaults(false);
configurer.customCodecs().register(new ServerSentEventHttpMessageReader());
// ...
};
}
}
class MyCodecsConfiguration {
@Bean
fun myCodecCustomizer(): CodecCustomizer {
return CodecCustomizer { configurer: CodecConfigurer ->
configurer.registerDefaults(false)
configurer.customCodecs().register(ServerSentEventHttpMessageReader())
}
}
}
You can also leverage Boot’s custom JSON serializers and deserializers.
2.1.3. Static Content
By default, Spring Boot serves static content from a directory called /static
(or /public
or /resources
or /META-INF/resources
) in the classpath.
It uses the ResourceWebHandler
from Spring WebFlux so that you can modify that behavior by adding your own WebFluxConfigurer
and overriding the addResourceHandlers
method.
By default, resources are mapped on /**
, but you can tune that by setting the spring.webflux.static-path-pattern
property.
For instance, relocating all resources to /resources/**
can be achieved as follows:
spring.webflux.static-path-pattern=/resources/**
spring:
webflux:
static-path-pattern: "/resources/**"
You can also customize the static resource locations by using spring.web.resources.static-locations
.
Doing so replaces the default values with a list of directory locations.
If you do so, the default welcome page detection switches to your custom locations.
So, if there is an index.html
in any of your locations on startup, it is the home page of the application.
In addition to the “standard” static resource locations listed earlier, a special case is made for Webjars content.
Any resources with a path in /webjars/**
are served from jar files if they are packaged in the Webjars format.
Spring WebFlux applications do not strictly depend on the servlet API, so they cannot be deployed as war files and do not use the src/main/webapp directory.
|
2.1.4. Welcome Page
Spring Boot supports both static and templated welcome pages.
It first looks for an index.html
file in the configured static content locations.
If one is not found, it then looks for an index
template.
If either is found, it is automatically used as the welcome page of the application.
2.1.5. Template Engines
As well as REST web services, you can also use Spring WebFlux to serve dynamic HTML content. Spring WebFlux supports a variety of templating technologies, including Thymeleaf, FreeMarker, and Mustache.
Spring Boot includes auto-configuration support for the following templating engines:
When you use one of these templating engines with the default configuration, your templates are picked up automatically from src/main/resources/templates
.
2.1.6. Error Handling
Spring Boot provides a WebExceptionHandler
that handles all errors in a sensible way.
Its position in the processing order is immediately before the handlers provided by WebFlux, which are considered last.
For machine clients, it produces a JSON response with details of the error, the HTTP status, and the exception message.
For browser clients, there is a “whitelabel” error handler that renders the same data in HTML format.
You can also provide your own HTML templates to display errors (see the next section).
The first step to customizing this feature often involves using the existing mechanism but replacing or augmenting the error contents.
For that, you can add a bean of type ErrorAttributes
.
To change the error handling behavior, you can implement ErrorWebExceptionHandler
and register a bean definition of that type.
Because an ErrorWebExceptionHandler
is quite low-level, Spring Boot also provides a convenient AbstractErrorWebExceptionHandler
to let you handle errors in a WebFlux functional way, as shown in the following example:
@Component
public class MyErrorWebExceptionHandler extends AbstractErrorWebExceptionHandler {
public MyErrorWebExceptionHandler(ErrorAttributes errorAttributes, Resources resources,
ApplicationContext applicationContext) {
super(errorAttributes, resources, applicationContext);
}
@Override
protected RouterFunction<ServerResponse> getRoutingFunction(ErrorAttributes errorAttributes) {
return RouterFunctions.route(this::acceptsXml, this::handleErrorAsXml);
}
private boolean acceptsXml(ServerRequest request) {
return request.headers().accept().contains(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML);
}
public Mono<ServerResponse> handleErrorAsXml(ServerRequest request) {
BodyBuilder builder = ServerResponse.status(HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR);
// ... additional builder calls
return builder.build();
}
}
@Component
class MyErrorWebExceptionHandler(errorAttributes: ErrorAttributes?, resources: WebProperties.Resources?,
applicationContext: ApplicationContext?) : AbstractErrorWebExceptionHandler(errorAttributes, resources, applicationContext) {
override fun getRoutingFunction(errorAttributes: ErrorAttributes): RouterFunction<ServerResponse> {
return RouterFunctions.route(this::acceptsXml, this::handleErrorAsXml)
}
private fun acceptsXml(request: ServerRequest): Boolean {
return request.headers().accept().contains(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)
}
fun handleErrorAsXml(request: ServerRequest?): Mono<ServerResponse> {
val builder = ServerResponse.status(HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR)
// ... additional builder calls
return builder.build()
}
}
For a more complete picture, you can also subclass DefaultErrorWebExceptionHandler
directly and override specific methods.
