Contents

Overview

JSON Web Tokens (JWT) are an open, industry standard (RFC 7519) method for representing claims securely between two parties.

JWT defines a compact and self-contained way for securely transmitting information between parties as a JSON object. With JWT Auth you can integrate security features such as single sign on into your Helidon MP applications.

Maven Coordinates

To enable JWT Authentication either add a dependency on the helidon-microprofile bundle or add the following dependency to your project’s pom.xml (see Managing Dependencies).

<dependency>
    <groupId>io.helidon.microprofile.jwt</groupId>
    <artifactId>helidon-microprofile-jwt-auth</artifactId>
</dependency>
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Usage

The main configuration point for JWT Auth is a JAX-RS Application class. As this class is discovered using CDI, it must have a bean defining annotation.

Minimal required setup is done using @LoginConfig(authMethod = "MP-JWT"):

@LoginConfig(authMethod = "MP-JWT")
@ApplicationScoped
public class ProtectedApplication extends Application{
}
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API

The following interfaces and annotations are used to work with JWT in Helidon MP:

  • JsonWebToken - an interface used in CDI beans (@RequestScoped) dependency injection to obtain the JWT of the currently executing caller.

  • @Claim - an annotation used by CDI bean (@RequestScoped) dependency injection to obtain individual claims from the caller’s JWT.

  • ClaimValue - a proxy interface used with @Claim annotation to оbtain the value of a claim by calling getValue().

Configuration

Configuration Options

MicroProfile configuration options:

keytypedefault valuedescription
mp.jwt.verify.publickeystring The property allows the Public Verification Key text itself to be supplied as a string.
mp.jwt.verify.publickey.locationstring The property allows for an external or internal location of Public Verification Key to be specified. The value may be a relative path or a URL.
mp.jwt.verify.publickey.algorithmstring The configuration property allows for specifying which Public Key Signature Algorithm is supported by the MP JWT endpoint. This property can be set to either RS256 or ES256. Default value is RS256. Support for the other asymmetric signature algorithms such as RS512, ES512 and others is optional.

Optional configuration options:

keytypedefault valuedescription
optionalbooleanfalseIf set to true, failure to authenticate will return ABSTAIN result instead of FAILURE. This is an important distinction when more than one provider is used
authenticatebooleantrueWhether to attempt authentication
propagatebooleantrueWhether to attempt identity propagation/JWT creation
principal-typestringUSERWhether we authenticate a user or a service (other option is SERVICE)
atn-tokenstringA group for configuring authentication of the request
atn-token.verify-signaturebooleantrueWhether to verify signature in incoming JWT. If disabled, ANY JWT will be accepted
atn-token.jwt-audiencestring Expected audience of the JWT. If not defined, any audience is accepted (and we may accept JWT not inteded for us)
atn-token.jwk.resource.*string Configuration of the JWK to obtain key(s) to validate signatures of inbound token. The JWK should contain public keys. This may be: jwk.resource.path, jwk.resource.resource-path, jwk.resource.url, jwk.resource.content-plain (actual JSON string), jwk.resource.content (base64)
atn-token.handlerstringAuthorization header with `bearer ` prefixA handler configuration for inbound token - e.g. how to extract it
atn-token.handler.headerstring Name of a header the token is expected in
atn-token.handler.prefixstring Prefix before the token value (optional)
atn-token.handler.regexpstring Regular expression to obtain the token, first matching group is used (optional)
sign-tokenstring A group for configuring outbound security
sign-token.jwk.resource.*string Configuration of the JWK to use when generating tokens (follows same rules as atn-token.jwk above), this JWK must contain private keys when using asymmetric ciphers
sign-token.jwt-issuerstring When we issue a new token, this is the issuer to be placed into it (validated by target service)
sign-token.outboundstring A group for configuring outbound rules (based on transport, host and.or path)
sign-token.outbound.*.namestring A short descriptive name for configured target service(s)
sign-token.outbound.*.transportsstringanyAn array of transports this outbound matches (e.g. https)
sign-token.outbound.*.hostsstringanyAn array of hosts this outbound matches, may use * as a wild-card (e.g. *.oracle.com)
sign-token.outbound.*.pathsstringanyAn array of paths on the host this outbound matches, may use * as a wild-card (e.g. /some/path/*)
sign-token.outbound.*.outbound-tokenstringAuthorization header with `bearer ` prefixConfiguration of outbound token handler (same as atn-token.handler)
sign-token.outbound.*.outbound-token.formatstring Java text format for generating the value of outbound token header (e.g. "bearer %1$s")
sign-token.outbound.*.jwk-kidstring If this key is defined, we are generating a new token, otherwise we propagate existing. Defines the key id of a key definition in the JWK file to use for signing the outbound token
sign-token.outbound.*.jwt-kidstring A key to use in the generated JWT - this is for the other service to locate the verification key in their JWK
sign-token.outbound.*.jwt-audiencestring Audience this key is generated for (e.g. http://www.example.org/api/myService) - validated by the other service
sign-token.outbound.*.jwt-not-before-secondsstring5Makes this key valid this amount of seconds into the past. Allows a certain time-skew for the generated token to be valid before current time (e.g. when we expect a certain misalignment of clocks)
sign-token.outbound.*.jwt-validity-secondsstring1 dayToken validity in seconds

A configuration example in microprofile-config.properties:

mp.jwt.verify.issuer=https://{PublicIssuerDomain}/oauth2/default
mp.jwt.verify.publickey.location=${mp.jwt.verify.issuer}/v1/keys
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Examples

@Path("/hello")
public class HelloResource {

    @GET
    @Produces(TEXT_PLAIN)
    public String hello(@Context SecurityContext context) {
        Optional<Principal> userPrincipal = context.userPrincipal();
        return "Hello, " + userPrincipal.get().getName() + "!";
    }
}
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Do not forget to annotate the HelloApplication class to enable JWT:

@LoginConfig(authMethod = "MP-JWT")
@ApplicationScoped
public class HelloApplication extends Application {

    @Override
    public Set<Class<?>> getClasses() {
        return Set.of(HelloResource.class);
    }
}
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Add the following configuration in microprofile-config.properties:

mp.jwt.verify.issuer=https://{IssuerPublicDomain}/oauth2/default
mp.jwt.verify.publickey.location=${mp.jwt.verify.issuer}/v1/keys
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Obtain the Security Token from external issuer:

TOKEN=sdf4dDSWFcswdsffDSasEgv...
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Run the application and execute an HTTP request against it:

curl -X GET -I -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" http://localhost:8080/hello
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The result should be:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: 08.06.2022 10:33:47 EEST
connection: keep-alive
content-length: 28

Hello, secure@helidon.io!
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which means that the request successfully passed authentication.

Additional Information

Learn more about JWT authentication at:
Eclipse MicroProfile Interoperable JWT RBAC

Reference