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Integrating Apache Shiro into Spring-based Applications

Handy Hint
Shiro v1 version notice

As of February 28, 2024, Shiro v1 was superseded by v2.
Table of Contents

This page covers the ways to integrate Shiro into Spring-based applications.

Standalone Applications

Include the Shiro Spring dependency in you application classpath (we recommend using a tool such as Apache Maven or Gradle to manage this).

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.shiro</groupId>
  <artifactId>shiro-spring</artifactId>
  <version>2.0.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
  <version>${spring.version}</version>
</dependency>

compile 'org.apache.shiro:shiro-spring:2.0.2'
compile 'org.springframework:spring-context:${spring.version}'

libraryDependencies += "org.apache.shiro" % "shiro-spring" % "2.0.2"
libraryDependencies += "org.springframework" % "spring-context" % "${spring.version}"

<dependency org="org.apache.shiro" name="shiro-spring" rev="2.0.2"/>
<dependency org="org.springframework" name="spring-context" rev="${spring.version}"/>

[org.apache.shiro/shiro-spring "2.0.2"]
[org.springframework/spring-context "${spring.version}"]

'org.apache.shiro:shiro-spring:jar:2.0.2'
'org.springframework:spring-context:jar:${spring.version}'

Import the Shiro Spring configurations:

@Configuration
@Import({ShiroBeanConfiguration.class,
         ShiroConfiguration.class,
         ShiroAnnotationProcessorConfiguration.class})
public class CliAppConfig {
   ...
}

The above configurations do the following:

Configuration Class Description

org.apache.shiro.spring.config.ShiroBeanConfiguration

Configures Shiro’s lifecycle and events

org.apache.shiro.spring.config.ShiroConfiguration

Configures Shiro Beans (SecurityManager, SessionManager, etc)

org.apache.shiro.spring.config.ShiroAnnotationProcessorConfiguration

Enables Shiro’s annotation processing

The only thing that is left is to configure a realm:

@Bean
public Realm realm() {
  ...
}

The easiest way to set up Shiro, so that all SecurityUtils.* methods work in all cases, is to make the SecurityManager bean a static singleton. DO NOT do this in web applications - see the Web Applications section below instead.

@Autowired
private SecurityManager securityManager;

 @PostConstruct
 private void initStaticSecurityManager() {
     SecurityUtils.setSecurityManager(securityManager);
 }

That is it, now you can get the current Subject using:

SecurityUtils.getSubject();

You can see a full example in our samples on GitHub.

Web Applications

Shiro has first-class support for Spring web applications. In a web application, all Shiro-accessible web requests must go through a main Shiro Filter. This filter itself is extremely powerful, allowing for ad-hoc custom filter chains to be executed based on any URL path expression.

Include the Shiro Spring web dependencies in you application classpath (we recommend using a tool such as Apache Maven or Gradle to manage this).

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.shiro</groupId>
  <artifactId>shiro-spring</artifactId>
  <version>2.0.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.shiro</groupId>
  <artifactId>shiro-web</artifactId>
  <version>2.0.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
  <version>${spring.version}</version>
</dependency>

compile 'org.apache.shiro:shiro-spring:2.0.2'
compile 'org.apache.shiro:shiro-web:2.0.2'
compile 'org.springframework:spring-webmvc:${spring.version}'

libraryDependencies += "org.apache.shiro" % "shiro-spring" % "2.0.2"
libraryDependencies += "org.apache.shiro" % "shiro-web" % "2.0.2"
libraryDependencies += "org.springframework" % "spring-webmvc" % "${spring.version}"

<dependency org="org.apache.shiro" name="shiro-spring" rev="2.0.2"/>
<dependency org="org.apache.shiro" name="shiro-web" rev="2.0.2"/>
<dependency org="org.springframework" name="spring-webmvc" rev="${spring.version}"/>

[org.apache.shiro/shiro-spring "2.0.2"]
[org.apache.shiro/shiro-web "2.0.2"]
[org.springframework/spring-webmvc "${spring.version}"]

'org.apache.shiro:shiro-spring:jar:2.0.2'
'org.apache.shiro:shiro-web:jar:2.0.2'
'org.springframework:spring-webmvc:jar:${spring.version}'

Import the Shiro Spring configurations:

@Configuration
@Import({ShiroBeanConfiguration.class,
        ShiroAnnotationProcessorConfiguration.class,
        ShiroWebConfiguration.class,
        ShiroWebFilterConfiguration.class,
        ShiroRequestMappingConfig.class})
public class ApplicationConfig {
  ...
}