In some cases, errors handled at the controller or handler function level are not recorded by the metrics infrastructure. Applications can ensure that such exceptions are recorded with the request metrics by setting the handled exception as a request attribute:
@Controller
public class MyExceptionHandlingController {
@GetMapping("/profile")
public Rendering userProfile() {
// ...
throw new IllegalStateException();
}
@ExceptionHandler(IllegalStateException.class)
public Rendering handleIllegalState(ServerWebExchange exchange, IllegalStateException exc) {
exchange.getAttributes().putIfAbsent(ErrorAttributes.ERROR_ATTRIBUTE, exc);
return Rendering.view("errorView").modelAttribute("message", exc.getMessage()).build();
}
}
@Controller
class MyExceptionHandlingController {
@GetMapping("/profile")
fun userProfile(): Rendering {
// ...
throw IllegalStateException()
}
@ExceptionHandler(IllegalStateException::class)
fun handleIllegalState(exchange: ServerWebExchange, exc: IllegalStateException): Rendering {
exchange.attributes.putIfAbsent(ErrorAttributes.ERROR_ATTRIBUTE, exc)
return Rendering.view("errorView").modelAttribute("message", exc.message ?: "").build()
}
}
Custom Error Pages
If you want to display a custom HTML error page for a given status code, you can add a file to an /error
directory.
Error pages can either be static HTML (that is, added under any of the static resource directories) or built with templates.
The name of the file should be the exact status code or a series mask.
For example, to map 404
to a static HTML file, your directory structure would be as follows:
src/
+- main/
+- java/
| + <source code>
+- resources/
+- public/
+- error/
| +- 404.html
+- <other public assets>
To map all 5xx
errors by using a Mustache template, your directory structure would be as follows:
src/
+- main/
+- java/
| + <source code>
+- resources/
+- templates/
+- error/
| +- 5xx.mustache
+- <other templates>
2.1.7. Web Filters
Spring WebFlux provides a WebFilter
interface that can be implemented to filter HTTP request-response exchanges.
WebFilter
beans found in the application context will be automatically used to filter each exchange.
Where the order of the filters is important they can implement Ordered
or be annotated with @Order
.
Spring Boot auto-configuration may configure web filters for you.
When it does so, the orders shown in the following table will be used:
Web Filter | Order |
---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2.2. Embedded Reactive Server Support
Spring Boot includes support for the following embedded reactive web servers: Reactor Netty, Tomcat, Jetty, and Undertow. Most developers use the appropriate “Starter” to obtain a fully configured instance. By default, the embedded server listens for HTTP requests on port 8080.
2.3. Reactive Server Resources Configuration
When auto-configuring a Reactor Netty or Jetty server, Spring Boot will create specific beans that will provide HTTP resources to the server instance: ReactorResourceFactory
or JettyResourceFactory
.
By default, those resources will be also shared with the Reactor Netty and Jetty clients for optimal performances, given:
-
the same technology is used for server and client
-
the client instance is built using the
WebClient.Builder
bean auto-configured by Spring Boot
Developers can override the resource configuration for Jetty and Reactor Netty by providing a custom ReactorResourceFactory
or JettyResourceFactory
bean - this will be applied to both clients and servers.
You can learn more about the resource configuration on the client side in the WebClient Runtime section.
