Table of Contents

Secure a Micronaut application with Github

Learn how to create a Micronaut application and secure it with an Authorization Server provided by Github. Learn how to write your own Authentication Mapper.

Authors: Sergio del Amo

Micronaut Version: 4.6.3

1. Getting Started

In this guide, we will create a Micronaut application written in Java.

2. What you will need

To complete this guide, you will need the following:

3. Solution

We recommend that you follow the instructions in the next sections and create the application step by step. However, you can go right to the completed example.

4. Writing the Application

Create an application using the Micronaut Command Line Interface or with Micronaut Launch.

mn create-app example.micronaut.micronautguide \
    --features=yaml,views-thymeleaf,security-oauth2,security-jwt,reactor,serialization-jackson,http-client,graalvm \
    --build=gradle \
    --lang=java \
    --test=junit
If you don’t specify the --build argument, Gradle with the Kotlin DSL is used as the build tool.
If you don’t specify the --lang argument, Java is used as the language.
If you don’t specify the --test argument, JUnit is used for Java and Kotlin, and Spock is used for Groovy.

The previous command creates a Micronaut application with the default package example.micronaut in a directory named micronautguide.

If you use Micronaut Launch, select Micronaut Application as application type and add yaml, views-thymeleaf, security-oauth2, security-jwt, reactor, serialization-jackson, http-client, and graalvm features.

If you have an existing Micronaut application and want to add the functionality described here, you can view the dependency and configuration changes from the specified features, and apply those changes to your application.

Diff

Setup IntelliJ IDEA to develop Micronaut Applications.

4.1. Views

Although the Micronaut framework is primarily designed around message encoding / decoding, there are occasions where it is convenient to render a view on the server side.

We’ll use the Thymeleaf Java template engine to render views.

4.2. Home

Create a controller to handle the requests to /. You will display the email of the authenticated person if any. Annotate the controller endpoint with @View since we will use a Thymeleaf template.

src/main/java/example/micronaut/HomeController.java
package example.micronaut;

import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Controller;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Get;
import io.micronaut.security.annotation.Secured;
import io.micronaut.security.rules.SecurityRule;
import io.micronaut.views.View;

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

@Controller (1)
public class HomeController {

    @Secured(SecurityRule.IS_ANONYMOUS) (2)
    @View("home") (3)
    @Get (4)
    public Map<String, Object> index() {
        return new HashMap<>();
    }
}
1 The class is defined as a controller with the @Controller annotation mapped to the path /.
2 Annotate with io.micronaut.security.Secured to configure secured access. The SecurityRule.IS_ANONYMOUS expression will allow access without authentication.
3 Use View annotation to specify which template to use to render the response.
4 The @Get annotation maps the index method to GET / requests.

Create a Thymeleaf template:

src/main/resources/views/home.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns:th="http://www.thymeleaf.org">
<head>
    <title>Home</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Micronaut - Github example</h1>

<h2 th:if="${security}">username: <span th:text="${security.name}"> </h2>
<h2 th:unless="${security}">username: Anonymous</h2>

<nav>
    <ul>
        <li th:unless="${security}"><a href="/oauth/login/github">Enter</a></li>
        <li th:if="${security}"><a href="/repos">View Repos</a></li>
        <li th:if="${security}"><a href="/logout">Logout</a></li>
    </ul>
</nav>
</body>
</html>

Also, note that we return an empty model in the controller. However, we are accessing security in the Thymeleaf template.

4.3. GitHub OAuth App

To provide authentication, create a GitHub OAuth App.

github 1
github 2
github 3

4.4. OAuth 2.0 Configuration

Add the following OAuth2 Configuration:

Since Micronaut Framework 4.0, to use YAML configuration, you have to add the YAML dependency.
src/main/resources/application.yml
micronaut:
  security:
    authentication: cookie (1)
    token:
      jwt:
        signatures:
          secret:
            generator: (2)
              secret: '"${JWT_GENERATOR_SIGNATURE_SECRET:pleaseChangeThisSecretForANewOne}"' (3)
    oauth2:
      clients:
        github: (4)
          client-id:  '${OAUTH_CLIENT_ID:xxx}' (5)
          client-secret: '${OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET:yyy}' (6)
          scopes: (7)
            - user:email
            - read:user
            - public_repo
          authorization:
            url: 'https://github.com/login/oauth/authorize' (8)
          token:
            url: 'https://github.com/login/oauth/access_token' (9)
            auth-method: CLIENT_SECRET_POST
    endpoints:
      logout:
        get-allowed: true (10)
1 Once validated, we will save the ID Token in a Cookie. To read in subsequent requests, set micronaut.security.authentication to cookie.
2 You can create a SecretSignatureConfiguration named generator via configuration as illustrated above. The generator signature is used to sign the issued JWT claims.
3 Change this to your own secret and keep it safe (do not store this in your VCS).
4 The provider identifier must match the last part of the URL you entered as a redirect URL: /oauth/callback/github.
5 Client Secret. See previous screenshot.
6 Client ID. See previous screenshot.
7 Specify the scopes you want to request. GitHub Scopes let you sepcify exactly what type of access you need.
8 Map manually the GitHub Authorization endpoint.
9 Map manually the Github Token endpoint.
10 Accept GET request to the /logout endpoint.

