Welcome file ignores security constraint

Question

my web.xml:

    <context-param>
            <param-name>javax.faces.PROJECT_STAGE</param-name>
            <param-value>Development</param-value>
        </context-param>

        <welcome-file-list>
            <welcome-file>/secured/secure.xhtml</welcome-file>
        </welcome-file-list>

        <servlet>
            <servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
            <servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class>
            <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
        </servlet>

        <servlet-mapping>
            <servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
            <url-pattern>*.xhtml</url-pattern>
        </servlet-mapping>

        <context-param>
            <param-name>javax.faces.INTERPRET_EMPTY_STRING_SUBMITTED_VALUES_AS_NULL</param-name>
            <param-value>true</param-value>
        </context-param> 
    <security-constraint>
        <web-resource-collection>
          <web-resource-name>Restricted</web-resource-name>
          <url-pattern>/secured/*</url-pattern>
          <http-method>GET</http-method>
          <http-method>POST</http-method>
        </web-resource-collection>
        <auth-constraint>
          <role-name>ADMIN</role-name>
        </auth-constraint>
      </security-constraint>
<login-config>
     <auth-method>FORM</auth-method>
     <realm-name>jdbc-realm</realm-name>
     <form-login-config>
       <form-login-page>/public/login.xhtml</form-login-page>
       <form-error-page>/public/error.xhtml</form-error-page>
     </form-login-config>
   </login-config>

I want my web app to redirect unauthorized users to login page. The funny thing i had this working but i made some stupid changes and now on accessing localhost:8080 i always see secure.xhtml even when not logged in. localhost:8080/secured/secure.xhtml redirects fine.

Answer 1

You are not using <welcome-file> entirely correctly. It should represent the sole filename of the file which needs to be served whenever a folder is been requested, irrespective of the requested folder (the root /, or /public/ or /secured/, etc).

The welcome file is served by an internal forward as performed by RequestDispatcher#forward(). Internal forwards do not trigger the security constraints. You need to send a redirect instead.

Change the <welcome-file> to a more sane default, e.g. index.xhtml.

<welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>index.xhtml</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>

And create one in the webapp's root like /index.xhtml. If you need to redirect every request on /index.xhtml to /secured/secure.xhtml, then there are basically 2 ways:

1. Map a Filter on the URL pattern of /index.xhtml and call response.sendRedirect("secured/secure.xhtml") inside the doFilter() method. E.g.

   @WebFilter("/index.xhtml")
   public class IndexFilter implements Filter {
   
       @Override
       public void doFilter(ServletRequest req, ServletResponse res, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
           HttpServletResponse response = (HttpServletResponse) res;
           response.sendRedirect("secured/secure.xhtml"));
       }
   
       // ...
   }
   

2. Put a <f:event type="preRenderView"> in the /index.xhtml which calls a backing bean method which in turn does a externalContext.redirect("secured/secure.xhtml"). E.g.

   <f:event type="preRenderView" listener="#{indexBean.redirect}" />
   

   with

   @ManagedBean
   @ApplicationScoped
   public class IndexBean {
   
       public void redirect() throws IOException {
           FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getExternalContext().redirect("secured/secure.xhtml");
       }
   
   }