The above configurations do the following:

Configuration Class Description

org.apache.shiro.spring.config.ShiroBeanConfiguration

Configures Shiro’s lifecycle and events

org.apache.shiro.spring.config.ShiroAnnotationProcessorConfiguration

Enables Shiro’s annotation processing

org.apache.shiro.spring.web.config.ShiroWebConfiguration

Configures Shiro Beans for web usage (SecurityManager, SessionManager, etc)

org.apache.shiro.spring.web.config.ShiroWebFilterConfiguration

Configures Shiro’s web filter

org.apache.shiro.spring.web.config.ShiroRequestMappingConfig

Configures Spring with Shiro’s UrlPathHelper implementation to ensure URLs are processed the same both frameworks

Provide a Realm implementation:

@Bean
public Realm realm() {
  ...
}

And finally a ShiroFilterChainDefinition which will map any application specific paths to a given filter, in order to allow different paths different levels of access.

@Bean
public ShiroFilterChainDefinition shiroFilterChainDefinition() {
    DefaultShiroFilterChainDefinition chainDefinition = new DefaultShiroFilterChainDefinition();

    // logged in users with the 'admin' role
    chainDefinition.addPathDefinition("/admin/**", "authc, roles[admin]");

    // logged in users with the 'document:read' permission
    chainDefinition.addPathDefinition("/docs/**", "authc, perms[document:read]");

    // all other paths require a logged in user
    chainDefinition.addPathDefinition("/**", "authc");
    return chainDefinition;
}

If you are using Shiro’s annotations see the annotation section below.

You can see a full example in our samples on GitHub.

Enabling Shiro Annotations

In both standalone and web applications, you might want to use Shiro’s Annotations for security checks (for example, @RequiresRoles, @RequiresPermissions, etc.) These annotations are enabled by importing the ShiroAnnotationProcessorConfiguration Spring configuration in both sections above.

Simply annotate your methods in order to use them:

@RequiresPermissions("document:read")
public void readDocument() {
    ...
}

Annotations and Web Applications

Shiro annotations are fully supported for use in @Controller classes, for example:

@Controller
public class AccountInfoController {

    @RequiresRoles("admin")
    @RequestMapping("/admin/config")
    public String adminConfig(Model model) {
        return "view";
    }
}

A ShiroFilterChainDefinition bean with at least one definition is still required for this to work, either configure all paths to be accessible via the anon filter or a filter in 'permissive' mode, for example: authcBasic[permissive].

@Bean
public ShiroFilterChainDefinition shiroFilterChainDefinition() {
    DefaultShiroFilterChainDefinition chainDefinition = new DefaultShiroFilterChainDefinition();
    chainDefinition.addPathDefinition("/**", "anon"); // all paths are managed via annotations

    // or allow basic authentication, but NOT require it.
    // chainDefinition.addPathDefinition("/**", "authcBasic[permissive]");
    return chainDefinition;
}

Caching

Enabling caching is as simple as providing a CacheManager bean:

@Bean
protected CacheManager cacheManager() {
    return new MemoryConstrainedCacheManager();
}

Configuration Properties

Key Default Value Description

shiro.sessionManager.deleteInvalidSessions

true

Remove invalid session from session storage

shiro.sessionManager.sessionIdCookieEnabled

true

Enable session ID to cookie, for session tracking

shiro.sessionManager.sessionIdUrlRewritingEnabled

true

Enable session URL rewriting support

shiro.userNativeSessionManager

false

If enabled Shiro will manage the HTTP sessions instead of the container

shiro.sessionManager.cookie.name

JSESSIONID

Session cookie name

shiro.sessionManager.cookie.maxAge

-1

Session cookie max age

shiro.sessionManager.cookie.domain

null

Session cookie domain

shiro.sessionManager.cookie.path

null

Session cookie path

shiro.sessionManager.cookie.secure

false

Session cookie secure flag

shiro.rememberMeManager.cookie.name

rememberMe

RememberMe cookie name

shiro.rememberMeManager.cookie.maxAge

one year

RememberMe cookie max age

shiro.rememberMeManager.cookie.domain

null

RememberMe cookie domain

shiro.rememberMeManager.cookie.path

null

RememberMe cookie path

shiro.rememberMeManager.cookie.secure

false

RememberMe cookie secure flag

shiro.loginUrl

/login.jsp

Login URL used when unauthenticated users are redirected to login page

shiro.successUrl

/

Default landing page after a user logs in (if alternative cannot be found in the current session)

shiro.unauthorizedUrl

null

Page to redirect user to if they are unauthorized (403 page)