Table of Contents

Micronaut Token Propagation

Learn how to leverage token propagation in the Micronaut framework to simplify your code while keeping your microservices secure.

Authors: Sergio del Amo

Micronaut Version: 4.6.3

1. Getting Started

Let’s describe the microservices you will build through the guide.

  • gateway - A microservice secured via JWT which exposes an endpoint /user. The output of that endpoint is the result of consuming the userecho endpoint.

  • userecho - A microservice secured via JWT which exposes an endpoint /user which responds with the username of the authenticated user.

The next diagram illustrates the flow:

tokenpropagation

We generate a valid JWT in the gateway microservice. Then every microservice in our application is able to validate this JWT. We want every internal request to contain a valid JWT token. If we want to talk to another microservice we need to propagate the valid JWT get received.

Setup IntelliJ IDEA to develop Micronaut Applications.

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

We will write the application first without token propagation. Then we will configure token propagation, and you will see how much code we can remove.

4.1. Gateway

Create the microservice:

mn create-app example.micronaut.gateway --build=maven --lang=java

Add the security-jwt module to the configuration:

pom.xml
<!-- Add the following to your annotationProcessorPaths element -->
<path>
    <groupId>io.micronaut.security</groupId>
    <artifactId>micronaut-security-annotations</artifactId>
</path>
<dependency>
    <groupId>io.micronaut.security</groupId>
    <artifactId>micronaut-security-jwt</artifactId>
    <scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>

To keep this guide simple, create a naive AuthenticationProvider to simulate user’s authentication.

intermediate-gateway/src/main/java/example/micronaut/AuthenticationProviderUserPassword.java
package example.micronaut;

import io.micronaut.core.annotation.NonNull;
import io.micronaut.core.annotation.Nullable;
import io.micronaut.http.HttpRequest;
import io.micronaut.security.authentication.AuthenticationFailureReason;
import io.micronaut.security.authentication.AuthenticationRequest;
import io.micronaut.security.authentication.AuthenticationResponse;
import io.micronaut.security.authentication.provider.HttpRequestAuthenticationProvider;
import jakarta.inject.Singleton;

@Singleton (1)
class AuthenticationProviderUserPassword<B> implements HttpRequestAuthenticationProvider<B> { (2)
    public AuthenticationResponse authenticate(@Nullable HttpRequest<B> httpRequest,
                                               @NonNull AuthenticationRequest<String, String> authenticationRequest) {
        return (authenticationRequest.getIdentity().equals("sherlock")  || authenticationRequest.getIdentity().equals("watson")) && authenticationRequest.getSecret().equals("password")
                ? AuthenticationResponse.success(authenticationRequest.getIdentity())
                : AuthenticationResponse.failure(AuthenticationFailureReason.CREDENTIALS_DO_NOT_MATCH);
    }
}
1 Use jakarta.inject.Singleton to designate a class as a singleton.
2 A Micronaut Authentication Provider implements the interface io.micronaut.security.authentication.provider.HttpRequestAuthenticationProvider.

Create a class UserController which exposes /user endpoint.

intermediate-gateway/src/main/java/example/micronaut/UserController.java
package example.micronaut;

import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Controller;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Get;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Header;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Produces;
import io.micronaut.security.annotation.Secured;
import reactor.core.publisher.Mono;

import static io.micronaut.http.MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN;
import static io.micronaut.security.rules.SecurityRule.IS_AUTHENTICATED;

@Controller("/user") (1)
class UserController {

    private final UsernameFetcher usernameFetcher;

    UserController(UsernameFetcher usernameFetcher) {  (2)
        this.usernameFetcher = usernameFetcher;
    }

    @Secured(IS_AUTHENTICATED)  (3)
    @Produces(TEXT_PLAIN) (4)
    @Get(5)
    Mono<String> index(@Header("Authorization") String authorization) {  (6)
        return usernameFetcher.findUsername(authorization);
    }
}
1 Annotate with io.micronaut.http.annotation.Controller to designate the class as a Micronaut controller.
2 Constructor dependency injection
3 Annotate with io.micronaut.security.Secured to configure secured access. The isAuthenticated() expression will allow access only to authenticated users.
4 Since we return a string which is not valid JSON, set the media type to text/plain.
5 You can specify the HTTP verb that a controller action responds to. To respond to a GET request, use the io.micronaut.http.annotation.Get annotation.
6 You can bind an HTTP header to a controller method argument.

