I have a JSF page which posts data to an external page.
The data is loaded from a JSF managed bean which generates a unique ID in the post data.
I have an issue where a user clicks on a checkout button then navigates back to the same page and presses the checkout button again. The post data has not updated. Moreover, the bean is not invoked at all. Is there anyway to force JSF to reload the page and the form data?
<form action="#{checkoutBean.externalUrl}" method="post"
id="payForm" name="payForm">
<input type="hidden" value="#{checkoutBean.uniqueID}" />
<input type="submit" value="Proceed to Checkout" />
</form>
That page is likely being loaded from browser cache. This is essentially harmless, but indeed confusing to the enduser, because s/he incorrectly thinks that it's really coming from the server. You can easily confirm this by looking at the HTTP traffic monitor in browser's web developer toolset (press F12 in Chrome/FireFox23+/IE9+ and check "Network" section).
You basically need to tell the browser to not cache (dynamic) JSF pages. This way the browser will actually request the server for the page (and hereby triggering proper creation/initialization of managed beans and so forth) instead of showing the previously requested one from its cache.
Generally, this is to be done with a simple servlet filter like follows:
#WebFilter("/app/*")
public class NoCacheFilter implements Filter {
#Override
public void doFilter(ServletRequest req, ServletResponse res, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
HttpServletRequest request = (HttpServletRequest) req;
HttpServletResponse response = (HttpServletResponse) res;
if (!request.getRequestURI().startsWith(request.getContextPath() + ResourceHandler.RESOURCE_IDENTIFIER)) { // Skip JSF resources (CSS/JS/Images/etc)
response.setHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate"); // HTTP 1.1.
response.setHeader("Pragma", "no-cache"); // HTTP 1.0.
response.setDateHeader("Expires", 0); // Proxies.
}
chain.doFilter(req, res);
}
// ...
}
Where /app/* is the example URL pattern on which you'd like to turn off the browser cache. You can if necessary map it on /*, *.xhtml or even on servletNames={"Faces Servlet"}.
If you happen to use JSF utility library OmniFaces, then you can use its builtin CacheControlFilter by just adding the following entry to web.xml (which demonstrates a direct mapping on FacesServlet, meaning that every dynamic JSF page won't be cached):
<filter>
<filter-name>noCache</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.omnifaces.filter.CacheControlFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>noCache</filter-name>
<servlet-name>facesServlet</servlet-name>
</filter-mapping>
See also the showcase.
I found a solution that works for JSF without having to create a servlet-filter. Just put the line below to your .xhtml page.
<f:event type="preRenderView" listener="#{facesContext.externalContext.response.setHeader('Cache-Control', 'no-cache, no-store')}" />
Related
I have implemented a Filter for checking if a user is logged in or not by checking the session for a #SessionScoped bean. When I started testing it, I however, noticed that whenever I accessed one of my pages the Filter would be invoked multiple times.
I have figured out that I needed to ignore AJAX requests which reduced the number of times my filter would be invoked but the number of requests triggered each time I loaded the page was still more than one.
By trial and error, I have figured out that the requests would be generated by the following XHTML tags (both embedded in the <h:body> tag):
<h:outputStylesheet name="styles/userbar.css" target="head"/>
<o:commandScript name="updateMessages" render="custom_messages"/>
The second tag being part of OmniFaces library.
Any ideas why I get multiple requests or maybe if there is a way to ignore the requests generated by these tags?
Any help would be appreciated.
That can happen if you mapped the filter on a generic URL pattern like #WebFilter("/*"), or directly on the faces servlet like #WebFilter(servletNames="facesServlet"). The requests you're referring to are just coming from (auto-included) CSS/JS/image resources. If you track the browser's builtin HTTP traffic monitor (press F12, Network) or debug the request URI in filter, then that should have become clear quickly.
As to covering JSF resource requests, if changing the filter to listen on a more specific URL pattern like #WebFilter("/app/*") is not possible for some reason, then you'd need to add an additional check on the request URI. Given that you're using OmniFaces, you can use the Servlets utility class to check in a filter if the current request is a JSF ajax request or a JSF resource request:
#WebFilter("/*")
public class YourFilter extends HttpFilter {
#Override
public void doFilter(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response, HttpSession session, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
if (Servlets.isFacesAjaxRequest(request) || Servlets.isFacesResourceRequest(request)) {
chain.doFilter(request, response);
return;
}
// ...
}
}
See also:
Authorization redirect on session expiration does not work on submitting a JSF form, page stays the same (contains a "plain vanilla" Servlet example for the case you aren't using OmniFaces)
I am trying to add PrimeFaces to my project. It is running on Glassfish 3 with form-based authentication. I downloaded the jar and put into WEB-INF/lib. After logging in, I was shown a css file with the URL:
localhost:8080/[webapp]/javax.faces.resource/theme.css.jsf?ln=primefaces-aristo
This does not happen if I disable security check. Here is the login part in my web.xml.
<login-config>
<auth-method>FORM</auth-method>
<form-login-config>
<form-login-page>/login.jsf</form-login-page>
<form-error-page>/login.jsf?failed=true</form-error-page>
</form-login-config>
</login-config>
Can anyone tell me what is the problem? Thanks!
This is caused by the restricted pages being cached by the browser.