3. Graceful Shutdown
Graceful shutdown is supported with all four embedded web servers (Jetty, Reactor Netty, Tomcat, and Undertow) and with both reactive and servlet-based web applications.
It occurs as part of closing the application context and is performed in the earliest phase of stopping SmartLifecycle
beans.
This stop processing uses a timeout which provides a grace period during which existing requests will be allowed to complete but no new requests will be permitted.
The exact way in which new requests are not permitted varies depending on the web server that is being used.
Jetty, Reactor Netty, and Tomcat will stop accepting requests at the network layer.
Undertow will accept requests but respond immediately with a service unavailable (503) response.
Graceful shutdown with Tomcat requires Tomcat 9.0.33 or later. |
To enable graceful shutdown, configure the server.shutdown
property, as shown in the following example:
server.shutdown=graceful
server:
shutdown: "graceful"
To configure the timeout period, configure the spring.lifecycle.timeout-per-shutdown-phase
property, as shown in the following example:
spring.lifecycle.timeout-per-shutdown-phase=20s
spring:
lifecycle:
timeout-per-shutdown-phase: "20s"
Using graceful shutdown with your IDE may not work properly if it does not send a proper SIGTERM signal.
See the documentation of your IDE for more details.
|
4. Spring Security
If Spring Security is on the classpath, then web applications are secured by default.
Spring Boot relies on Spring Security’s content-negotiation strategy to determine whether to use httpBasic
or formLogin
.
To add method-level security to a web application, you can also add @EnableGlobalMethodSecurity
with your desired settings.
Additional information can be found in the Spring Security Reference Guide.
The default UserDetailsService
has a single user.
The user name is user
, and the password is random and is printed at WARN level when the application starts, as shown in the following example:
Using generated security password: 78fa095d-3f4c-48b1-ad50-e24c31d5cf35 This generated password is for development use only. Your security configuration must be updated before running your application in production.
If you fine-tune your logging configuration, ensure that the org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.security category is set to log WARN -level messages.
Otherwise, the default password is not printed.
|
You can change the username and password by providing a spring.security.user.name
and spring.security.user.password
.
The basic features you get by default in a web application are:
-
A
UserDetailsService
(orReactiveUserDetailsService
in case of a WebFlux application) bean with in-memory store and a single user with a generated password (seeSecurityProperties.User
for the properties of the user). -
Form-based login or HTTP Basic security (depending on the
Accept
header in the request) for the entire application (including actuator endpoints if actuator is on the classpath). -
A
DefaultAuthenticationEventPublisher
for publishing authentication events.
You can provide a different AuthenticationEventPublisher
by adding a bean for it.
4.1. MVC Security
The default security configuration is implemented in SecurityAutoConfiguration
and UserDetailsServiceAutoConfiguration
.
SecurityAutoConfiguration
imports SpringBootWebSecurityConfiguration
for web security and UserDetailsServiceAutoConfiguration
configures authentication, which is also relevant in non-web applications.
To switch off the default web application security configuration completely or to combine multiple Spring Security components such as OAuth2 Client and Resource Server, add a bean of type SecurityFilterChain
(doing so does not disable the UserDetailsService
configuration or Actuator’s security).
To also switch off the UserDetailsService
configuration, you can add a bean of type UserDetailsService
, AuthenticationProvider
, or AuthenticationManager
.
Access rules can be overridden by adding a custom SecurityFilterChain
or WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter
bean.
Spring Boot provides convenience methods that can be used to override access rules for actuator endpoints and static resources.
EndpointRequest
can be used to create a RequestMatcher
that is based on the management.endpoints.web.base-path
property.
PathRequest
can be used to create a RequestMatcher
for resources in commonly used locations.
4.2. WebFlux Security
Similar to Spring MVC applications, you can secure your WebFlux applications by adding the spring-boot-starter-security
dependency.
The default security configuration is implemented in ReactiveSecurityAutoConfiguration
and UserDetailsServiceAutoConfiguration
.
ReactiveSecurityAutoConfiguration
imports WebFluxSecurityConfiguration
for web security and UserDetailsServiceAutoConfiguration
configures authentication, which is also relevant in non-web applications.
