Chapter 2. Authentication mechanisms in Quarkus
The Quarkus Security framework supports multiple authentication mechanisms, which you can use to secure your applications. You can also combine authentication mechanisms.
Before you choose an authentication mechanism for securing your Quarkus applications, review the information provided.
2.1. Overview of supported authentication mechanisms
Some supported authentication mechanisms are built into Quarkus, while others require you to add an extension. All of these mechanisms are detailed in the following sections:
The following table maps specific authentication requirements to a supported mechanism that you can use in Quarkus:
| Authentication requirement | Authentication mechanism |
|---|---|
| Username and password | |
| Bearer access token | |
| Single sign-on (SSO) | |
| Client certificate |
For more information, see the following Token authentication mechanism comparison table.
2.2. Built-in authentication mechanisms
Quarkus Security provides the following built-in authentication support:
2.2.1. Basic authentication
You can secure your Quarkus application endpoints with the built-in HTTP Basic authentication mechanism. For more information, see the following documentation:
2.2.2. Form-based authentication
Quarkus provides form-based authentication that works similarly to traditional Servlet form-based authentication. Unlike traditional form authentication, the authenticated user is not stored in an HTTP session because Quarkus does not support clustered HTTP sessions. Instead, the authentication information is stored in an encrypted cookie, which can be read by all cluster members who share the same encryption key.
To apply encryption, add the quarkus.http.auth.session.encryption-key property, and ensure the value you set is at least 16 characters long. The encryption key is hashed by using SHA-256. The resulting digest is used as a key for AES-256 encryption of the cookie value. The cookie contains an expiry time as part of the encrypted value, so all nodes in the cluster must have their clocks synchronized. At one-minute intervals, a new cookie gets generated with an updated expiry time if the session is in use.
With single-page applications (SPA), you typically want to avoid redirects by removing default page paths, as shown in the following example:
# do not redirect, respond with HTTP 200 OK quarkus.http.auth.form.landing-page= # do not redirect, respond with HTTP 401 Unauthorized quarkus.http.auth.form.login-page= quarkus.http.auth.form.error-page= # HttpOnly must be false if you want to log out on the client; it can be true if logging out from the server quarkus.http.auth.form.http-only-cookie=false
Now that you have disabled redirects for the SPA, you must log in and log out programmatically from your client. Below are examples of JavaScript methods for logging into the j_security_check endpoint and logging out of the application by destroying the cookie.
const login = () => {
// Create an object to represent the form data
const formData = new URLSearchParams();
formData.append("j_username", username);
formData.append("j_password", password);
// Make an HTTP POST request using fetch against j_security_check endpoint
fetch("j_security_check", {
method: "POST",
body: formData,
headers: {
"Content-Type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
},
})
.then((response) => {
if (response.status === 200) {
// Authentication was successful
console.log("Authentication successful");
} else {
// Authentication failed
console.error("Invalid credentials");
}
})
.catch((error) => {
console.error(error);
});
};
To log out of the SPA from the client, the cookie must be set to quarkus.http.auth.form.http-only-cookie=false so you can destroy the cookie and possibly redirect back to your main page.
const logout= () => {
// delete the credential cookie, essentially killing the session
const removeCookie = `quarkus-credential=; Max-Age=0;path=/`;
document.cookie = removeCookie;
// perform post-logout actions here, such as redirecting back to your login page
};
To log out of the SPA from the server, the cookie can be set to quarkus.http.auth.form.http-only-cookie=true and use this example code to destroy the cookie.
@ConfigProperty(name = "quarkus.http.auth.form.cookie-name")
String cookieName;
@Inject
CurrentIdentityAssociation identity;
@POST
public Response logout() {
if (identity.getIdentity().isAnonymous()) {
throw new UnauthorizedException("Not authenticated");
}
final NewCookie removeCookie = new NewCookie.Builder(cookieName)
.maxAge(0)
.expiry(Date.from(Instant.EPOCH))
.path("/")
.build();
return Response.noContent().cookie(removeCookie).build();
}The following properties can be used to configure form-based authentication:
Configuration property fixed at build time - All other configuration properties are overridable at runtime
| Type | Default | |
|
If form authentication is enabled.
Environment variable: | boolean |
|
|
The post location.
