Basic authentication for REST API using spring restTemplate

Question

I am completely new in RestTemplate and basically in the REST APIs also. I want to retrieve some data in my application via Jira REST API, but getting back 401 Unauthorised. Found and article on jira rest api documentation but don't really know how to rewrite this into java as the example uses the command line way with curl. I would appreciate any suggestion or advice how to rewrite:

curl -D- -X GET -H "Authorization: Basic ZnJlZDpmcmVk" -H "Content-Type: application/json" "http://kelpie9:8081/rest/api/2/issue/QA-31"

into java using spring rest template. Where the ZnJlZDpmcmVk is a base64 encoded string of username:password. Thank you very much.

See also http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9376549/resttemplate-basic-or-digest-authentication-with-the-current-httpclient-4-x — Raedwald, Jul 30 '14 at 11:19
curl supports authentication out of the box, you just need to tell it username and passoword `curl -u fred:fred`, no need for clunky manual headers. The same goes for Spring. — divanov, Sep 18 '14 at 08:28

score 163 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 06 '17 at 18:59

163

Taken from the example on this site, I think this would be the most natural way of doing it, by filling in the header value and passing the header to the template.

This is to fill in the header Authorization:

String plainCreds = "willie:p@ssword";
byte[] plainCredsBytes = plainCreds.getBytes();
byte[] base64CredsBytes = Base64.encodeBase64(plainCredsBytes);
String base64Creds = new String(base64CredsBytes);

HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
headers.add("Authorization", "Basic " + base64Creds);

And this is to pass the header to the REST template:

HttpEntity<String> request = new HttpEntity<String>(headers);
ResponseEntity<Account> response = restTemplate.exchange(url, HttpMethod.GET, request, Account.class);
Account account = response.getBody();

edited Apr 06 '17 at 18:59

Eddie

8,370
3
41
54

answered Feb 20 '14 at 21:50

Angular University

38,399
15
70
79

1

Thanks - this worked for me. I had to point out that if you do not want to use the org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64 class and you would like to use the android Base64 class instead: import android.util.Base64;, you can replace the one line above with this: byte[] base64CredsBytes = Base64.encode(plainCredsBytes, Base64.DEFAULT); – Simon May 17 '15 at 19:09
@jhadesdev Hi, this worked for me when performing a GET request. Though it fails giving a 403 when in post. Can you help me? – Stefano Cazzola Jul 02 '15 at 22:16
8

java 8 you can use Base64.getMimeEncoder().encodeToString() – Matt Broekhuis Jan 02 '17 at 19:10

Alex · Answer 2 · 2018-12-14T10:22:29.503

102

You may use spring-boot RestTemplateBuilder

@Bean
RestOperations rest(RestTemplateBuilder restTemplateBuilder) {
    return restTemplateBuilder.basicAuthentication("user", "password").build();
}

See documentation

(before SB 2.1.0 it was #basicAuthorization)

edited Dec 14 '18 at 10:22

answered Jun 05 '17 at 13:48

Alex

1,812
1
15
12

1

You saved my day. Thanks a lot. – riccardo.cardin Nov 13 '17 at 13:31
4

Thanks! This is the fastest and easiest way. – Rajkishan Swami Jan 18 '18 at 13:35
1

Yes. this is the fastest way. No additional dependencies are required. – Janath Jun 06 '18 at 11:07
3

@deprecated since 2.1.0 in favor of #basicAuthentication(String username, String password) – rjdkolb Dec 13 '18 at 08:32
2

It is not a good solution as it would add an authorization header to each and every request sent through `RestTemplate`. – attacomsian Sep 21 '19 at 12:45

score 24 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 15 '18 at 11:11

24

(maybe) the easiest way without importing spring-boot.

restTemplate.getInterceptors().add(new BasicAuthorizationInterceptor("user", "password"));

answered Mar 15 '18 at 11:11

Leon

2,632
20
34

4

Beware that using interceptors has a consequence that streaming no longer works. Here's why: `exchange()` -> `doExecute()`, -> `createRequest()`, -> `InterceptingHttpAccessor.getRequestFactory()` (since `RestTemplate` extends `InterceptingHttpAccessor`). If there are interceptors, `getRequestFactory()` returns an `InterceptingClientHttpRequestFactory`, which creates `InterceptingClientHttpRequest`s. These extend AbstractBufferingClientHttpRequest`, which converts the input stream to a byte[] (to hand off to the interceptors). So, an InputStream is not actually streamed. – mconner Apr 12 '19 at 19:27

score 21 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 20 '18 at 14:16

As of Spring 5.1 you can use HttpHeaders.setBasicAuth

Create Basic Authorization header:

String username = "willie";
String password = ":p@ssword";
HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
headers.setBasicAuth(username, password);
...other headers goes here...