Create an interface to encapsulate the collaboration with the userecho microservice.

intermediate-gateway/src/main/java/example/micronaut/UsernameFetcher.java
package example.micronaut;

import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Header;
import reactor.core.publisher.Mono;

public interface UsernameFetcher {
    Mono<String> findUsername(@Header("Authorization") String authorization);
}

Create a Micronaut HTTP Declarative client:

intermediate-gateway/src/main/java/example/micronaut/UserEchoClient.java
package example.micronaut;

import io.micronaut.context.annotation.Requires;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Consumes;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Get;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Header;
import io.micronaut.http.client.annotation.Client;
import reactor.core.publisher.Mono;

import static io.micronaut.context.env.Environment.TEST;
import static io.micronaut.http.MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN;

@Client(id = "userecho") (1)
@Requires(notEnv = TEST) (2)
public interface UserEchoClient extends UsernameFetcher {

    @Override
    @Consumes(TEXT_PLAIN)
    @Get("/user") (3)
    Mono<String> findUsername(@Header("Authorization") String authorization); (4)
}
1 The @Client annotation is used with a service id. We will reference the exact service id in the configuration shortly.
2 Don’t load this bean in the test environment.
3 Use @Get annotation to define the client mapping
4 Supply the JWT to the HTTP Authorization header value to the @Client method.

Add this snippet to application.yml to configure the service URL of the echo service

Since Micronaut Framework 4.0, to use YAML configuration, you have to add the YAML dependency.
intermediate-gateway/src/main/resources/application.yml
micronaut:
  http:
    services:
      userecho: (1)
        urls:
          - "http://localhost:8081" (2)
1 This is the same service ID we used in the @Client annotation.
2 Configure a URL where the userecho microservice resides.

Add this snippet to application.yml to configure security:

intermediate-gateway/src/main/resources/application.yml
micronaut:
  security:
    authentication: bearer (1)
    token:
      jwt:
        signatures:
          secret:
            generator: (2)
              secret: '"${JWT_GENERATOR_SIGNATURE_SECRET:pleaseChangeThisSecretForANewOne}"' (3)
1 Set authentication to bearer to receive a JSON response from the login endpoint.
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)

4.1.1. Tests

Provide a UsernameFetcher bean replacement for the Test environment.

intermediate-gateway/src/test/java/example/micronaut/UserEchoClientReplacement.java
package example.micronaut;

import io.micronaut.context.annotation.Requires;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Header;
import jakarta.inject.Singleton;
import reactor.core.publisher.Mono;

import static io.micronaut.context.env.Environment.TEST;

@Requires(env = TEST)
@Singleton
public class UserEchoClientReplacement implements UsernameFetcher {

    @Override
    public Mono<String> findUsername(@Header("Authorization") String authorization) {
        return Mono.just("sherlock");
    }
}

Create tests to verify the application is secured and we can access it after login:

intermediate-gateway/src/test/java/example/micronaut/UserControllerTest.java
package example.micronaut;

import io.micronaut.http.HttpRequest;
import io.micronaut.http.client.HttpClient;
import io.micronaut.http.client.annotation.Client;
import io.micronaut.http.client.exceptions.HttpClientResponseException;
import io.micronaut.security.authentication.UsernamePasswordCredentials;
import io.micronaut.security.token.render.BearerAccessRefreshToken;
import io.micronaut.test.extensions.junit5.annotation.MicronautTest;
import jakarta.inject.Inject;
import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;

import static io.micronaut.http.HttpStatus.UNAUTHORIZED;
import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertEquals;
import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertThrows;

@MicronautTest (1)
class UserControllerTest {

    @Inject
    @Client("/")
    HttpClient client; (2)

    @Test
    void testUserEndpointIsSecured() { (3)
        HttpClientResponseException thrown = assertThrows(HttpClientResponseException.class, () -> {
            client.toBlocking().exchange(HttpRequest.GET("/user"));
        });

        assertEquals(UNAUTHORIZED, thrown.getResponse().getStatus());
    }

    @Test
    void testAuthenticatedCanFetchUsername() {
        UsernamePasswordCredentials credentials = new UsernamePasswordCredentials("sherlock", "password");
        HttpRequest<?> request = HttpRequest.POST("/login", credentials);