Environment variable: | string |
|
Configuration property fixed at build time - All other configuration properties are overridable at runtime
| Type | Default | |
|
Properties file containing the client certificate common name (CN) to role mappings. Use it only if the mTLS authentication mechanism is enabled with either
Properties file is expected to have the
Environment variable: | path | |
|
The authentication realm
Environment variable: | string | |
|
The login page. Redirect to login page can be disabled by setting
Environment variable: | string |
|
|
The username field name.
Environment variable: | string |
|
|
The password field name.
Environment variable: | string |
|
|
The error page. Redirect to error page can be disabled by setting
Environment variable: | string |
|
|
The landing page to redirect to if there is no saved page to redirect back to. Redirect to landing page can be disabled by setting
Environment variable: | string |
|
|
Option to control the name of the cookie used to redirect the user back to the location they want to access.
Environment variable: | string |
|
|
The inactivity (idle) timeout When inactivity timeout is reached, cookie is not renewed and a new login is enforced.
Environment variable: |
| |
|
How old a cookie can get before it will be replaced with a new cookie with an updated timeout, also referred to as "renewal-timeout". Note that smaller values will result in slightly more server load (as new encrypted cookies will be generated more often); however, larger values affect the inactivity timeout because the timeout is set when a cookie is generated. For example if this is set to 10 minutes, and the inactivity timeout is 30m, if a user’s last request is when the cookie is 9m old then the actual timeout will happen 21m after the last request because the timeout is only refreshed when a new cookie is generated. That is, no timeout is tracked on the server side; the timestamp is encoded and encrypted in the cookie itself, and it is decrypted and parsed with each request.
Environment variable: |
| |
|
The cookie that is used to store the persistent session
Environment variable: | string |
|
|
The cookie path for the session and location cookies.
Environment variable: | string |
|
|
Set the HttpOnly attribute to prevent access to the cookie via JavaScript.
Environment variable: | boolean |
|
|
SameSite attribute for the session and location cookies.
Environment variable: |
|
|
|
Determines whether the entire permission set is enabled, or not. By default, if the permission set is defined, it is enabled.
Environment variable: | boolean | |
|
The HTTP policy that this permission set is linked to. There are three built-in policies: permit, deny and authenticated. Role based policies can be defined, and extensions can add their own policies.
Environment variable: | string |
required
|
|
The methods that this permission set applies to. If this is not set then they apply to all methods. Note that if a request matches any path from any permission set, but does not match the constraint due to the method not being listed then the request will be denied. Method specific permissions take precedence over matches that do not have any methods set. This means that for example if Quarkus is configured to allow GET and POST requests to /admin to and no other permissions are configured PUT requests to /admin will be denied.
Environment variable: | list of string | |
|
The paths that this permission check applies to. If the path ends in /* then this is treated as a path prefix, otherwise it is treated as an exact match. Matches are done on a length basis, so the most specific path match takes precedence. If multiple permission sets match the same path then explicit methods matches take precedence over matches without methods set, otherwise the most restrictive permissions are applied.
Environment variable: | list of string | |
|
Path specific authentication mechanism which must be used to authenticate a user. It needs to match
Environment variable: | string | |
|
Indicates that this policy always applies to the matched paths in addition to the policy with a winning path. Avoid creating more than one shared policy to minimize the performance impact.
Environment variable: | boolean |
|
|
The roles that are allowed to access resources protected by this policy. By default, access is allowed to any authenticated user.
Environment variable: | list of string |
|
|
Add roles granted to the
Environment variable: |
| |
|
Permissions granted to the
Environment variable: |
| |
|
Permissions granted by this policy will be created with a
Environment variable: | string |
|
To write duration values, use the standard java.time.Duration format. See the Duration#parse() Java API documentation for more information.
You can also use a simplified format, starting with a number:
- If the value is only a number, it represents time in seconds.
-
If the value is a number followed by
ms, it represents time in milliseconds.
In other cases, the simplified format is translated to the java.time.Duration format for parsing:
-
If the value is a number followed by
h,m, ors, it is prefixed withPT. -
If the value is a number followed by
d, it is prefixed withP.
2.2.3. Mutual TLS authentication
Quarkus provides mutual TLS (mTLS) authentication so that you can authenticate users based on their X.509 certificates.
To use this authentication method, you must first enable SSL/TLS for your application. For more information, see the Supporting secure connections with SSL/TLS section of the Quarkus "HTTP reference" guide.
