How to set SameSite and Secure attribute to JSESSIONID cookie

Question

I have a Spring Boot Web Application (Spring boot version 2.0.3.RELEASE) and running in an Apache Tomcat 8.5.5 server.

With the recent security policy which has imposed by Google Chrome (Rolled out since 80.0), it is requested to apply the new SameSite attribute to make the Cross-site cookie access in a more secure way instead of the CSRF. As I have done nothing related that and Chrome has set default value SameSite=Lax for the first-party cookies, one of my third-party service integration is failing due to the reason that chrome is restricting access of cross-site cookies when SameSite=Lax and if the third party response is coming from a POST request (Once the procedure completes third-party service redirect to our site with a POST request). in there Tomcat unable to find the session so it appends a new JSESSIONID (with a new session and the previous session was killed) at the end of the URL. So Spring rejects the URL as it contains a semicolon which was introduced by the new JSESSIONID append.

So I need to change the JSESSIONID cookie attributes(SameSite=None; Secure) and tried it in several ways including WebFilters.I have seen the same question and answers in Stackoverflow and tried most of them but ended up in nowhere.

can someone come up with a solution to change those headers in Spring Boot, please?

Solution 1

---

UPDATE on 06/07/2021 - Added correct Path attribute with new sameSite attributes to avoid session cookie duplication with GenericFilterBean approach.

---

I was able to come up with my own solution for this.

I have two kinds of applications which run on Spring boot which has different Spring security configurations and they needed different solutions to fix this.

CASE 1: No user authentication

Solution 1

In here you might have created an endpoint for the 3rd party response, in your application. You are safe until you access httpSession in a controller method. If you are accessing session in different controller method then send a temporary redirect request to there like follows.

@Controller
public class ThirdPartyResponseController{

@RequestMapping(value=3rd_party_response_URL, method=RequestMethod.POST)
public void thirdPartyresponse(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse httpServletResponse){
    // your logic
    // and you can set any data as an session attribute which you want to access over the 2nd controller 
    request.getSession().setAttribute(<data>)
    try {
        httpServletResponse.sendRedirect(<redirect_URL>);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        // handle error
    }
}

@RequestMapping(value=redirect_URL, method=RequestMethod.GET)
public String thirdPartyresponse(HttpServletRequest request,  HttpServletResponse httpServletResponse, Model model,  RedirectAttributes redirectAttributes, HttpSession session){
    // your logic
        return <to_view>;
    }
}

Still, you need to allow the 3rd_party_response_url in your security configuration.

Solution 2

You can try the same GenericFilterBean approach described below.

Case 2: Users need to be authenticated/sign in

In a Spring Web application where you have configured most of your security rules either through HttpSecurity or WebSecurity, check this solution.

Sample security config which I have tested the solution:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity
@EnableGlobalMethodSecurity(prePostEnabled = true, securedEnabled = true)
public class SecurityConfiguration extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {

    @Override
    protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
        http.
          ......
          ..antMatchers(<3rd_party_response_URL>).permitAll();
          .....
          ..csrf().ignoringAntMatchers(<3rd_party_response_URL>);
    }
}

The Important points which I want to highlight in this configuration are you should allow the 3rd party response URL from Spring Security and CSRF protection(if it's enabled).

Then we need to create a HttpServletRequest Filter by extending GenericFilterBean class (Filter class did not work for me) and setting the SameSite Attributes to the JSESSIONID cookie by intercepting each HttpServletRequest and setting the response headers.

import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils;
import org.springframework.http.HttpHeaders;
import org.springframework.web.filter.GenericFilterBean;

import javax.servlet.FilterChain;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.ServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.ServletResponse;
import javax.servlet.http.Cookie;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

public class SessionCookieFilter extends GenericFilterBean {

    private final List<String> PATHS_TO_IGNORE_SETTING_SAMESITE = Arrays.asList("resources", <add other paths you want to exclude>);
    private final String SESSION_COOKIE_NAME = "JSESSIONID";
    private final String SESSION_PATH_ATTRIBUTE = ";Path=";
    private final String ROOT_CONTEXT = "/";
    private final String SAME_SITE_ATTRIBUTE_VALUES = ";HttpOnly;Secure;SameSite=None";

