Basic authentication for REST API using spring restTemplate

Question

I am completely new in RestTemplate and basically in the REST APIs also. I want to retrieve some data in my application via Jira REST API, but getting back 401 Unauthorised.

Answer 1

You may use spring-boot RestTemplateBuilder

@Bean
RestOperations rest(RestTemplateBuilder restTemplateBuilder) {
    return restTemplateBuilder.basicAuthentication("user", "password").build();
}

See documentation

(before SB 2.1.0 it was #basicAuthorization)

Answer 2

Use setBasicAuth to define credentials

HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
headers.setBasicAuth("myUsername", myPassword);

Then create the request like you prefer.

Example:

HttpEntity<String> request = new HttpEntity<String>(headers);
ResponseEntity<String> response = restTemplate.exchange(url, HttpMethod.GET, 
request, String.class);
String body = response.getBody();

Answer 3

As of Spring 5.1 you can use HttpHeaders.setBasicAuth

Create Basic Authorization header:

String username = "willie";
String password = ":p@ssword";
HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
headers.setBasicAuth(username, password);
...other headers goes here...

Pass the headers to the RestTemplate:

HttpEntity<String> request = new HttpEntity<String>(headers);
ResponseEntity<Account> response = restTemplate.exchange(url, HttpMethod.GET, request, Account.class);
Account account = response.getBody();

Documentation: https://docs.spring.io/spring-framework/docs/current/javadoc-api/org/springframework/http/HttpHeaders.html#setBasicAuth-java.lang.String-java.lang.String-

Answer 4

There are multiple ways to add the basic HTTP authentication to the RestTemplate.

1. For a single request

try {
    // request url
    String url = "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts";

    // create auth credentials
    String authStr = "username:password";
    String base64Creds = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(authStr.getBytes());

    // create headers
    HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
    headers.add("Authorization", "Basic " + base64Creds);

    // create request
    HttpEntity request = new HttpEntity(headers);

    // make a request
    ResponseEntity<String> response = new RestTemplate().exchange(url, HttpMethod.GET, request, String.class);

    // get JSON response
    String json = response.getBody();

} catch (Exception ex) {
    ex.printStackTrace();
}

If you are using Spring 5.1 or higher, it is no longer required to manually set the authorization header. Use headers.setBasicAuth() method instead:

// create headers
HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
headers.setBasicAuth("username", "password");

2. For a group of requests

@Service
public class RestService {

    private final RestTemplate restTemplate;

    public RestService(RestTemplateBuilder restTemplateBuilder) {
        this.restTemplate = restTemplateBuilder
                .basicAuthentication("username", "password")
                .build();
    }

   // use `restTemplate` instance here
}

3. For each and every request

@Bean
RestOperations restTemplateBuilder(RestTemplateBuilder restTemplateBuilder) {
    return restTemplateBuilder.basicAuthentication("username", "password").build();
}

I hope it helps!

Answer 5

(maybe) the easiest way without importing spring-boot.

restTemplate.getInterceptors().add(new BasicAuthorizationInterceptor("user", "password"));

Answer 6

Instead of instantiating as follows:

TestRestTemplate restTemplate = new TestRestTemplate();

Just do it like this:

TestRestTemplate restTemplate = new TestRestTemplate(user, password);

It works for me, I hope it helps!