Pass the headers to the RestTemplate:

HttpEntity<String> request = new HttpEntity<String>(headers);
ResponseEntity<Account> response = restTemplate.exchange(url, HttpMethod.GET, request, Account.class);
Account account = response.getBody();

Documentation: https://docs.spring.io/spring-framework/docs/current/javadoc-api/org/springframework/http/HttpHeaders.html#setBasicAuth-java.lang.String-java.lang.String-

score 18 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 21 '19 at 13:06

There are multiple ways to add the basic HTTP authentication to the RestTemplate.

1. For a single request

try {
    // request url
    String url = "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts";

    // create auth credentials
    String authStr = "username:password";
    String base64Creds = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(authStr.getBytes());

    // create headers
    HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
    headers.add("Authorization", "Basic " + base64Creds);

    // create request
    HttpEntity request = new HttpEntity(headers);

    // make a request
    ResponseEntity<String> response = new RestTemplate().exchange(url, HttpMethod.GET, request, String.class);

    // get JSON response
    String json = response.getBody();

} catch (Exception ex) {
    ex.printStackTrace();
}

If you are using Spring 5.1 or higher, it is no longer required to manually set the authorization header. Use headers.setBasicAuth() method instead:

// create headers
HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
headers.setBasicAuth("username", "password");

2. For a group of requests

@Service
public class RestService {

    private final RestTemplate restTemplate;

    public RestService(RestTemplateBuilder restTemplateBuilder) {
        this.restTemplate = restTemplateBuilder
                .basicAuthentication("username", "password")
                .build();
    }

   // use `restTemplate` instance here
}

3. For each and every request

@Bean
RestOperations restTemplateBuilder(RestTemplateBuilder restTemplateBuilder) {
    return restTemplateBuilder.basicAuthentication("username", "password").build();
}

I hope it helps!

Best answer. Each for it's kind. – Rishi Jan 06 '20 at 08:23 — Rishi, Jan 06 '20 at 08:23

Johnny Lim · Answer 6 · 2019-09-26T12:31:24.963

Reference Spring Boot's TestRestTemplate implementation as follows:

https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-boot/blob/v1.2.2.RELEASE/spring-boot/src/main/java/org/springframework/boot/test/TestRestTemplate.java

Especially, see the addAuthentication() method as follows:

private void addAuthentication(String username, String password) {
    if (username == null) {
        return;
    }
    List<ClientHttpRequestInterceptor> interceptors = Collections
            .<ClientHttpRequestInterceptor> singletonList(new BasicAuthorizationInterceptor(
                    username, password));
    setRequestFactory(new InterceptingClientHttpRequestFactory(getRequestFactory(),
            interceptors));
}

Similarly, you can make your own RestTemplate easily

by inheritance like TestRestTemplate as follows:

https://github.com/izeye/samples-spring-boot-branches/blob/rest-and-actuator-with-security/src/main/java/samples/springboot/util/BasicAuthRestTemplate.java

the first link leads to 404 – Zarremgregarrok Sep 25 '19 at 16:11 — Zarremgregarrok, Sep 25 '19 at 16:11

score 6 · Answer 7 · edited Jan 22 '16 at 13:33

6

Instead of instantiating as follows:

TestRestTemplate restTemplate = new TestRestTemplate();

Just do it like this:

TestRestTemplate restTemplate = new TestRestTemplate(user, password);

It works for me, I hope it helps!

edited Jan 22 '16 at 13:33

Geoffrey Wiseman

4,632
3
28
46

answered Jan 22 '16 at 13:14

Nidham

61
1
1

TestRestTemplate doesn't seem to working after upgrading spring boot to 1.3.x – Vivek Sethi May 10 '16 at 07:13
1

Isn't this supposed to be used for unit tests not release code? – David Bradley Aug 28 '19 at 11:59

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 10 '20 at 18:00

0

Use setBasicAuth to define credentials

HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
headers.setBasicAuth("myUsername", myPassword);

Then create the request like you prefer.

Example:

HttpEntity<String> request = new HttpEntity<String>(headers);
ResponseEntity<String> response = restTemplate.exchange(url, HttpMethod.GET, 
request, String.class);
String body = response.getBody();

answered Sep 10 '20 at 18:00

Clairton Luz

1,594
17
10

Dublicate of https://stackoverflow.com/a/53394971 answer – Grigory Kislin Sep 26 '20 at 16:04

Basic authentication for REST API using spring restTemplate

8 Answers8

1. For a single request

2. For a group of requests

3. For each and every request

Linked