Enable CORS for OPTIONS request using Spring Framework

Question

Every time I make a PUT Ajax call to my service, it return the following error:

XMLHttpRequest cannot load http://localhost:8080/users/edit. Response to preflight request doesn't pass access control check: No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource. Origin 'http://localhost:63342' is therefore not allowed access. The response had HTTP status code 403.

After 2 days of investigation, I've reached to try the next solution on my code.

This is the main class where I load the necessary classes and run the application:

@SpringBootApplication
@EnableAutoConfiguration
public class Application extends SpringBootServletInitializer{

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
    }

    @Override
    protected SpringApplicationBuilder configure(SpringApplicationBuilder application) {
        return application.sources(DispatcherServletInitializer.class, OptionsController.class,Application.class);
    }
}

The DispatcherServilet initializer, where I enable the dispatchOptionsRequest:

public abstract class DispatcherServletInitializer extends AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer {

    @Override
    protected void customizeRegistration(ServletRegistration.Dynamic registration) {
        registration.setInitParameter("dispatchOptionsRequest", "true");
        super.customizeRegistration(registration);
    }
}

A controller for handle all OPTIONS request:

@Controller
public class OptionsController {

    @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.OPTIONS)
    public HttpServletResponse handle(HttpServletResponse theHttpServletResponse) throws IOException {
        theHttpServletResponse.addHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "origin, content-type, accept, x-requested-with");
        theHttpServletResponse.addHeader("Access-Control-Max-Age", "60"); 
        theHttpServletResponse.addHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS");
        theHttpServletResponse.addHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*");
        return theHttpServletResponse;
    }

}

What I'm doing wrong with the configuration?

Answer 1

Finally, the DispatcheServlet customize initializer was the class that really solved my problem. The OPTIONS request was failing because of the optionsController I had implemented, it was wrong.

So I removed that optionsController, and just by adding the handle method in my Rest Controller for the OPTIONS request, the problem was solved:

@CrossOrigin(origins = "*", maxAge = 3600)
@RestController
@RequestMapping("/users")
public class Users {

    @RequestMapping(
            value = "/edit",
            method = RequestMethod.PUT)
    public ResponseEntity<?> create(@RequestBody User user){
         ....
         ....
    }

    @RequestMapping(
            value = "/**",
            method = RequestMethod.OPTIONS
    )
    public ResponseEntity handle() {
        return new ResponseEntity(HttpStatus.OK);
    }
}

Answer 2

If you use a modern version of Spring (4.2) you can benefit of the @CrossOrigin. Indeed if you use Spring < 4.2v you can create a Servlet Filter and put hear the header for CORS support like below:

package it.valeriovaudi.web.filter;

import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

/**
 Copyright 2015 Valerio Vaudi
 Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 You may obtain a copy of the License at
 http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 limitations under the License.
 */
public class CORSFilter implements Filter {
    public static final String ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_ORIGIN_NAME = "Access-Control-Allow-Origin";
    public static final String DEFAULT_ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_ORIGIN_VALUE = "*";

    public static final String ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_METHDOS_NAME = "Access-Control-Allow-Methods";
    public static final String DEFAULT_ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_METHDOS_VALUE = "POST, GET, OPTIONS, DELETE";

    public static final String ACCESS_CONTROL_MAX_AGE_NAME = "Access-Control-Max-Age";
    public static final String DEFAULT_ACCESS_CONTROL_MAX_AGE_VALUE = "3600";

    public static final String ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_HEADERS_NAME = "Access-Control-Allow-Headers";
    public static final String DEFAULT_ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_HEADERS_VALUE = "x-requested-with";

    private String accessControlAllowOrigin = DEFAULT_ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_ORIGIN_VALUE;
    private String accessControlAllowMethods = DEFAULT_ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_METHDOS_VALUE;
    private String accessControlAllowMaxAge = DEFAULT_ACCESS_CONTROL_MAX_AGE_VALUE;
    private String accessControlAllowHeaders = DEFAULT_ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_HEADERS_VALUE;

    /**
     * @return the method return a map that associated the name of paramiters in the web.xml to the class variable name for the header binding*/
    private Map<String,String> initConfig(){
        Map<String, String> result = new HashMap<>();

        result.put(ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_ORIGIN_NAME,"accessControlAllowOrigin");
        result.put(ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_METHDOS_NAME,"accessControlAllowMethods");
        result.put(ACCESS_CONTROL_MAX_AGE_NAME,"accessControlAllowMaxAge");
        result.put(ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_HEADERS_NAME,"accessControlAllowHeaders");

        return result;
    }

    @Override
    public void init(FilterConfig filterConfig) throws ServletException {
        String initParameterValue;
        Map<String, String> stringStringMap = initConfig();

        for (Map.Entry<String, String> stringStringEntry : stringStringMap.entrySet()) {
            initParameterValue = filterConfig.getInitParameter(stringStringEntry.getKey());

            // if the init paramiter value isn't null then set the value in the correct http header
            if(initParameterValue!=null){
                try {
                    getClass().getDeclaredField(stringStringEntry.getValue()).set(this, initParameterValue);
                } catch (IllegalAccessException | NoSuchFieldException ignored) { }
            }
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void doFilter(ServletRequest servletRequest, ServletResponse servletResponse, FilterChain filterChain) throws IOException, ServletException {
        HttpServletResponse response = (HttpServletResponse) servletResponse;

        response.setHeader(ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_ORIGIN_NAME, accessControlAllowOrigin);
        response.setHeader(ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_METHDOS_NAME, accessControlAllowMethods);
        response.setHeader(ACCESS_CONTROL_MAX_AGE_NAME, accessControlAllowMaxAge);
        response.setHeader(ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_HEADERS_NAME, accessControlAllowHeaders);

        filterChain.doFilter(servletRequest, servletResponse);
    }

    @Override
    public void destroy() {
    }

}

in Spring boot you can register this filter as spring bean and Spring will register the filter for you.

I hope that this can help you.