Spring Security - How to Access User Roles in JSP

🎓 Top 15 Udemy Courses (80-90% Discount): My Udemy Courses - Ramesh Fadatare — All my Udemy courses are real-time and project oriented courses.

▶️ Subscribe to My YouTube Channel (178K+ subscribers): Java Guides on YouTube

▶️ For AI, ChatGPT, Web, Tech, and Generative AI, subscribe to another channel: Ramesh Fadatare on YouTube

In this short article, I show you how to access currently logged-in user roles in the JSP page using Spring security.

At the server side, we basically implement UserDetailsService interface to retrieve the user’s authentication and authorization information from the database.

The code snippet to retrieve user authentication and authorization information from the database:

@Service("userDetailsService")
public class MyUserDetailsService implements UserDetailsService {

    //get user from the database, via Hibernate
    @Autowired
    private UserDao userDao;

    @Transactional(readOnly = true)
    @Override
    public UserDetails loadUserByUsername(final String username)
    throws UsernameNotFoundException {
        //CUSTOM USER HERE vvv
        User user = userDao.findByUserName(username);
        List < GrantedAuthority > authorities =
            buildUserAuthority(user.getUserRole());
        //if you're implementing UserDetails you wouldn't need to call this method and instead return the User as it is
        //return buildUserForAuthentication(user, authorities);
        return user;

    }

    // Converts user to spring.springframework.security.core.userdetails.User
    private User buildUserForAuthentication(user,
        List < GrantedAuthority > authorities) {
        return new User(user.getUsername(), user.getPassword(),
            user.isEnabled(), true, true, true, authorities);
    }

    private List < GrantedAuthority > buildUserAuthority(Set < UserRole > userRoles) {

        Set < GrantedAuthority > setAuths = new HashSet < GrantedAuthority > ();

        // add user's authorities
        for (UserRole userRole: userRoles) {
            setAuths.add(new SimpleGrantedAuthority(userRole.getRole()));
        }

        List < GrantedAuthority > Result = new ArrayList < GrantedAuthority > (setAuths);

        return Result;
    }
}

So we can easily access principle in JSP. Note that the principal refers to your UserDetails object if you inspect that object the roles are stored under public Collection getAuthorities() { .. }.

Access User Roles in JSP using Spring Security

Spring Security has its own spring-security-taglibs library, which provides basic support for accessing security information and applying security constraints in JSPs.

Follow below steps to get access role in JSP using spring security.

1. Maven Dependencies

First of all, let’s add the spring-security-taglibs dependency to our pom.xml:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-security-taglibs</artifactId>
    <version>5.1.5.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>

Declaring the Taglibs

Now, before we can use the tags, we need to import the taglib at the top of our JSP file:

<%@ taglib prefix="sec" uri="http://www.springframework.org/security/tags" %>

After adding this, we’ll be able to specify Spring Security’s tags with the sec prefix.

Print User Roles in JSP Page

Let's print the roles on the screen:

<sec:authentication property="principal.authorities"/>

Access Expressions

In our applications, we might have information which should be shown only for certain roles or users.

When this is the case, we can use the authorize tag:

<sec:authorize access="!isAuthenticated()">
  Login
</sec:authorize>
<sec:authorize access="isAuthenticated()">
  Logout
</sec:authorize>

Furthermore, we can check if an authenticated user has specific roles:

<sec:authorize access="hasRole('ADMIN')">
    Manage Users
</sec:authorize>

Display Logged in User in JSP

We can use the authentication tag to display details about the logged in user:

<sec:authorize access="isAuthenticated()">
    Welcome Back, <sec:authentication property="name"/>
</sec:authorize>

Related Tutorials

• Spring Security Basic Authentication

• Spring Security In-Memory Authentication

• Spring Security Form-Based Authentication

• Difference Between Basic Authentication and Form Based Authentication

• Spring Security Custom Login Page

• Spring Security Login Form Example with Database Authentication
  

• Spring Boot Login REST API

• Login and Registration REST API using Spring Boot, Spring Security, Hibernate, and MySQL Database

• Spring Boot User Registration and Login Example Tutorial

My Top and Bestseller Udemy Courses. The sale is going on with a 70 - 80% discount. The discount coupon has been added to each course below:

Build REST APIs with Spring Boot 4, Spring Security 7, and JWT

🆕 High-Demand 80–90% OFF

[NEW] Learn Apache Maven with IntelliJ IDEA and Java 25

🆕 High-Demand 80–90% OFF

ChatGPT + Generative AI + Prompt Engineering for Beginners

🚀 Trending Now 80–90% OFF

Spring 7 and Spring Boot 4 for Beginners (Includes 8 Projects)

🔥 Bestseller 80–90% OFF
Available in Udemy for Business

Building Real-Time REST APIs with Spring Boot - Blog App

🔥 Bestseller 80–90% OFF
Available in Udemy for Business

Building Microservices with Spring Boot and Spring Cloud

🌟 Top Rated 80–90% OFF
Available in Udemy for Business

Java Full-Stack Developer Course with Spring Boot and React JS

🔥 Bestseller 80–90% OFF
Available in Udemy for Business

Build 5 Spring Boot Projects with Java: Line-by-Line Coding

🌟 Top Rated 80–90% OFF

Testing Spring Boot Application with JUnit and Mockito

🔥 Bestseller 80–90% OFF
Available in Udemy for Business

Spring Boot Thymeleaf Real-Time Web Application - Blog App

🔥 Bestseller 80–90% OFF
Available in Udemy for Business

Master Spring Data JPA with Hibernate

🔥 Bestseller 80–90% OFF
Available in Udemy for Business

Spring Boot + Apache Kafka Course - The Practical Guide

🎓 Student Favorite 80–90% OFF
Available in Udemy for Business

Java Testing: Mastering JUnit 5 Framework

🆕 New 80–90% OFF

Reactive Programming in Java: Spring WebFlux and Testing

🌟 Top Rated 80–90% OFF

Spring Boot + RabbitMQ Course - The Practical Guide

🌟 Top Rated 80–90% OFF
Available in Udemy for Business

Functional Programming in Java (Includes Java Collections)

🎓 Student Favorite 80–90% OFF

ChatGPT for Java Developers: Boost Your Productivity with AI

🚀 Trending Now 80–90% OFF