To switch off the default web application security configuration completely, you can add a bean of type WebFilterChainProxy
(doing so does not disable the UserDetailsService
configuration or Actuator’s security).
To also switch off the UserDetailsService
configuration, you can add a bean of type ReactiveUserDetailsService
or ReactiveAuthenticationManager
.
Access rules and the use of multiple Spring Security components such as OAuth 2 Client and Resource Server can be configured by adding a custom SecurityWebFilterChain
bean.
Spring Boot provides convenience methods that can be used to override access rules for actuator endpoints and static resources.
EndpointRequest
can be used to create a ServerWebExchangeMatcher
that is based on the management.endpoints.web.base-path
property.
PathRequest
can be used to create a ServerWebExchangeMatcher
for resources in commonly used locations.
For example, you can customize your security configuration by adding something like:
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
public class MyWebFluxSecurityConfiguration {
@Bean
public SecurityWebFilterChain springSecurityFilterChain(ServerHttpSecurity http) {
http.authorizeExchange((spec) -> {
spec.matchers(PathRequest.toStaticResources().atCommonLocations()).permitAll();
spec.pathMatchers("/foo", "/bar").authenticated();
});
http.formLogin();
return http.build();
}
}
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
class MyWebFluxSecurityConfiguration {
@Bean
fun springSecurityFilterChain(http: ServerHttpSecurity): SecurityWebFilterChain {
http.authorizeExchange { spec ->
spec.matchers(PathRequest.toStaticResources().atCommonLocations()).permitAll()
spec.pathMatchers("/foo", "/bar").authenticated()
}
http.formLogin()
return http.build()
}
}
4.3. OAuth2
OAuth2 is a widely used authorization framework that is supported by Spring.
4.3.1. Client
If you have spring-security-oauth2-client
on your classpath, you can take advantage of some auto-configuration to set up an OAuth2/Open ID Connect clients.
This configuration makes use of the properties under OAuth2ClientProperties
.
The same properties are applicable to both servlet and reactive applications.
You can register multiple OAuth2 clients and providers under the spring.security.oauth2.client
prefix, as shown in the following example:
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-1.client-id=abcd
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-1.client-secret=password
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-1.client-name=Client for user scope
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-1.provider=my-oauth-provider
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-1.scope=user
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-1.redirect-uri=https://my-redirect-uri.com
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-1.client-authentication-method=basic
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-1.authorization-grant-type=authorization-code
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-2.client-id=abcd
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-2.client-secret=password
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-2.client-name=Client for email scope
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-2.provider=my-oauth-provider
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-2.scope=email
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-2.redirect-uri=https://my-redirect-uri.com
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-2.client-authentication-method=basic
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client-2.authorization-grant-type=authorization_code
spring.security.oauth2.client.provider.my-oauth-provider.authorization-uri=https://my-auth-server/oauth/authorize
spring.security.oauth2.client.provider.my-oauth-provider.token-uri=https://my-auth-server/oauth/token
spring.security.oauth2.client.provider.my-oauth-provider.user-info-uri=https://my-auth-server/userinfo
spring.security.oauth2.client.provider.my-oauth-provider.user-info-authentication-method=header
spring.security.oauth2.client.provider.my-oauth-provider.jwk-set-uri=https://my-auth-server/token_keys
spring.security.oauth2.client.provider.my-oauth-provider.user-name-attribute=name
spring:
security:
oauth2:
client:
registration:
my-client-1:
client-id: "abcd"
client-secret: "password"
client-name: "Client for user scope"
provider: "my-oauth-provider"
scope: "user"
redirect-uri: "https://my-redirect-uri.com"
client-authentication-method: "basic"
authorization-grant-type: "authorization-code"
my-client-2:
client-id: "abcd"
client-secret: "password"
client-name: "Client for email scope"
provider: "my-oauth-provider"
scope: "email"
redirect-uri: "https://my-redirect-uri.com"
client-authentication-method: "basic"
authorization-grant-type: "authorization_code"
provider:
my-oauth-provider:
authorization-uri: "https://my-auth-server/oauth/authorize"
token-uri: "https://my-auth-server/oauth/token"
user-info-uri: "https://my-auth-server/userinfo"
user-info-authentication-method: "header"
jwk-set-uri: "https://my-auth-server/token_keys"
user-name-attribute: "name"
For OpenID Connect providers that support OpenID Connect discovery, the configuration can be further simplified.
