Initiator/StartUserId Activiti REST

[anjan]

Hi, we are using Activiti REST war in our application and we are using custom authentication and it is working perfectly fine.  We can start a process instance…etc.  But when we check the history of a process instance, the "startUserId" value is set to null.

{
            "id": "15001",
            "url": "http://localhost:8080/activiti-rest/service/history/historic-process-instances/15001",
            "businessKey": null,
            "processDefinitionId": "Review:1:2508",
            "processDefinitionUrl": "http://localhost:8080/activiti-rest/service/repository/process-definitions/Review:1:2508",
            "startTime": "2015-04-07T17:16:34.000+05:30",
            "endTime": null,
            "durationInMillis": null,
            "startUserId": null,
            "startActivityId": "start",
            "endActivityId": null,
            "deleteReason": null,
            "superProcessInstanceId": null,
            "variables":
            [
            ],
            "tenantId": ""
        }
‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Based on my understanding, I need to use the method IdentityService.setAuthenticatedUserId(name) so that the user is set correctly.  Since I am using a custom authentication (as a Filter), how do I get access to IdentityService.  Please let me know, if there is any other way to set this information.

[anjan]

In my CustomUserDetailsService, I have added the below code snippet and in the method loadUserByUsername method, I am trying to set the user name.  But I get NPE for identityService.
<code>
@Autowired
private IdentityService identityService;
</code>

[trademak]

Hi,

Can you share the configuration you did to customise the authentication?
The org.activiti.rest.security.BasicAuthenticationProvider class shows how it's implemented by default.

Best regards,

[anjan]

Hi Tijs, I looked at BasicAuthenticationProvider and added the identityService.  Anyway, here are the changes I made.

In SecurityConfiguration, I added the below line just before the <code>.httpBasic()</code>
<code>
.addFilterBefore(new CustomHeaderAuthenticationFilter(),  BasicAuthenticationFilter.class)
</code>

Here is the CustomHeaderAuthenticationFilter.
<code>
public class CustomHeaderAuthenticationFilter extends
  RequestHeaderAuthenticationFilter {

public CustomHeaderAuthenticationFilter() {
  super();
  setPrincipalRequestHeader("Custom_User");
  setExceptionIfHeaderMissing(false);
  PreAuthenticatedAuthenticationProvider preAuth =  new PreAuthenticatedAuthenticationProvider();
  UserDetailsByNameServiceWrapper userDetails = new UserDetailsByNameServiceWrapper();
  userDetails.setUserDetailsService(new CustomUserDetailsService());
  preAuth.setPreAuthenticatedUserDetailsService(userDetails);
 
  List<AuthenticationProvider> providers = new ArrayList<AuthenticationProvider>(1);
  providers.add(preAuth);
 
  setAuthenticationManager(new ProviderManager(providers));
  setContinueFilterChainOnUnsuccessfulAuthentication(true);
}
}
</code>

And here is CustomUserDetailsService.

<code>
public class CustomUserDetailsService implements UserDetailsService {

@Autowired
private IdentityService identityService;

@Override
public UserDetails loadUserByUsername(String username) throws UsernameNotFoundException {
  List<GrantedAuthority> authorities = new ArrayList<GrantedAuthority>(1);
        authorities.add(new GrantedAuthorityImpl("ROLE_USER"));
        UserDetails user = new User(username, "", true, true, true, true, authorities);
        identityService.setAuthenticatedUserId(username);
        return user;
}

}
</code>

After successful authentication in our application, we set the "Custom_User" header to the user id and then make a call to Activiti REST.  I am able to successfully make this call.  But as mentioned in my original post, "startUserId" is not set.  So I tried to autowire IdentifyService.  But I am getting NullPointerException at <code>
identityService.setAuthenticatedUserId(username);</code>

Here is the stacktrace:

<code>
SEVERE: Servlet.service() for servlet [dispatcher] in context with path [/activiti-rest] threw exception
java.lang.NullPointerException
at my.custom.package.CustomUserDetailsService.loadUserByUsername(CustomUserDetailsService.java:25)
at org.springframework.security.core.userdetails.UserDetailsByNameServiceWrapper.loadUserDetails(UserDetailsByNameServiceWrapper.java:51)
at org.springframework.security.web.authentication.preauth.PreAuthenticatedAuthenticationProvider.authenticate(PreAuthenticatedAuthenticationProvider.java:80)
at org.springframework.security.authentication.ProviderManager.authenticate(ProviderManager.java:156)
at org.springframework.security.web.authentication.preauth.AbstractPreAuthenticatedProcessingFilter.doAuthenticate(AbstractPreAuthenticatedProcessingFilter.java:121)
at org.springframework.security.web.authentication.preauth.AbstractPreAuthenticatedProcessingFilter.doFilter(AbstractPreAuthenticatedProcessingFilter.java:91)
at org.springframework.security.web.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:342)
at org.springframework.security.web.authentication.logout.LogoutFilter.doFilter(LogoutFilter.java:110)
at org.springframework.security.web.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:342)
at org.springframework.security.web.header.HeaderWriterFilter.doFilterInternal(HeaderWriterFilter.java:57)
at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:107)
at org.springframework.security.web.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:342)
at org.springframework.security.web.context.SecurityContextPersistenceFilter.doFilter(SecurityContextPersistenceFilter.java:87)
at org.springframework.security.web.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:342)
at org.springframework.security.web.context.request.async.WebAsyncManagerIntegrationFilter.doFilterInternal(WebAsyncManagerIntegrationFilter.java:50)
at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:107)
at org.springframework.security.web.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:342)
at org.springframework.security.web.FilterChainProxy.doFilterInternal(FilterChainProxy.java:192)
at org.springframework.security.web.FilterChainProxy.doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:160)
at org.springframework.web.filter.DelegatingFilterProxy.invokeDelegate(DelegatingFilterProxy.java:344)
at org.springframework.web.filter.DelegatingFilterProxy.doFilter(DelegatingFilterProxy.java:261)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:241)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:208)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:220)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:122)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:170)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:103)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve.invoke(AccessLogValve.java:950)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:116)
at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:421)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1070)
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:611)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(JIoEndpoint.java:314)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
</code>

[trademak]

You are creating a new instance of CustomUserDetailsService by doing a new CustomUserDetailsService().
By doing this, you are not using Spring to create the instance and any annotations in it will not be processes. Therefore IdentityService is null.

Best regards,

[anjan]

I changed the CustomHeaderAuthenticationFilter as below and used @Bean annotator.  But I am still getting the identityService as null.

<code>
@Configuration
public class CustomHeaderAuthenticationFilter extends
  RequestHeaderAuthenticationFilter {

@Bean
public CustomUserDetailsService customUserDetailsService()
{
  return new CustomUserDetailsService();
}

public CustomHeaderAuthenticationFilter() {
  super();
  setPrincipalRequestHeader("Custom_User");
  setExceptionIfHeaderMissing(false);
  PreAuthenticatedAuthenticationProvider preAuth =  new PreAuthenticatedAuthenticationProvider();
  UserDetailsByNameServiceWrapper userDetails = new UserDetailsByNameServiceWrapper();
  userDetails.setUserDetailsService(customUserDetailsService());
  preAuth.setPreAuthenticatedUserDetailsService(userDetails);
 
  List<AuthenticationProvider> providers = new ArrayList<AuthenticationProvider>(1);
  providers.add(preAuth);
 
  setAuthenticationManager(new ProviderManager(providers));
  setContinueFilterChainOnUnsuccessfulAuthentication(true);
}
}
</code>

[trademak]

Is the package of the CustomUserDetailsService class also included in the Spring package scanning? Otherwise it won't be considered for dependency injection.

Best regards,

[anjan]

I have included the <context:component-scan> (with package) in activiti-custom-context.xml file but identityService is still null.  One question though - I deployed both Activiti Explorer and Activiti REST in Tomcat (both are pointing to the same MySQL database).  Will this have any impact because both Explorer and REST will start a Process Engine?

[b_schnarr]

I don´t think so. It is a common approach to use a shared database between Explorer and REST. I configured my Custom Filter like this:

Spring Configuration:

<code>
@Bean
public CustomAuthenticationFilter customTokenAuthenticationFilter() {
  return new CustomAuthenticationFilter("/**");
};

@Autowired
CustomAuthenticationFilter customAuthenticationFilter;

.addFilterBefore(customAuthenticationFilter,
      BasicAuthenticationFilter.class).httpBasic();
</code>

In my own filter, I extend <code>AbstractAuthenticationProcessingFilter</code> and import <code>import org.activiti.engine.IdentityService;</code>

After that, I use <code> @Autowired
private IdentityService identityService;</code> and this works perfectly.

[anjan]

Thanks Ben for the clarification.  I assume, you haven't made any changes to activiti-custom-context.xml file.