        BearerAccessRefreshToken bearerAccessRefreshToken = client.toBlocking().retrieve(request, BearerAccessRefreshToken.class);

        String username = client.toBlocking().retrieve(HttpRequest.GET("/user")
                .header("Authorization", "Bearer " + bearerAccessRefreshToken.getAccessToken()), String.class);

        assertEquals("sherlock", username);
    }
}
1 Annotate the class with @MicronautTest so the Micronaut framework will initialize the application context and the embedded server. More info.
2 Inject the HttpClient bean and point it to the embedded server.
3 Test endpoint is secured

4.2. User echo

Create the microservice:

mn create-app example.micronaut.userecho --build=maven --lang=java

Add the security-jwt module to the configuration:

pom.xml
<!-- Add the following to your annotationProcessorPaths element -->
<path>
    <groupId>io.micronaut.security</groupId>
    <artifactId>micronaut-security-annotations</artifactId>
</path>
<dependency>
    <groupId>io.micronaut.security</groupId>
    <artifactId>micronaut-security-jwt</artifactId>
    <scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>

Create a class UserController which exposes /user endpoint.

intermediate-userecho/src/main/java/example/micronaut/UserController.java
package example.micronaut;

import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Controller;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Get;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Produces;
import io.micronaut.security.annotation.Secured;

import java.security.Principal;

import static io.micronaut.http.MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN;
import static io.micronaut.security.rules.SecurityRule.IS_AUTHENTICATED;

@Controller("/user") (1)
class UserController {

    @Secured(IS_AUTHENTICATED) (2)
    @Produces(TEXT_PLAIN) (3)
    @Get(4)
    String index(Principal principal) { (5)
        return principal.getName();
    }
}
1 Annotate with io.micronaut.http.annotation.Controller to designate the class as a Micronaut controller.
2 Annotate with io.micronaut.security.Secured to configure secured access. The isAuthenticated() expression will allow access only to authenticated users.
3 Since we return a string which is not valid JSON, set the media type to text/plain.
4 You can specify the HTTP verb that a controller action responds to. To respond to a GET request, use the io.micronaut.http.annotation.Get annotation.
5 If a user is authenticated, the Micronaut framework will bind the user object to an argument of type java.security.Principal (if present).

Add this snippet to application.yml to change the port where userecho starts:

intermediate-userecho/src/main/resources/application.yml
micronaut:
  server:
    port: 8081 (1)
1 Configure the port where the application listens.

Add this snippet to application.yml

intermediate-userecho/src/main/resources/application.yml
micronaut:
  security:
    token:
      jwt:
        signatures:
          secret:
            validation: (1)
              secret: '"${JWT_GENERATOR_SIGNATURE_SECRET:pleaseChangeThisSecretForANewOne}"' (2)
1 You can create a SecretSignatureConfiguration named validation which is able to validate JWT generated by the gateway microservice.
2 Change this to your own secret and keep it safe (do not store this in your VCS)

4.3. Token Propagation

As you can see, propagating the JWT token to other microservices in our application complicates the code. We need to capture the Authorization header in the controller method arguments and then pass it to the @Client bean. In an application with several controllers and declarative clients, it can lead to a lot of repetition. Fortunately, the Framework includes a feature called token propagation. We can tell our application to propagate the incoming token to a set of outgoing requests.

Let’s configure token propagation. We need to modify application.yml in the gateway microservice:

gateway/src/main/resources/application.yml
micronaut:
  security:
    token:
      propagation:
        enabled: true (1)
        service-id-regex: "userecho" (2)
1 Enable token propagation
2 We only want to propagate the token to certain services. We can create a regular expression to match those services ids.

