How to design a good JWT authentication filter

Question

I am new to JWT. There isn't much information available in the web, since I came here as a last resort. I already developed a spring boot application using spring security using spring session. Now instead of spring session we are moving to JWT. I found few links and now I can able to authenticate a user and generate token. Now the difficult part is, I want to create a filter which will be authenticate every request to the server,

1. How will the filter validate the token? (Just validating the signature is enough?)
2. If someone else stolen the token and make rest call, how will I verify that.
3. How will I by-pass the login request in the filter? Since it doesn't have authorization header.

Answer 1

Here is a filter that can do what you need :

public class JWTFilter extends GenericFilterBean {

    private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(JWTFilter.class);

    private final TokenProvider tokenProvider;

    public JWTFilter(TokenProvider tokenProvider) {

        this.tokenProvider = tokenProvider;
    }

    @Override
    public void doFilter(ServletRequest servletRequest, ServletResponse servletResponse, FilterChain filterChain) throws IOException,
        ServletException {

        try {
            HttpServletRequest httpServletRequest = (HttpServletRequest) servletRequest;
            String jwt = this.resolveToken(httpServletRequest);
            if (StringUtils.hasText(jwt)) {
                if (this.tokenProvider.validateToken(jwt)) {
                    Authentication authentication = this.tokenProvider.getAuthentication(jwt);
                    SecurityContextHolder.getContext().setAuthentication(authentication);
                }
            }
            filterChain.doFilter(servletRequest, servletResponse);

            this.resetAuthenticationAfterRequest();
        } catch (ExpiredJwtException eje) {
            LOGGER.info("Security exception for user {} - {}", eje.getClaims().getSubject(), eje.getMessage());
            ((HttpServletResponse) servletResponse).setStatus(HttpServletResponse.SC_UNAUTHORIZED);
            LOGGER.debug("Exception " + eje.getMessage(), eje);
        }
    }

    private void resetAuthenticationAfterRequest() {
        SecurityContextHolder.getContext().setAuthentication(null);
    }

    private String resolveToken(HttpServletRequest request) {

        String bearerToken = request.getHeader(SecurityConfiguration.AUTHORIZATION_HEADER);
        if (StringUtils.hasText(bearerToken) && bearerToken.startsWith("Bearer ")) {
            String jwt = bearerToken.substring(7, bearerToken.length());
            return jwt;
        }
        return null;
    }
}

And the inclusion of the filter in the filter chain :

public class SecurityConfiguration extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {

    public final static String AUTHORIZATION_HEADER = "Authorization";

    @Autowired
    private TokenProvider tokenProvider;

    @Autowired
    private AuthenticationProvider authenticationProvider;

    @Override
    protected void configure(AuthenticationManagerBuilder auth) throws Exception {
        auth.authenticationProvider(this.authenticationProvider);
    }

    @Override
    protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {

        JWTFilter customFilter = new JWTFilter(this.tokenProvider);
        http.addFilterBefore(customFilter, UsernamePasswordAuthenticationFilter.class);

        // @formatter:off
        http.authorizeRequests().antMatchers("/css/**").permitAll()
        .antMatchers("/images/**").permitAll()
        .antMatchers("/js/**").permitAll()
        .antMatchers("/authenticate").permitAll()
        .anyRequest().fullyAuthenticated()
        .and().formLogin().loginPage("/login").failureUrl("/login?error").permitAll()
        .and().logout().permitAll();
        // @formatter:on
        http.csrf().disable();

    }
}

The TokenProvider class :

public class TokenProvider {

    private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(TokenProvider.class);

    private static final String AUTHORITIES_KEY = "auth";

    @Value("${spring.security.authentication.jwt.validity}")
    private long tokenValidityInMilliSeconds;

    @Value("${spring.security.authentication.jwt.secret}")
    private String secretKey;

    public String createToken(Authentication authentication) {

        String authorities = authentication.getAuthorities().stream().map(authority -> authority.getAuthority()).collect(Collectors.joining(","));

        ZonedDateTime now = ZonedDateTime.now();
        ZonedDateTime expirationDateTime = now.plus(this.tokenValidityInMilliSeconds, ChronoUnit.MILLIS);

        Date issueDate = Date.from(now.toInstant());
        Date expirationDate = Date.from(expirationDateTime.toInstant());

        return Jwts.builder().setSubject(authentication.getName()).claim(AUTHORITIES_KEY, authorities)
                    .signWith(SignatureAlgorithm.HS512, this.secretKey).setIssuedAt(issueDate).setExpiration(expirationDate).compact();
    }

    public Authentication getAuthentication(String token) {

        Claims claims = Jwts.parser().setSigningKey(this.secretKey).parseClaimsJws(token).getBody();

        Collection<? extends GrantedAuthority> authorities = Arrays.asList(claims.get(AUTHORITIES_KEY).toString().split(",")).stream()
                    .map(authority -> new SimpleGrantedAuthority(authority)).collect(Collectors.toList());

        User principal = new User(claims.getSubject(), "", authorities);

        return new UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken(principal, "", authorities);
    }

    public boolean validateToken(String authToken) {

        try {
            Jwts.parser().setSigningKey(this.secretKey).parseClaimsJws(authToken);
            return true;
        } catch (SignatureException e) {
            LOGGER.info("Invalid JWT signature: " + e.getMessage());
            LOGGER.debug("Exception " + e.getMessage(), e);
            return false;
        }
    }
}

Now to answer your questions :

1. Done in this filter
2. Protect your HTTP request, use HTTPS
3. Just permit all on the /login URI (/authenticate in my code)