The previous configuration uses several placeholders. You will need to set up OAUTH_CLIENT_ID, OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET environment variables.

export OAUTH_CLIENT_ID=XXXXXXXXXX
export OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET=YYYYYYYYYY

4.5. User Details Mapper

Here is a high level diagram of how the authorization code grant flow works with an OAuth 2.0 provider such as GitHub.

standard oauth

We need an HTTP Client to retrieve the user info. Create a POJO to represent a GitHub user:

src/main/java/example/micronaut/GithubUser.java
package example.micronaut;

import io.micronaut.serde.annotation.Serdeable;

@Serdeable
public class GithubUser {

    private final String login;
    private final String name;
    private final String email;

    public GithubUser(String login, String name, String email) {
        this.login = login;
        this.name = name;
        this.email = email;
    }

    public String getLogin() {
        return login;
    }

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    public String getEmail() {
        return email;
    }
}

Then, create a Micronaut Declarative HTTP Client to consume GitHub REST API v3

src/main/java/example/micronaut/GithubApiClient.java
package example.micronaut;
1 GitHub encourages explicitly requesting version 3 via the Accept header. With @Header, you add the Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json HTTP header to every request.
2 Add the id githubv3 to the @Client annotation. Later, you will provide URL for this client id.
3 Define a HTTP GET request to /user endpoint.
4 You can return reactive types in a Micronaut declarative HTTP client.
5 You can specify that a parameter binds to a HTTP Header such as the Authorization header.

Specify the URL for the githubv3 service.

src/main/resources/application.yml
micronaut:
  http:
    services:
      githubv3:
        url: "https://api.github.com"

For GitHub we need to provide a Authentication Mapper. The easiest way is to create a bean which implements OauthAuthenticationMapper.

src/main/java/example/micronaut/GithubAuthenticationMapper.java
package example.micronaut;

import io.micronaut.core.annotation.Nullable;
import io.micronaut.security.authentication.AuthenticationResponse;
import io.micronaut.security.oauth2.endpoint.authorization.state.State;
import io.micronaut.security.oauth2.endpoint.token.response.OauthAuthenticationMapper;
import io.micronaut.security.oauth2.endpoint.token.response.TokenResponse;
import jakarta.inject.Named;
import jakarta.inject.Singleton;
import org.reactivestreams.Publisher;
import reactor.core.publisher.Mono;

import java.util.Collections;

@Named("github") (1)
@Singleton
public class GithubAuthenticationMapper implements OauthAuthenticationMapper {

    public static final String TOKEN_PREFIX = "token ";
    public static final String ROLE_GITHUB = "ROLE_GITHUB";

    private final GithubApiClient apiClient;

    public GithubAuthenticationMapper(GithubApiClient apiClient) {
        this.apiClient = apiClient;
    }

    @Override
    public Publisher<AuthenticationResponse> createAuthenticationResponse(TokenResponse tokenResponse,
                                                                          @Nullable State state) {
        return Mono.from(apiClient.getUser(TOKEN_PREFIX + tokenResponse.getAccessToken())) (2)
                .map(user -> AuthenticationResponse.success(user.getLogin(),
                        Collections.singletonList(ROLE_GITHUB),
                        Collections.singletonMap(ACCESS_TOKEN_KEY, tokenResponse.getAccessToken()))); (3)
    }
}
1 Usa a name qualifier for the bean which matches the name you used in the OAuth 2.0 configuration in application.yml
2 Consume the /user endpoint with the Micronaut HTTP Client.
3 Save the original GitHub access token in a claim. We will use it to contact GitHub’s API later.

4.6. Retrieve User GitHub repositories

With the access token, we retrieved during the login we will contact the GitHub API to fetch the user’s repositories.

