pac4j/play-pac4j

play-pac4j is the Play framework implementation of pac4j, the security engine for Java. If it is useful to you, please ⭐ star pac4j on GitHub: it helps other developers discover it!

The play-pac4j project is an easy and powerful security library for Play Framework web applications and web services which supports authentication and authorization, but also logout and advanced features like CSRF protection. It's based on the pac4j security engine. It's available under the Apache 2 license.

JDK	Play version	pac4j version	play-pac4j version	Modules (Java & Scala)	Usage of Lombok	Status
17	3.0	6.x	14.0.x	play-pac4j_3	Yes	Production ready
17	3.0	6.x	13.0.x-PLAY3.0	play-pac4j_2.13 play-pac4j_3	Yes	Production ready
17	3.0	6.x	12.0.x-PLAY3.0	play-pac4j_2.13 play-pac4j_3	Yes	Production ready
17	2.9	6.x	12.0.x-PLAY2.9	play-pac4j_2.13 play-pac4j_3	Yes	Production ready
17	2.8	6.x	12.0.x-PLAY2.8	play-pac4j_2.12 play-pac4j_2.13	Yes	Production ready
11	2.8	5.x	11.1.x-PLAY2.8	play-pac4j_2.12 play-pac4j_2.13	No	Production ready
11	2.8	5.x	11.0.x-PLAY2.8	play-pac4j_2.12 play-pac4j_2.13	No	Production ready
11	2.8	4.x	10.x	play-pac4j_2.12 play-pac4j_2.13	No	Production ready
8	2.7	4.x	9.x	play-pac4j_2.11 play-pac4j_2.12 play-pac4j_2.13	No	Production ready

Version 14.0.1 is released as a single artifact, org.pac4j:play-pac4j_3:14.0.1, containing both Java and Scala APIs. It requires JDK 17 or later and targets Play 3.0, using Play 3.0.12, pac4j 6.6.1 and Scala 3.10.0.

In build.sbt, for both Java and Scala applications:

scalaVersion := "3.10.0"
libraryDependencies += "org.pac4j" %% "play-pac4j" % "14.0.1"

Add the pac4j modules required by your authentication mechanisms at version 6.6.1. See the dependencies and the v14 migration guide when upgrading from a previous release.

Main concepts and components:

1. A client represents an authentication mechanism. It performs the login process and returns a user profile. An indirect client is for UI authentication while a direct client is for web services authentication:

▸ OpenID Connect - SAML - CAS - OAuth - HTTP - Kerberos - LDAP - SQL - JWT - MongoDB - IP address - REST API

1. An authorizer is meant to check authorizations on the authenticated user profile(s) or on the current web context:

▸ Roles - Anonymous / remember-me / (fully) authenticated - Profile type, attribute - CORS - CSRF - Security headers - IP address, HTTP method

1. A matcher defines whether the security must be applied and can be used for additional web processing

2. The Secure annotation and the Security trait protect methods while the SecurityFilter protects URLs by checking that the user is authenticated and that the authorizations are valid, according to the clients and authorizers configuration. If the user is not authenticated, it performs authentication for direct clients or starts the login process for indirect clients

3. The CallbackController finishes the login process for an indirect client

4. The LogoutController logs out the user from the application and triggers the logout at the identity provider level

5. The Pac4jScalaTemplateHelper can be used to get the user profile(s) from a Twirl template.

Usage

1) Add the required dependencies

2) Define:

- the security configuration

- the callback configuration, only for web applications

- the logout configuration

When using PlayCookieSessionStore, inject it through Play to derive its encryption key from play.http.secret.key. Keep this secret stable and shared across application nodes. If you construct the store manually, provide a DataEncrypter with a persistent shared key through its constructor or setDataEncrypter. Cookies encrypted with an old key or containing unreadable data are discarded, allowing a new session to be created.

3) Apply security

4) Get the authenticated user profiles

Demos

Two demo webapps: play-pac4j-java-demo & play-pac4j-scala-demo are available for tests and implement many authentication mechanisms: Facebook, Twitter, form, basic auth, CAS, SAML, OpenID Connect, JWT...

Versions

The latest released version is 14.0.1. See development builds for snapshot usage.

See the release notes.

See the migration guide as well.

Need help?

You can use the mailing lists or the commercial support.