After your application accepts secure connections, the next step is to configure the quarkus.http.ssl.certificate.trust-store-file property with the name of that file that holds all the certificates your application trusts. The specified file also includes information about how your application asks for certificates when a client, such as a browser or other service, tries to access one of its protected resources.
quarkus.http.ssl.certificate.key-store-file=server-keystore.jks 1 quarkus.http.ssl.certificate.key-store-password=the_key_store_secret quarkus.http.ssl.certificate.trust-store-file=server-truststore.jks 2 quarkus.http.ssl.certificate.trust-store-password=the_trust_store_secret quarkus.http.ssl.client-auth=required 3 quarkus.http.auth.permission.default.paths=/* 4 quarkus.http.auth.permission.default.policy=authenticated quarkus.http.insecure-requests=disabled 5
- 1
- The keystore where the server’s private key is located.
- 2
- The truststore from which the trusted certificates are loaded.
- 3
- With the value set to
required, the server demands client certificates. Set the value toREQUESTto allow the server to accept requests without a certificate. This setting is beneficial when supporting authentication methods besides mTLS. - 4
- Defines a policy where only authenticated users should have access to resources from your application.
- 5
- You can explicitly disable the plain HTTP protocol, thus requiring all requests to use HTTPS. When you set
quarkus.http.ssl.client-authtorequired, the system automatically setsquarkus.http.insecure-requeststodisabled.
When the incoming request matches a valid certificate in the truststore, your application can obtain the subject by injecting a SecurityIdentity as follows:
Obtaining the subject
@Inject
SecurityIdentity identity;
@GET
@Produces(MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN)
public String hello() {
return String.format("Hello, %s", identity.getPrincipal().getName());
}
You can also get the certificate by using the code outlined in the following example:
Obtaining the certificate
import java.security.cert.X509Certificate; import io.quarkus.security.credential.CertificateCredential; CertificateCredential credential = identity.getCredential(CertificateCredential.class); X509Certificate certificate = credential.getCertificate();
2.2.3.1. Mapping certificate attributes to roles
The information from the client certificate can be used to add roles to Quarkus SecurityIdentity.
You can add new roles to SecurityIdentity after checking a client certificate’s common name (CN) attribute. The easiest way to add new roles is to use a certificate attribute to role mapping feature.
For example, you can update the properties shown in the section which introduces Mutual TLS authentication as follows:
quarkus.http.ssl.certificate.key-store-file=server-keystore.jks quarkus.http.ssl.certificate.key-store-password=the_key_store_secret quarkus.http.ssl.certificate.trust-store-file=server-truststore.jks quarkus.http.ssl.certificate.trust-store-password=the_trust_store_secret quarkus.http.ssl.client-auth=required quarkus.http.insecure-requests=disabled quarkus.http.auth.certificate-role-properties=cert-role-mappings.properties 1 quarkus.http.auth.permission.certauthenticated.paths=/* 2 quarkus.http.auth.permission.certauthenticated.policy=role-policy-cert 3 quarkus.http.auth.policy.role-policy-cert.roles-allowed=user,admin 4
- 1
- The
cert-role-mappings.propertiesclasspath resource contains a map of certificate’s CN values to roles in the formCN=roleorCN=role1,role2, etc. Let’s assume it contains three entries:alice=user,admin,bob=userandjdoe=tester. - 2 3 4
- Use HTTP security policy to require that
SecurityIdentitymust have eitheruseroradminroles for the requests to be authorized.
Given the preceeding configuration, the request is authorized if the client certificate’s CN attribute is equal to alice or bob and forbidden if it is equal to jdoe.
2.2.3.2. Using certificate attributes to augment SecurityIdentity
You can always register SecurityIdentityAugmentor if the automatic Mapping certificate attributes to roles option does not suit. Custom SecurityIdentityAugmentor can check the values of different client certificate attributes and augment the SecurityIdentity accordingly.
For more information about customizing SecurityIdentity, see the Security identity customization section in the Quarkus "Security tips and tricks" guide.
2.3. Other supported authentication mechanisms
Quarkus Security also supports the following authentication mechanisms through extensions:
2.3.1. OpenID Connect authentication
OpenID Connect (OIDC) is an identity layer that works on top of the OAuth 2.0 protocol. OIDC enables client applications to verify the identity of a user based on the authentication performed by the OIDC provider and retrieve basic information about that user.
