Spring security ajax login in Grails
Posted By : Akash Sharma | 25-Aug-2013
In this blog I am going to share ajaxified login of spring security in grails.
I also want to describe some basic features of spring security that how it internally works while a user tries to login.
Before going forward I suppose that you already have spring security configured with your grails project if not use this .
By default the login page of application is rendered through /login/auth.
When a user tries to submit username and password on login page, it hits a filter j_spring_security_check. This filter validates the username and password.If user is valid then a redirect to /login/ajaxSuccess occurs (this URL is configurable) else a redirect to /login/authfail occurs (this URL is configurable).
By configuring url mapping we can configure a redirect to some other page of application when a user validates successfully.But when a user is invalid then user is redirected to /login/authfail action with some login_error and it again redirects to /login/auth?login_error=1 .The error message can be varied from the type of validation error.
Now I am going to discuss how can we ajaxify this invalidation of user and not refreshing the whole page.
In simple terms I am going to hit an ajax call to j_spring_security_check filter and depending on its response I will do appropriate actions.
For making things simple, I have created a new action as “authenticateUser” in login controller and corresponding view “authenticateUser.gsp”.
The code for my custom action
def authenticateUser={
def config = SpringSecurityUtils.securityConfig
if (springSecurityService.isLoggedIn()) {
redirect uri: config.successHandler.defaultTargetUrl
return
}
String view = 'authenticateUser'
String postUrl = "${request.contextPath}${config.apf.filterProcessesUrl}"
render view: view, model: [postUrl: postUrl,
rememberMeParameter: config.rememberMe.parameter]
}
This is just the copy of /login/auth action.I needed this code because I want to get the url of j_spring_security_check filter.
The corresponding view for authenticateUser.gsp
<head>
<script type="text/javascript" src="${resource(dir: 'js', file: 'jquery-1.8.3.js')}"></script>
</head>
<div id='ajaxLogin'>
<form method='POST' id='ajaxLoginForm' name='ajaxLoginForm' >
<p>
<label for='username'>UserName</label>
<input type='text' name='j_username' id='username' />
</p>
<p>
<label for='password'>Password</label>
<input type='password' name='j_password' id='password' />
</p>
<p>
<label for='remember_me'>Remember me</label>
<input type='checkbox' id='remember_me' name='_spring_security_remember_me'/>
</p>
<p>
<input type="button" onclick='authAjax(); return false;' value="login" />
</p>
</form>
<div id='errorLoginMsg'></div>
</div>
<script type='text/javascript'>
function authAjax()
{
var formdata = $('#ajaxLoginForm').serialize();
var dataUrl = "${postUrl}"
jQuery.ajax({
type : 'POST',
url : dataUrl ,
data : formdata,
success : function(response,textStatus)
{
emptyForm();
if(response.success)
{
var redirectUrl="${ createLink(action:'blogList' ,controller:'blog') }";
window.location.assign(redirectUrl);
}
else
{
$('#errorLoginMsg').html(response.error);
}
},
error : function(
XMLHttpRequest,
textStatus,
errorThrown) {
}
});
}
function emptyForm()
{
$('#username').val('');
$('#password').val('');
$('#remember_me').val('');
}
</script>
How does it work:
After hitting ajax call to filter, if user is valid,we get a response in json form with two values.A boolean parameter name success with value true and a string parameter name username with the name of the logged in user.This response got from action ajaxSuccess.
If user is not valid then the response is in json form having a parameter name error with the value as type of error occurred while login.This response got from action authfail.
Both ajaxSuccess and authfail actions are configurable.
In my custom gsp I redirected the page to /blog/blogList which is home page of logged in user in my application.You can configure this part on the basis of your requirement.
Akash Sharma
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About Author
Akash Sharma
Akash is a bright Groovy and Grails developer and have worked on development of various SaaS applications using Grails technologies. Akash loves playing Cricket and Tennis