The provider needs to be configured with an issuer-uri
which is the URI that the it asserts as its Issuer Identifier.
For example, if the issuer-uri
provided is "https://example.com", then an OpenID Provider Configuration Request
will be made to "https://example.com/.well-known/openid-configuration".
The result is expected to be an OpenID Provider Configuration Response
.
The following example shows how an OpenID Connect Provider can be configured with the issuer-uri
:
spring.security.oauth2.client.provider.oidc-provider.issuer-uri=https://dev-123456.oktapreview.com/oauth2/default/
spring:
security:
oauth2:
client:
provider:
oidc-provider:
issuer-uri: "https://dev-123456.oktapreview.com/oauth2/default/"
By default, Spring Security’s OAuth2LoginAuthenticationFilter
only processes URLs matching /login/oauth2/code/*
.
If you want to customize the redirect-uri
to use a different pattern, you need to provide configuration to process that custom pattern.
For example, for servlet applications, you can add your own SecurityFilterChain
that resembles the following:
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
public class MyOAuthClientConfiguration {
@Bean
public SecurityFilterChain securityFilterChain(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
http.authorizeRequests().anyRequest().authenticated();
http.oauth2Login().redirectionEndpoint().baseUri("custom-callback");
return http.build();
}
}
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
class MyOAuthClientConfiguration {
@Bean
fun securityFilterChain(http: HttpSecurity): SecurityFilterChain {
http.authorizeRequests().anyRequest().authenticated()
http.oauth2Login().redirectionEndpoint().baseUri("custom-callback")
return http.build()
}
}
Spring Boot auto-configures an InMemoryOAuth2AuthorizedClientService which is used by Spring Security for the management of client registrations.
The InMemoryOAuth2AuthorizedClientService has limited capabilities and we recommend using it only for development environments.
For production environments, consider using a JdbcOAuth2AuthorizedClientService or creating your own implementation of OAuth2AuthorizedClientService .
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OAuth2 client registration for common providers
For common OAuth2 and OpenID providers, including Google, Github, Facebook, and Okta, we provide a set of provider defaults (google
, github
, facebook
, and okta
, respectively).
If you do not need to customize these providers, you can set the provider
attribute to the one for which you need to infer defaults.
Also, if the key for the client registration matches a default supported provider, Spring Boot infers that as well.
In other words, the two configurations in the following example use the Google provider:
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client.client-id=abcd
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client.client-secret=password
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.my-client.provider=google
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.google.client-id=abcd
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.google.client-secret=password
spring:
security:
oauth2:
client:
registration:
my-client:
client-id: "abcd"
client-secret: "password"
provider: "google"
google:
client-id: "abcd"
client-secret: "password"
4.3.2. Resource Server
If you have spring-security-oauth2-resource-server
on your classpath, Spring Boot can set up an OAuth2 Resource Server.
For JWT configuration, a JWK Set URI or OIDC Issuer URI needs to be specified, as shown in the following examples:
spring.security.oauth2.resourceserver.jwt.jwk-set-uri=https://example.com/oauth2/default/v1/keys
spring:
security:
oauth2:
resourceserver:
jwt:
jwk-set-uri: "https://example.com/oauth2/default/v1/keys"
spring.security.oauth2.resourceserver.jwt.issuer-uri=https://dev-123456.oktapreview.com/oauth2/default/
spring:
security:
oauth2:
resourceserver:
jwt:
issuer-uri: "https://dev-123456.oktapreview.com/oauth2/default/"
If the authorization server does not support a JWK Set URI, you can configure the resource server with the Public Key used for verifying the signature of the JWT.
This can be done using the spring.security.oauth2.resourceserver.jwt.public-key-location property, where the value needs to point to a file containing the public key in the PEM-encoded x509 format.
|
The same properties are applicable for both servlet and reactive applications.