The Quarkus quarkus-oidc extension provides a reactive, interoperable, multitenant-enabled OIDC adapter that supports Bearer token and Authorization Code Flow authentication mechanisms. The Bearer token authentication mechanism extracts the token from the HTTP Authorization header.
The Authorization Code Flow mechanism redirects the user to an OIDC provider to authenticate the user’s identity. After the user is redirected back to Quarkus, the mechanism completes the authentication process by exchanging the provided code that was granted for the ID, access, and refresh tokens.
You can verify ID and access JSON Web Token (JWT) tokens by using the refreshable JSON Web Key (JWK) set or introspect them remotely. However, opaque, also known as binary tokens, can only be introspected remotely.
Using the Quarkus OIDC extension, both the Bearer token and Authorization Code Flow authentication mechanisms use SmallRye JWT authentication to represent JWT tokens as MicroProfile JWT org.eclipse.microprofile.jwt.JsonWebToken.
2.3.1.1. Additional Quarkus resources for OIDC authentication
For more information about OIDC authentication and authorization methods that you can use to secure your Quarkus applications, see the following resources:
| OIDC topic | Quarkus information resource |
|---|---|
| Bearer token authentication mechanism | |
| Authorization Code Flow authentication mechanism | |
| OIDC and SAML Identity broker | OpenID Connect (OIDC) Authorization Code Flow and SAML Identity broker |
| Multiple tenants that can support the Bearer token authentication or Authorization Code Flow mechanisms | |
| Securing Quarkus with commonly used OpenID Connect providers | |
| Using Keycloak to centralize authorization | Using OpenID Connect (OIDC) and Keycloak to centralize authorization |
To enable the Quarkus OIDC extension at runtime, set quarkus.oidc.tenant-enabled=false at build time. Then, re-enable it at runtime by using a system property.
For more information about managing the individual tenant configurations in multitenant OIDC deployments, see the Disabling tenant configurations section in the "Using OpenID Connect (OIDC) multi-tenancy" guide.
2.3.1.2. OpenID Connect client and filters
The quarkus-oidc-client extension provides OidcClient for acquiring and refreshing access tokens from OpenID Connect and OAuth2 providers that support the following token grants:
-
client-credentials -
password -
refresh_token
The quarkus-oidc-client-filter extension requires the quarkus-oidc-client extension. It provides JAX-RS RESTful Web Services OidcClientRequestFilter, which sets the access token acquired by OidcClient as the Bearer scheme value of the HTTP Authorization header. This filter can be registered with MicroProfile REST client implementations injected into the current Quarkus endpoint, but it is not related to the authentication requirements of this service endpoint. For example, it can be a public endpoint or be protected with mTLS.
In this scenario, you do not need to protect your Quarkus endpoint by using the Quarkus OpenID Connect adapter.
The quarkus-oidc-token-propagation extension requires the quarkus-oidc extension. It provides Jakarta REST TokenCredentialRequestFilter, which sets the OpenID Connect Bearer token or Authorization Code Flow access token as the Bearer scheme value of the HTTP Authorization header. This filter can be registered with MicroProfile REST client implementations injected into the current Quarkus endpoint, which must be protected by using the Quarkus OIDC adapter. This filter can propagate the access token to the downstream services.
For more information, see the OpenID Connect client and token propagation quickstart and OpenID Connect (OIDC) and OAuth2 client and filters reference guides.
2.3.2. SmallRye JWT authentication
The quarkus-smallrye-jwt extension provides a MicroProfile JSON Web Token (JWT) 2.1 implementation and multiple options to verify signed and encrypted JWT tokens. It represents them as org.eclipse.microprofile.jwt.JsonWebToken.
quarkus-smallrye-jwt is an alternative to the quarkus-oidc Bearer token authentication mechanism and verifies only JWT tokens by using either Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) keys or the refreshable JWK key set. quarkus-smallrye-jwt also provides the JWT generation API, which you can use to easily create signed, inner-signed, and encrypted JWT tokens.
For more information, see the Using JWT RBAC guide.
2.4. Choosing between OpenID Connect, SmallRye JWT, and OAuth2 authentication mechanisms
Use the following information to select the appropriate token authentication mechanism to secure your Quarkus applications.