    @Override
    public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
        HttpServletRequest req = (HttpServletRequest) request;
        HttpServletResponse resp = (HttpServletResponse) response;
        String requestUrl = req.getRequestURL().toString();
        boolean isResourceRequest = requestUrl != null ? StringUtils.isNoneBlank(PATHS_TO_IGNORE_SETTING_SAMESITE.stream().filter(s -> requestUrl.contains(s)).findFirst().orElse(null)) : null;
        if (!isResourceRequest) {
            Cookie[] cookies = ((HttpServletRequest) request).getCookies();
            if (cookies != null && cookies.length > 0) {
                List<Cookie> cookieList = Arrays.asList(cookies);
                Cookie sessionCookie = cookieList.stream().filter(cookie -> SESSION_COOKIE_NAME.equals(cookie.getName())).findFirst().orElse(null);
                if (sessionCookie != null) {
                    String contextPath = request.getServletContext() != null && StringUtils.isNotBlank(request.getServletContext().getContextPath()) ? request.getServletContext().getContextPath() : ROOT_CONTEXT;
                    resp.setHeader(HttpHeaders.SET_COOKIE, sessionCookie.getName() + "=" + sessionCookie.getValue() + SESSION_PATH_ATTRIBUTE + contextPath + SAME_SITE_ATTRIBUTE_VALUES);
                }
            }
        }
        chain.doFilter(request, response);
    }
}

Then add this filter to the Spring Security filter chain by

@Override
protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
        http.
           ....
           .addFilterAfter(new SessionCookieFilter(), BasicAuthenticationFilter.class);
}

in order to determine where you need to place the new filter in Spring’s security filter chain, you can debug the Spring security filter chain easily and identify a proper location in the filter chain. Apart from the BasicAuthenticationFilter, after the SecurityContextPersistanceFilter would be an another ideal place.

This SameSite cookie attribute will not support some old browser versions and in that case, check the browser and avoid setting SameSite in incompatible clients.

private static final String _I_PHONE_IOS_12 = "iPhone OS 12_";
    private static final String _I_PAD_IOS_12 = "iPad; CPU OS 12_";
    private static final String _MAC_OS_10_14 = " OS X 10_14_";
    private static final String _VERSION = "Version/";
    private static final String _SAFARI = "Safari";
    private static final String _EMBED_SAFARI = "(KHTML, like Gecko)";
    private static final String _CHROME = "Chrome/";
    private static final String _CHROMIUM = "Chromium/";
    private static final String _UC_BROWSER = "UCBrowser/";
    private static final String _ANDROID = "Android";

    /*
     * checks SameSite=None;Secure incompatible Browsers
     * https://www.chromium.org/updates/same-site/incompatible-clients
     */
    public static boolean isSameSiteInCompatibleClient(HttpServletRequest request) {
        String userAgent = request.getHeader("user-agent");
        if (StringUtils.isNotBlank(userAgent)) {
            boolean isIos12 = isIos12(userAgent), isMacOs1014 = isMacOs1014(userAgent), isChromeChromium51To66 = isChromeChromium51To66(userAgent), isUcBrowser = isUcBrowser(userAgent);
            //TODO : Added for testing purpose. remove before Prod release.
            LOG.info("*********************************************************************************");
            LOG.info("is iOS 12 = {}, is MacOs 10.14 = {}, is Chrome 51-66 = {}, is Android UC Browser = {}", isIos12, isMacOs1014, isChromeChromium51To66, isUcBrowser);
            LOG.info("*********************************************************************************");
            return isIos12 || isMacOs1014 || isChromeChromium51To66 || isUcBrowser;
        }
        return false;
    }

    private static boolean isIos12(String userAgent) {
        return StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _I_PHONE_IOS_12) || StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _I_PAD_IOS_12);
    }

    private static boolean isMacOs1014(String userAgent) {
        return StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _MAC_OS_10_14)
            && ((StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _VERSION) && StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _SAFARI))  //Safari on MacOS 10.14
            || StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _EMBED_SAFARI)); // Embedded browser on MacOS 10.14
    }

    private static boolean isChromeChromium51To66(String userAgent) {
        boolean isChrome = StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _CHROME), isChromium = StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _CHROMIUM);
        if (isChrome || isChromium) {
            int version = isChrome ? Integer.valueOf(StringUtils.substringAfter(userAgent, _CHROME).substring(0, 2))
                : Integer.valueOf(StringUtils.substringAfter(userAgent, _CHROMIUM).substring(0, 2));
            return ((version >= 51) && (version <= 66));    //Chrome or Chromium V51-66
        }
        return false;
    }

    private static boolean isUcBrowser(String userAgent) {
        if (StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _UC_BROWSER) && StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _ANDROID)) {
            String[] version = StringUtils.splitByWholeSeparator(StringUtils.substringAfter(userAgent, _UC_BROWSER).substring(0, 7), ".");
            int major = Integer.valueOf(version[0]), minor = Integer.valueOf(version[1]), build = Integer.valueOf(version[2]);
            return ((major != 0) && ((major < 12) || (major == 12 && (minor < 13)) || (major == 12 && minor == 13 && (build < 2)))); //UC browser below v12.13.2 in android
        }
        return false;
    }

Add above check in SessionCookieFilter like follows,

if (!isResourceRequest && !UserAgentUtils.isSameSiteInCompatibleClient(req)) {

This filter won't work in localhost environments as it requires a Secured(HTTPS) connection to set Secure cookie attribute.