Alternatively, you can define your own JwtDecoder
bean for servlet applications or a ReactiveJwtDecoder
for reactive applications.
In cases where opaque tokens are used instead of JWTs, you can configure the following properties to validate tokens through introspection:
spring.security.oauth2.resourceserver.opaquetoken.introspection-uri=https://example.com/check-token
spring.security.oauth2.resourceserver.opaquetoken.client-id=my-client-id
spring.security.oauth2.resourceserver.opaquetoken.client-secret=my-client-secret
spring:
security:
oauth2:
resourceserver:
opaquetoken:
introspection-uri: "https://example.com/check-token"
client-id: "my-client-id"
client-secret: "my-client-secret"
Again, the same properties are applicable for both servlet and reactive applications.
Alternatively, you can define your own OpaqueTokenIntrospector
bean for servlet applications or a ReactiveOpaqueTokenIntrospector
for reactive applications.
4.3.3. Authorization Server
Currently, Spring Security does not provide support for implementing an OAuth 2.0 Authorization Server.
However, this functionality is available from the Spring Security OAuth project, which will eventually be superseded by Spring Security completely.
Until then, you can use the spring-security-oauth2-autoconfigure
module to easily set up an OAuth 2.0 authorization server; see its documentation for instructions.
4.4. SAML 2.0
4.4.1. Relying Party
If you have spring-security-saml2-service-provider
on your classpath, you can take advantage of some auto-configuration to set up a SAML 2.0 Relying Party.
This configuration makes use of the properties under Saml2RelyingPartyProperties
.
A relying party registration represents a paired configuration between an Identity Provider, IDP, and a Service Provider, SP.
You can register multiple relying parties under the spring.security.saml2.relyingparty
prefix, as shown in the following example:
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party1.signing.credentials[0].private-key-location=path-to-private-key
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party1.signing.credentials[0].certificate-location=path-to-certificate
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party1.decryption.credentials[0].private-key-location=path-to-private-key
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party1.decryption.credentials[0].certificate-location=path-to-certificate
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party1.singlelogout.url=https://myapp/logout/saml2/slo
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party1.singlelogout.reponse-url=https://remoteidp2.slo.url
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party1.singlelogout.binding=POST
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party1.assertingparty.verification.credentials[0].certificate-location=path-to-verification-cert
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party1.assertingparty.entity-id=remote-idp-entity-id1
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party1.assertingparty.sso-url=https://remoteidp1.sso.url
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party2.signing.credentials[0].private-key-location=path-to-private-key
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party2.signing.credentials[0].certificate-location=path-to-certificate
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party2.decryption.credentials[0].private-key-location=path-to-private-key
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party2.decryption.credentials[0].certificate-location=path-to-certificate
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party2.assertingparty.verification.credentials[0].certificate-location=path-to-other-verification-cert
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party2.assertingparty.entity-id=remote-idp-entity-id2
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party2.assertingparty.sso-url=https://remoteidp2.sso.url
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party2.assertingparty.singlelogout.url=https://remoteidp2.slo.url
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party2.assertingparty.singlelogout.reponse-url=https://myapp/logout/saml2/slo
spring.security.saml2.relyingparty.registration.my-relying-party2.assertingparty.singlelogout.binding=POST
spring:
security:
saml2:
relyingparty:
registration:
my-relying-party1:
signing:
credentials:
- private-key-location: "path-to-private-key"
certificate-location: "path-to-certificate"
decryption:
credentials:
- private-key-location: "path-to-private-key"
certificate-location: "path-to-certificate"
singlelogout:
url: "https://myapp/logout/saml2/slo"
reponse-url: "https://remoteidp2.slo.url"
binding: "POST"
assertingparty:
verification:
credentials:
- certificate-location: "path-to-verification-cert"
entity-id: "remote-idp-entity-id1"
sso-url: "https://remoteidp1.sso.url"
my-relying-party2:
signing:
credentials:
- private-key-location: "path-to-private-key"
certificate-location: "path-to-certificate"
decryption:
credentials:
- private-key-location: "path-to-private-key"
certificate-location: "path-to-certificate"
assertingparty:
verification:
credentials:
- certificate-location: "path-to-other-verification-cert"
entity-id: "remote-idp-entity-id2"
sso-url: "https://remoteidp2.sso.url"
singlelogout:
url: "https://remoteidp2.slo.url"
reponse-url: "https://myapp/logout/saml2/slo"
binding: "POST"
For SAML2 logout, by default, Spring Security’s Saml2LogoutRequestFilter
and Saml2LogoutResponseFilter
only process URLs matching /logout/saml2/slo
.
