This version is still in development and is not considered stable yet. For the latest stable version, please use Spring Security 6.4.2!

Project Modules and Dependencies

Even if you do not use Maven, we recommend that you consult the pom.xml files to get an idea of third-party dependencies and versions. Another good idea is to examine the libraries that are included in the sample applications.

This section provides a reference of the modules in Spring Security and the additional dependencies that they require in order to function in a running application. We don’t include dependencies that are only used when building or testing Spring Security itself. Nor do we include transitive dependencies which are required by external dependencies.

The version of Spring required is listed on the project website, so the specific versions are omitted for Spring dependencies below. Note that some of the dependencies listed as "optional" below may still be required for other non-security functionality in a Spring application. Also dependencies listed as "optional" may not actually be marked as such in the project’s Maven POM files if they are used in most applications. They are "optional" only in the sense that you don’t need them unless you are using the specified functionality.

Where a module depends on another Spring Security module, the non-optional dependencies of the module it depends on are also assumed to be required and are not listed separately.

Core — spring-security-core.jar

This module contains core authentication and access-control classes and interfaces, remoting support, and basic provisioning APIs. It is required by any application that uses Spring Security. It supports standalone applications, remote clients, method (service layer) security, and JDBC user provisioning. It contains the following top-level packages:

  • org.springframework.security.core

  • org.springframework.security.access

  • org.springframework.security.authentication

  • org.springframework.security.provisioning

Table 1. Core Dependencies
Dependency Version Description

ehcache

1.6.2

Required if the Ehcache-based user cache implementation is used (optional).

spring-aop

Method security is based on Spring AOP

spring-beans

Required for Spring configuration

spring-expression

Required for expression-based method security (optional)

spring-jdbc

Required if using a database to store user data (optional).

spring-tx

Required if using a database to store user data (optional).

aspectjrt

1.6.10

Required if using AspectJ support (optional).

jsr250-api

1.0

Required if you are using JSR-250 method-security annotations (optional).

Remoting — spring-security-remoting.jar

This module provides integration with Spring Remoting. You do not need this unless you are writing a remote client that uses Spring Remoting. The main package is org.springframework.security.remoting.

Table 2. Remoting Dependencies
Dependency Version Description

spring-security-core

spring-web

Required for clients which use HTTP remoting support.

Web — spring-security-web.jar

This module contains filters and related web-security infrastructure code. It contains anything with a servlet API dependency. You need it if you require Spring Security web authentication services and URL-based access-control. The main package is org.springframework.security.web.

Table 3. Web Dependencies
Dependency Version Description

spring-security-core

spring-web

Spring web support classes are used extensively.

spring-jdbc

Required for JDBC-based persistent remember-me token repository (optional).

spring-tx

Required by remember-me persistent token repository implementations (optional).

Config — spring-security-config.jar

This module contains the security namespace parsing code and Java configuration code. You need it if you use the Spring Security XML namespace for configuration or Spring Security’s Java Configuration support. The main package is org.springframework.security.config. None of the classes are intended for direct use in an application.

Table 4. Config Dependencies
Dependency Version Description

spring-security-core

spring-security-web

Required if you are using any web-related namespace configuration (optional).

spring-security-ldap

Required if you are using the LDAP namespace options (optional).

spring-security-openid

Required if you are using OpenID authentication (optional).

aspectjweaver

1.6.10

Required if using the protect-pointcut namespace syntax (optional).

LDAP — spring-security-ldap.jar

This module provides LDAP authentication and provisioning code. It is required if you need to use LDAP authentication or manage LDAP user entries. The top-level package is org.springframework.security.ldap.

Table 5. LDAP Dependencies
Dependency Version Description

spring-security-core

spring-ldap-core

1.3.0

LDAP support is based on Spring LDAP.

spring-tx

Data exception classes are required.

apache-ds [1]

1.5.5

Required if you are using an embedded LDAP server (optional).

shared-ldap

0.9.15

Required if you are using an embedded LDAP server (optional).

ldapsdk

4.1

Mozilla LdapSDK. Used for decoding LDAP password policy controls if you are using password-policy functionality with OpenLDAP, for example.