First, create a POJO to represent a GitHub repository:

src/main/java/example/micronaut/GithubRepo.java
package example.micronaut;

import io.micronaut.serde.annotation.Serdeable;

@Serdeable
public class GithubRepo {

    private final String name;

    public GithubRepo(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }
}

Add a method to GithubApiClient

src/main/java/example/micronaut/GithubApiClient.java
    @Get("/user/repos{?sort,direction}") (1)
    List<GithubRepo> repos(
            @Pattern(regexp = "created|updated|pushed|full_name") @Nullable @QueryValue String sort, (2)
            @Pattern(regexp = "asc|desc") @Nullable @QueryValue String direction, (2)
            @Header(HttpHeaders.AUTHORIZATION) String authorization);
1 Specify two query values sort and direction.
2 Annotate sort and direction as @Nullable since they are optional. You can restrict the allowed values with use of constraints.

Create a controller to expose /repos endpoint:

src/main/java/example/micronaut/ReposController.java
package example.micronaut;

import io.micronaut.http.HttpHeaderValues;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Controller;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Get;
import io.micronaut.security.annotation.Secured;
import io.micronaut.security.authentication.Authentication;
import io.micronaut.security.rules.SecurityRule;
import io.micronaut.views.View;

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;

import static io.micronaut.security.oauth2.endpoint.token.response.OauthAuthenticationMapper.ACCESS_TOKEN_KEY;

@Controller("/repos") (1)
public class ReposController {

    public static final String CREATED = "created";
    public static final String DESC = "desc";
    public static final String REPOS = "repos";

    private final GithubApiClient githubApiClient;

    public ReposController(GithubApiClient githubApiClient) {
        this.githubApiClient = githubApiClient;
    }

    @Secured(SecurityRule.IS_AUTHENTICATED) (2)
    @View("repos") (3)
    @Get (4)
    Map<String, Object> index(Authentication authentication) {
        List<GithubRepo> repos = githubApiClient.repos(CREATED, DESC, authorizationValue(authentication));  (5)
        Map<String, Object> model = new HashMap<>();
        model.put(REPOS, repos);
        return model;
    }

    private String authorizationValue(Authentication authentication) {
        Object claim = authentication.getAttributes().get(ACCESS_TOKEN_KEY);  (6)
        if (claim instanceof String) {
            return HttpHeaderValues.AUTHORIZATION_PREFIX_BEARER + ' ' + claim;
        }
        return null;
    }
}
1 Qualify the @Controller annotation with /repos to designate the endpoint URL.
2 We want this endpoint to be only accessible to authenticated users.
3 We specify the view name repos which renders the model.
4 Declare a GET endpoint.
5 Consume the GitHub API.
6 Use the previously obtained access token to get access against the GitHub API.

Create a Thymeleaf template:

src/main/resources/views/repos.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns:th="http://www.thymeleaf.org">
<head>
    <title>Home</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="/">Home</a> &rarr; Repositories</h1>
<nav>
    <ul th:each="repo: ${repos}">
        <li th:text="${repo.name}"/>
    </ul>
</nav>
</body>
</html>

5. Running the Application

To run the application, use the ./gradlew run command, which starts the application on port 8080.

video

6. Generate a Micronaut Application Native Executable with GraalVM

We will use GraalVM, an advanced JDK with ahead-of-time Native Image compilation, to generate a native executable of this Micronaut application.

Compiling Micronaut applications ahead of time with GraalVM significantly improves startup time and reduces the memory footprint of JVM-based applications.

Only Java and Kotlin projects support using GraalVM’s native-image tool. Groovy relies heavily on reflection, which is only partially supported by GraalVM.

6.1. GraalVM Installation

The easiest way to install GraalVM on Linux or Mac is to use SDKMan.io.

Java 21
sdk install java 21.0.5-graal

For installation on Windows, or for a manual installation on Linux or Mac, see the GraalVM Getting Started documentation.

The previous command installs Oracle GraalVM, which is free to use in production and free to redistribute, at no cost, under the GraalVM Free Terms and Conditions.

Alternatively, you can use the GraalVM Community Edition:

Java 21
sdk install java 21.0.2-graalce

6.2. Native Executable Generation

To generate a native executable using Gradle, run:

./gradlew nativeCompile

The native executable is created in build/native/nativeCompile directory and can be run with build/native/nativeCompile/micronautguide.

It is possible to customize the name of the native executable or pass additional parameters to GraalVM:

build.gradle
graalvmNative {
    binaries {
        main {
            imageName.set('mn-graalvm-application') (1)
            buildArgs.add('-Ob') (2)
        }
    }
}
1 The native executable name will now be mn-graalvm-application
2 It is possible to pass extra build arguments to native-image. For example, -Ob enables the quick build mode.

Visit localhost:8080 and authenticate with GitHub

7. Next Steps

Read Micronaut OAuth 2.0 documentation to learn more.

8. Help with the Micronaut Framework

The Micronaut Foundation sponsored the creation of this Guide. A variety of consulting and support services are available.

9. License

All guides are released with an Apache license 2.0 license for the code and a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license for the writing and media (images…​).