If you want to customize the url
to which AP-initiated logout requests get sent to or the response-url
to which an AP sends logout responses to, to use a different pattern, you need to provide configuration to process that custom pattern.
For example, for servlet applications, you can add your own SecurityFilterChain
that resembles the following:
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
public class MySamlRelyingPartyConfiguration {
@Bean
public SecurityFilterChain securityFilterChain(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
http.authorizeRequests().anyRequest().authenticated();
http.saml2Login();
http.saml2Logout((saml2) -> saml2.logoutRequest((request) -> request.logoutUrl("/SLOService.saml2"))
.logoutResponse((response) -> response.logoutUrl("/SLOService.saml2")));
return http.build();
}
}
5. Spring Session
Spring Boot provides Spring Session auto-configuration for a wide range of data stores. When building a servlet web application, the following stores can be auto-configured:
-
JDBC
-
Redis
-
Hazelcast
-
MongoDB
Additionally, Spring Boot for Apache Geode provides auto-configuration for using Apache Geode as a session store.
The servlet auto-configuration replaces the need to use @Enable*HttpSession
.
When building a reactive web application, the following stores can be auto-configured:
-
Redis
-
MongoDB
The reactive auto-configuration replaces the need to use @Enable*WebSession
.
If a single Spring Session module is present on the classpath, Spring Boot uses that store implementation automatically.
If you have more than one implementation, you must choose the StoreType
that you wish to use to store the sessions.
For instance, to use JDBC as the back-end store, you can configure your application as follows:
spring.session.store-type=jdbc
spring:
session:
store-type: "jdbc"
You can disable Spring Session by setting the store-type to none .
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Each store has specific additional settings. For instance, it is possible to customize the name of the table for the JDBC store, as shown in the following example:
spring.session.jdbc.table-name=SESSIONS
spring:
session:
jdbc:
table-name: "SESSIONS"
For setting the timeout of the session you can use the spring.session.timeout
property.
If that property is not set with a servlet web application, the auto-configuration falls back to the value of server.servlet.session.timeout
.
You can take control over Spring Session’s configuration using @Enable*HttpSession
(servlet) or @Enable*WebSession
(reactive).
This will cause the auto-configuration to back off.
Spring Session can then be configured using the annotation’s attributes rather than the previously described configuration properties.
6. Spring HATEOAS
If you develop a RESTful API that makes use of hypermedia, Spring Boot provides auto-configuration for Spring HATEOAS that works well with most applications.
The auto-configuration replaces the need to use @EnableHypermediaSupport
and registers a number of beans to ease building hypermedia-based applications, including a LinkDiscoverers
(for client side support) and an ObjectMapper
configured to correctly marshal responses into the desired representation.
The ObjectMapper
is customized by setting the various spring.jackson.*
properties or, if one exists, by a Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder
bean.
You can take control of Spring HATEOAS’s configuration by using @EnableHypermediaSupport
.
Note that doing so disables the ObjectMapper
customization described earlier.
spring-boot-starter-hateoas is specific to Spring MVC and should not be combined with Spring WebFlux.
In order to use Spring HATEOAS with Spring WebFlux, you can add a direct dependency on org.springframework.hateoas:spring-hateoas along with spring-boot-starter-webflux .
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7. What to Read Next
You should now have a good understanding of how to develop web applications with Spring Boot. The next few sections describe how Spring Boot integrates with various data technologies, messaging systems, and other IO capabilities. You can pick any of these based on your application’s needs.