Background

I am in the process of setting up a RESTful web application using Spring Boot (1.3.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT) that includes a STOMP/SockJS WebSocket, which I intend to consume from an iOS app as well as web browsers. I want to use JSON Web Tokens (JWT) to secure the REST requests and the WebSocket interface but I’m having difficulty with the latter.

The app is secured with Spring Security:-

@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity
public class WebSecurityConfiguration extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {

    public WebSecurityConfiguration() {
        super(true);
    }

    @Autowired
    public void configureGlobal(AuthenticationManagerBuilder auth) throws Exception {
        auth.inMemoryAuthentication()
                .withUser("steve").password("steve").roles("USER");
    }

    @Override
    protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
        http
            .exceptionHandling().and()
            .anonymous().and()
            .servletApi().and()
            .headers().cacheControl().and().and()

            // Relax CSRF on the WebSocket due to needing direct access from apps
            .csrf().ignoringAntMatchers("/ws/**").and()

            .authorizeRequests()

            //allow anonymous resource requests
            .antMatchers("/", "/index.html").permitAll()
            .antMatchers("/resources/**").permitAll()

            //allow anonymous POSTs to JWT
            .antMatchers(HttpMethod.POST, "/rest/jwt/token").permitAll()

            // Allow anonymous access to websocket 
            .antMatchers("/ws/**").permitAll()

            //all other request need to be authenticated
            .anyRequest().hasRole("USER").and()

            // Custom authentication on requests to /rest/jwt/token
            .addFilterBefore(new JWTLoginFilter("/rest/jwt/token", authenticationManagerBean()), UsernamePasswordAuthenticationFilter.class)

            // Custom JWT based authentication
            .addFilterBefore(new JWTTokenFilter(), UsernamePasswordAuthenticationFilter.class);
    }

}

The WebSocket configuration is standard:-

@Configuration
@EnableScheduling
@EnableWebSocketMessageBroker
public class WebSocketConfiguration extends AbstractWebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer {

    @Override
    public void configureMessageBroker(MessageBrokerRegistry config) {
        config.enableSimpleBroker("/topic");
        config.setApplicationDestinationPrefixes("/app");
    }

    @Override
    public void registerStompEndpoints(StompEndpointRegistry registry) {
        registry.addEndpoint("/ws").withSockJS();
    }

}

I also have a subclass of AbstractSecurityWebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer to secure the WebSocket:-

@Configuration
public class WebSocketSecurityConfiguration extends AbstractSecurityWebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer {

    @Override
    protected void configureInbound(MessageSecurityMetadataSourceRegistry messages) {
        messages.anyMessage().hasRole("USER");
    }

    @Override
    protected boolean sameOriginDisabled() {
        // We need to access this directly from apps, so can't do cross-site checks
        return true;
    }

}

There is also a couple of @RestController annotated classes to handle various bits of functionality and these are secured successfully via the JWTTokenFilter registered in my WebSecurityConfiguration class.

Problem

However I can't seem to get the WebSocket to be secured with JWT. I am using SockJS 1.1.0 and STOMP 1.7.1 in the browser and can't figure out how to pass the token. It would appear that SockJS does not allow parameters to be sent with the initial /info and/or handshake requests.

The Spring Security for WebSockets documentation states that the AbstractSecurityWebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer ensures that:

Any inbound CONNECT message requires a valid CSRF token to enforce Same Origin Policy

Which seems to imply that the initial handshake should be unsecured and authentication invoked at the point of receiving a STOMP CONNECT message. Unfortunately I can't seem to find any information with regards to implementing this. Additionally this approach would require additional logic to disconnect a rogue client that opens a WebSocket connection and never sends a STOMP CONNECT.

Being (very) new to Spring I'm also not sure if or how Spring Sessions fits into this. While the documentation is very detailed there doesn't appear to a nice and simple (aka idiots) guide to how the various components fit together / interact with each other.

Question

How do I go about securing the SockJS WebSocket by providing a JSON Web Token, preferably at the point of handshake (is it even possible)?

Seems like support for a query string was added to the SockJS client, see https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-client/issues/72.