For a detailed explanation read this blog post.

Solution 2

I was in same situation earlier. Since there is nothing like SameSite in javax.servlet.http.Cookie class so it's not possible to add that.

Part 1: So what I did is wrote a filter which intercepts the required third party request only.

public class CustomFilter implements Filter {

    private static final String THIRD_PARTY_URI = "/third/party/uri";


    @Override
    public void doFilter(ServletRequest req, ServletResponse res, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
        HttpServletRequest request = (HttpServletRequest) req;
        HttpServletResponse response = (HttpServletResponse) res;
        if(THIRD_PARTY_URI.equals(request.getRequestURI())) {
            chain.doFilter(request, new CustomHttpServletResponseWrapper(response));
        } else {
            chain.doFilter(request, response);
        }
    }
enter code here
    // ... init destroy methods here
    
}

Part 2: Cookies are sent as Set-Cookie response header. So this CustomHttpServletResponseWrapper overrides the addCookie method and check, if it is the required cookie (JSESSIONID), instead of adding it to cookie, it adds directly to response header Set-Cookie with SameSite=None attribute.

public class CustomHttpServletResponseWrapper extends HttpServletResponseWrapper {

    public CustomHttpServletResponseWrapper(HttpServletResponse response) {
        super(response);
    }

    @Override
    public void addCookie(Cookie cookie) {
        if ("JSESSIONID".equals(cookie.getName())) {
            super.addHeader("Set-Cookie", getCookieValue(cookie));
        } else {
            super.addCookie(cookie);
        }
    }

    private String getCookieValue(Cookie cookie) {

        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
        builder.append(cookie.getName()).append('=').append(cookie.getValue());
        builder.append(";Path=").append(cookie.getPath());
        if (cookie.isHttpOnly()) {
            builder.append(";HttpOnly");
        }
        if (cookie.getSecure()) {
            builder.append(";Secure");
        }
        // here you can append other attributes like domain / max-age etc.
        builder.append(";SameSite=None");
        return builder.toString();
    }
}

Comments

[ThilankaD]

Appreciate your help @Pratapi. But this hasn't resolved the problem either. Does this work in Localhost as well?

[Pratapi Hemant Patel]

Yes, it worked for me. Please ensure secure attribute is not set on localhost. You can add a check to not add secure on localhost by request.getRemoteHost() (method name may differ) method.

[ThilankaD]

but none from SameSite nor secure was set on mine.

[ThilankaD]

I'm using an older version of spring boot versoin 2.0.3 RELEASE.

[ThilankaD]

Sorry, This has resolved my issue. Surprisingly Google Chrome is not showing the cookie attributes which sets but it passes the cookie through the cross-site request. Previously I have only checked against Session cookie shown in dev tools only. Thanks @Pratapi. Anyway it was needed to mark The Filter as a Component in order to spring to identify it as a filter

[Pratapi Hemant Patel]

If it worked for you, please accept the answer, so that other people with same problem know that it's a working solution. Since it's a new issue and lots of people will be facing the same issue.

[ThilankaD]

This has fixed the Issue in my localhost with the test service for the third party service. but this was not worked against the production service of the third-party components. Do you have any idea about this?

[Pratapi Hemant Patel]

On localhost you might be not setting secure, but in production it requires secure.

[Daniel Henao]

This solution worked, but not working on JSESSIONID cookie set by spring security on a basic auth kind of security, any ideas?

[Pratapi Hemant Patel]

You can try using some spring flavoured filters like GenericFilterBean or interceptors.

[ThilankaD]

as you said, the above solutions will work for the latest versions of Spring boot (Assume it is somewhere after 2.6 - github.com/spring-projects/spring-framework/issues/27596) and with the latest Tomcat version. If there is anyone who needs a workaround by staying at the same Spring boot version (because we know the struggles we need to go through when it is needed to update a particular spring boot version) like me(v 2.0.3), the solution mentioned in the top answer may help. But if you are using Spring Boot 2.6/7 or latter, then the above answer is way more easier to implement with.

[ThilankaD]

Tomcat update - shibboleth.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/DEV/pages/1192624401/…