nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

As we transition to the new Hyland Community, some post links may be temporarily disrupted as we finalize redirects. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working to resolve this as quickly as possible. Details.

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.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

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.

b_schnarr

No, nothing. All goes with the spring configuration and annotations.

anjan

I am able to resolve the issue. But I used xml configuration in activiti-custom-context.xml (due to the issues of Autowiring of the beans).

<code>
      <bean id="customHeaderAuthenticationFilter" class="org.springframework.security.web.authentication.preauth.RequestHeaderAuthenticationFilter">
        <property name="principalRequestHeader" value="Custom_User"/>
        <property name="authenticationManager" ref="authenticationManager" />
        <property name="continueFilterChainOnUnsuccessfulAuthentication" value="true" />
        <property name="exceptionIfHeaderMissing" value="false" />
    </bean>

    <bean id="preauthAuthProvider" class="org.springframework.security.web.authentication.preauth.PreAuthenticatedAuthenticationProvider">
        <property name="preAuthenticatedUserDetailsService">
            <bean id="userDetailsServiceWrapper" class="org.springframework.security.core.userdetails.UserDetailsByNameServiceWrapper">
                <property name="userDetailsService" ref="customUserDetailsService"/>
            </bean>
        </property>
    </bean>

    <security:authentication-manager alias="authenticationManager">
        <security:authentication-provider ref="preauthAuthProvider" />
    </security:authentication-manager>

    <bean id="customUserDetailsService" class="com.custom.package.CustomUserDetailsService"></bean>
</code>

Modified SecurityConfiguration to add the following:
<code>
@Autowired
RequestHeaderAuthenticationFilter customHeaderAuthenticationFilter;

       .addFilterBefore(customHeaderAuthenticationFilter, BasicAuthenticationFilter.class)
</code>

Also I have removed my custom CustomHeaderAuthenticationFilter as it is not required anymore.

Thanks everyone for al the suggestions.