We can simplify the code:

Edit UserController.java and remove the @Header parameter:

gateway/src/main/java/example/micronaut/UserController.java
package example.micronaut;

import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Controller;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Get;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Produces;
import io.micronaut.security.annotation.Secured;
import reactor.core.publisher.Mono;

import static io.micronaut.http.MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN;
import static io.micronaut.security.rules.SecurityRule.IS_AUTHENTICATED;

@Controller("/user")
class UserController {

    private final UsernameFetcher usernameFetcher;

    UserController(UsernameFetcher usernameFetcher) {
        this.usernameFetcher = usernameFetcher;
    }

    @Secured(IS_AUTHENTICATED)
    @Produces(TEXT_PLAIN)
    @Get
    Mono<String> index() {
        return usernameFetcher.findUsername();
    }
}

Edit UsernameFetcher.java and remove the @Header parameter:

gateway/src/main/java/example/micronaut/UsernameFetcher.java
package example.micronaut;

import reactor.core.publisher.Mono;

public interface UsernameFetcher {
    Mono<String> findUsername();
}

Edit UserEchoClient.java and remove the @Header parameter:

gateway/src/main/java/example/micronaut/UserEchoClient.java
package example.micronaut;

import io.micronaut.context.annotation.Requires;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Consumes;
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Get;
import io.micronaut.http.client.annotation.Client;
import reactor.core.publisher.Mono;

import static io.micronaut.context.env.Environment.TEST;
import static io.micronaut.http.MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN;

@Client(id = "userecho")
@Requires(notEnv = TEST)
public interface UserEchoClient extends UsernameFetcher {

    @Consumes(TEXT_PLAIN)
    @Get("/user")
    Mono<String> findUsername();
}

Edit UserEchoClientReplacement.java and remove the @Header parameter:

gateway/src/test/java/example/micronaut/UserEchoClientReplacement.java
package example.micronaut;

import io.micronaut.context.annotation.Requires;
import jakarta.inject.Singleton;
import reactor.core.publisher.Mono;

import static io.micronaut.context.env.Environment.TEST;

@Requires(env = TEST)
@Singleton
public class UserEchoClientReplacement implements UsernameFetcher {

    @Override
    public Mono<String> findUsername() {
        return Mono.just("sherlock");
    }
}

5. Running the App

Run both microservices:

userecho
./mvnw mn:run
18:29:26.500 [main] INFO  io.micronaut.runtime.Micronaut - Startup completed in 671ms. Server Running: http://localhost:8081
gateway
./mvnw mn:run
18:28:35.723 [main] INFO  io.micronaut.runtime.Micronaut - Startup completed in 707ms. Server Running: http://localhost:8080

Send a curl request to authenticate:

curl -X "POST" "http://localhost:8080/login" \
     -H 'Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8' \
     -d $'{"username": "sherlock", "password": "password"}'
{"username":"sherlock","access_token":"eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJzaGVybG9jayIsIm5iZiI6MTYxNTkxMDM3Nywicm9sZXMiOltdLCJpc3MiOiJnYXRld2F5IiwiZXhwIjoxNjE1OTEzOTc3LCJpYXQiOjE2MTU5MTAzNzd9.nWoaNq9YzRzYKDBvDw_QaiUyVyIoc6rHCW_vLfnrtQ8","token_type":"Bearer","expires_in":3600}

Now you can call the /user endpoint supplying the access token in the Authorization header.

curl "http://localhost:8080/user" -H 'Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJzaGVybG9jayIsIm5iZiI6MTYxNTkxMDM3Nywicm9sZXMiOltdLCJpc3MiOiJnYXRld2F5IiwiZXhwIjoxNjE1OTEzOTc3LCJpYXQiOjE2MTU5MTAzNzd9.nWoaNq9YzRzYKDBvDw_QaiUyVyIoc6rHCW_vLfnrtQ8'
sherlock

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 Maven, run:

./mvnw package -Dpackaging=native-image

The native executable is created in the target directory and can be run with target/micronautguide.

It is possible to customize the name of the native executable or pass additional build arguments using the Maven plugin for GraalVM Native Image building. Declare the plugin as following:

pom.xml
<plugin>
    <groupId>org.graalvm.buildtools</groupId>
    <artifactId>native-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>0.10.3</version>
    <configuration>
        <!-- <1> -->
        <imageName>mn-graalvm-application</imageName> (1)
        <buildArgs>
              <!-- <2> -->
          <buildArg>-Ob</buildArg>
        </buildArgs>
    </configuration>
</plugin>
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.

After creating the native executables for both microservices, start them and send the same curl requests as before to check that everything works using GraalVM native executables.

7. Next Steps

Read more about Token Propagation and Micronaut Security.

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…​).