OAuth 2.0 Core — spring-security-oauth2-core.jar

spring-security-oauth2-core.jar contains core classes and interfaces that provide support for the OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework and for OpenID Connect Core 1.0. It is required by applications that use OAuth 2.0 or OpenID Connect Core 1.0, such as client, resource server, and authorization server. The top-level package is org.springframework.security.oauth2.core.

OAuth 2.0 Client — spring-security-oauth2-client.jar

spring-security-oauth2-client.jar contains Spring Security’s client support for OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework and OpenID Connect Core 1.0. It is required by applications that use OAuth 2.0 Login or OAuth Client support. The top-level package is org.springframework.security.oauth2.client.

OAuth 2.0 JOSE — spring-security-oauth2-jose.jar

spring-security-oauth2-jose.jar contains Spring Security’s support for the JOSE (Javascript Object Signing and Encryption) framework. The JOSE framework is intended to provide a method to securely transfer claims between parties. It is built from a collection of specifications:

  • JSON Web Token (JWT)

  • JSON Web Signature (JWS)

  • JSON Web Encryption (JWE)

  • JSON Web Key (JWK)

It contains the following top-level packages:

  • org.springframework.security.oauth2.jwt

  • org.springframework.security.oauth2.jose

OAuth 2.0 Resource Server — spring-security-oauth2-resource-server.jar

spring-security-oauth2-resource-server.jar contains Spring Security’s support for OAuth 2.0 Resource Servers. It is used to protect APIs via OAuth 2.0 Bearer Tokens. The top-level package is org.springframework.security.oauth2.server.resource.

ACL — spring-security-acl.jar

This module contains a specialized domain object ACL implementation. It is used to apply security to specific domain object instances within your application. The top-level package is org.springframework.security.acls.

Table 6. ACL Dependencies
Dependency Version Description

spring-security-core

ehcache

1.6.2

Required if the Ehcache-based ACL cache implementation is used (optional if you are using your own implementation).

spring-jdbc

Required if you are using the default JDBC-based AclService (optional if you implement your own).

spring-tx

Required if you are using the default JDBC-based AclService (optional if you implement your own).

CAS — spring-security-cas.jar

This module contains Spring Security’s CAS client integration. You should use it if you want to use Spring Security web authentication with a CAS single sign-on server. The top-level package is org.springframework.security.cas.

Table 7. CAS Dependencies
Dependency Version Description

spring-security-core

spring-security-web

cas-client-core

3.1.12

The JA-SIG CAS Client. This is the basis of the Spring Security integration.

ehcache

1.6.2

Required if you are using the Ehcache-based ticket cache (optional).

OpenID — spring-security-openid.jar

The OpenID 1.0 and 2.0 protocols have been deprecated and users are encouraged to migrate to OpenID Connect, which is supported by spring-security-oauth2.

This module contains OpenID web authentication support. It is used to authenticate users against an external OpenID server. The top-level package is org.springframework.security.openid. It requires OpenID4Java.

Table 8. OpenID Dependencies
Dependency Version Description

spring-security-core

spring-security-web

openid4java-nodeps

0.9.6

Spring Security’s OpenID integration uses OpenID4Java.

httpclient

4.1.1

openid4java-nodeps depends on HttpClient 4.

guice

2.0

openid4java-nodeps depends on Guice 2.

Test — spring-security-test.jar

This module contains support for testing with Spring Security.

Taglibs — spring-security-taglibs.jar

Provides Spring Security’s JSP tag implementations.

Table 9. Taglib Dependencies
Dependency Version Description

spring-security-core

spring-security-web

spring-security-acl

Required if you are using the accesscontrollist tag or hasPermission() expressions with ACLs (optional).

spring-expression

Required if you are using SPEL expressions in your tag access constraints.
1. The modules apacheds-core, apacheds-core-entry, apacheds-protocol-shared, apacheds-protocol-ldap and apacheds-server-jndi are required.