List of authentication mechanism use cases
-
quarkus-oidcrequires an OpenID Connect provider such as Keycloak, which can verify the bearer tokens or authenticate the end users with the Authorization Code flow. In both cases,quarkus-oidcrequires a connection to the specified OpenID Connect provider. -
If the user authentication requires Authorization Code flow, or you need to support multiple tenants, use
quarkus-oidc.quarkus-oidccan also request user information by using both Authorization Code Flow and Bearer access tokens. -
If your bearer tokens must be verified, use
quarkus-oidcorquarkus-smallrye-jwt. -
If your bearer tokens are in a JSON web token (JWT) format, you can use any extensions in the preceding list. Both
quarkus-oidcandquarkus-smallrye-jwtsupport refreshing theJsonWebKey(JWK) set when the OpenID Connect provider rotates the keys. Therefore, if remote token introspection must be avoided or is unsupported by the providers, usequarkus-oidcorquarkus-smallrye-jwtto verify JWT tokens. -
To introspect the JWT tokens remotely, you can use
quarkus-oidcfor verifying the opaque or binary tokens by using remote introspection.quarkus-smallrye-jwtdoes not support the remote introspection of both opaque or JWT tokens but instead relies on the locally available keys that are usually retrieved from the OpenID Connect provider. -
quarkus-oidcandquarkus-smallrye-jwtsupport the JWT and opaque token injection into the endpoint code. Injected JWT tokens provide more information about the user. All extensions can have the tokens injected asPrincipal. -
quarkus-smallrye-jwtsupports more key formats thanquarkus-oidc.quarkus-oidcuses only the JWK-formatted keys that are part of a JWK set, whereasquarkus-smallrye-jwtsupports PEM keys. -
quarkus-smallrye-jwthandles locally signed, inner-signed-and-encrypted, and encrypted tokens. In contrast, althoughquarkus-oidccan also verify such tokens, it treats them as opaque tokens and verifies them through remote introspection.
Architectural considerations drive your decision to use opaque or JSON web token (JWT) token format. Opaque tokens tend to be much shorter than JWT tokens but need most of the token-associated state to be maintained in the provider database. Opaque tokens are effectively database pointers.
JWT tokens are significantly longer than opaque tokens. Nonetheless, the providers effectively delegate most of the token-associated state to the client by storing it as the token claims and either signing or encrypting them.
| Feature required | Authentication mechanism | |
|---|---|---|
|
|
| |
| Bearer JWT verification | Local verification or introspection | Local verification |
| Bearer opaque token verification | Introspection | No |
|
Refreshing | Yes | Yes |
|
Represent token as | Yes | Yes |
| Inject JWT as MP JWT | Yes | Yes |
| Authorization code flow | Yes | No |
| Multi-tenancy | Yes | No |
| User information support | Yes | No |
| PEM key format support | No | Yes |
| SecretKey support | No | In JSON Web Key (JWK) format |
| Inner-signed and encrypted or encrypted tokens | Introspection | Local verification |
| Custom token verification | No | With injected JWT parser |
| JWT as a cookie support | No | Yes |
2.5. Combining authentication mechanisms
If different sources provide the user credentials, you can combine authentication mechanisms. For example, you can combine the built-in Basic and the Quarkus quarkus-oidc Bearer token authentication mechanisms.
You cannot combine the Quarkus quarkus-oidc Bearer token and smallrye-jwt authentication mechanisms because both mechanisms attempt to verify the token extracted from the HTTP Bearer token authentication scheme.
2.5.1. Path-specific authentication mechanisms
The following configuration example demonstrates how you can enforce a single selectable authentication mechanism for a given request path:
quarkus.http.auth.permission.basic-or-bearer.paths=/service quarkus.http.auth.permission.basic-or-bearer.policy=authenticated quarkus.http.auth.permission.basic.paths=/basic-only quarkus.http.auth.permission.basic.policy=authenticated quarkus.http.auth.permission.basic.auth-mechanism=basic quarkus.http.auth.permission.bearer.paths=/bearer-only quarkus.http.auth.permission.bearer.policy=authenticated quarkus.http.auth.permission.bearer.auth-mechanism=bearer
Ensure that the value of the auth-mechanism property matches the authentication scheme supported by HttpAuthenticationMechanism, for example, basic, bearer, or form.
2.6. Proactive authentication
Proactive authentication is enabled in Quarkus by default. This means that if an incoming request has a credential, the request will always be authenticated, even if the target page does not require authentication. For more information, see the Quarkus Proactive authentication guide.