The container managed security will redirect to the last HTTP request which triggered the authentication check. In your case it's apparently the auto-included PrimeFaces theme CSS file. That can happen if the browser has loaded the to-be-authenticated page fully from the browser cache, while the browser has loaded the CSS file fully from the server side, or have tested the cache validity of the CSS file by a conditional GET request. The container managed security will then remember exactly this URL as redirect-after-successful-login URL.
You'd like to exclude the JSF resources (<h:outputScript>, <h:outputStylesheet> and <h:graphicImage> from authentication checks. You could do that by excluding the common URL pattern /javax.faces.resource/*.
<security-constraint>
<web-resource-collection>
<web-resource-name>Allowed resources</web-resource-name>
<url-pattern>/javax.faces.resource/*</url-pattern>
</web-resource-collection>
<!-- No Auth Contraint! -->
</security-constraint>
You also need to instruct the browser to not cache restricted pages to prevent the browser loading it from the cache (e.g. by pressing back button after logout). Map the following filter on the same URL pattern as the one of your <security-constraint>.
#WebFilter("/secured/*") // Use the same URL pattern as <security-constraint>
public class NoCacheFilter implements Filter {
#Override
public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
HttpServletRequest req = (HttpServletRequest) request;
HttpServletResponse res = (HttpServletResponse) response;
if (!req.getRequestURI().startsWith(req.getContextPath() + ResourceHandler.RESOURCE_IDENTIFIER)) { // Skip JSF resources (CSS/JS/Images/etc)
res.setHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate"); // HTTP 1.1.
res.setHeader("Pragma", "no-cache"); // HTTP 1.0.
res.setDateHeader("Expires", 0); // Proxies.
}
chain.doFilter(request, response);
}
// ...
}
Note that this also fixes the "back button" problem. So the enduser would also not see the restricted pages anymore when back button is pressed after signout/logout as would happen in your current setup.
You should exclude web resources from validation. Add for example <url-pattern>*.css</url-pattern> in your <security-constraint> element. Do that for all web resources which don't need security checks (js, images, ...).
it seems like you have the wrong url-pattern in your security constraints.
Have a look at this example for a working version.
http://blog.eisele.net/2011/01/jdbc-security-realm-and-form-based.html
I have a JSF page which posts data to an external page.
The data is loaded from a JSF managed bean which generates a unique ID in the post data.
I have an issue where a user clicks on a checkout button then navigates back to the same page and presses the checkout button again. The post data has not updated. Moreover, the bean is not invoked at all. Is there anyway to force JSF to reload the page and the form data?
<form action="#{checkoutBean.externalUrl}" method="post"
id="payForm" name="payForm">
<input type="hidden" value="#{checkoutBean.uniqueID}" />
<input type="submit" value="Proceed to Checkout" />
</form>
That page is likely being loaded from browser cache. This is essentially harmless, but indeed confusing to the enduser, because s/he incorrectly thinks that it's really coming from the server. You can easily confirm this by looking at the HTTP traffic monitor in browser's web developer toolset (press F12 in Chrome/FireFox23+/IE9+ and check "Network" section).
You basically need to tell the browser to not cache (dynamic) JSF pages. This way the browser will actually request the server for the page (and hereby triggering proper creation/initialization of managed beans and so forth) instead of showing the previously requested one from its cache.
Generally, this is to be done with a simple servlet filter like follows:
#WebFilter("/app/*")
public class NoCacheFilter implements Filter {
#Override
public void doFilter(ServletRequest req, ServletResponse res, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
HttpServletRequest request = (HttpServletRequest) req;
HttpServletResponse response = (HttpServletResponse) res;
if (!request.getRequestURI().startsWith(request.getContextPath() + ResourceHandler.RESOURCE_IDENTIFIER)) { // Skip JSF resources (CSS/JS/Images/etc)
response.setHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate"); // HTTP 1.1.
response.setHeader("Pragma", "no-cache"); // HTTP 1.0.
response.setDateHeader("Expires", 0); // Proxies.
}
chain.doFilter(req, res);
}
// ...
}
Where /app/* is the example URL pattern on which you'd like to turn off the browser cache. You can if necessary map it on /*, *.xhtml or even on servletNames={"Faces Servlet"}.
If you happen to use JSF utility library OmniFaces, then you can use its builtin CacheControlFilter by just adding the following entry to web.xml (which demonstrates a direct mapping on FacesServlet, meaning that every dynamic JSF page won't be cached):
<filter>
<filter-name>noCache</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.omnifaces.filter.CacheControlFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>noCache</filter-name>
<servlet-name>facesServlet</servlet-name>
</filter-mapping>
See also the showcase.
I found a solution that works for JSF without having to create a servlet-filter. Just put the line below to your .xhtml page.
<f:event type="preRenderView" listener="#{facesContext.externalContext.response.setHeader('Cache-Control', 'no-cache, no-store')}" />
I'm looking for a best practise answer. I want to do some preprocessing for GET requests. So e.g. if the user is not allowed to see the page, redirect him to another page. But I don't want to use normal servlet filter, because I would like to express this behavior in the faces-config.xml. Is this possible and how is that called, how can it be done?
Can I define some Filter bean that also returns a String telling the faces-config.xml where to go next?
I googled for this but only hit on the normal filters. If I use filters, can a #WebFilter be a #ManagedBean at the same time? Or is that bad style?
If you're homegrowing HTTP request authentication on top of JSF, then a servlet filter is really the best approach. JSF is "just" a MVC framework and nothing in the JSF API is been specified to filter incoming HTTP requests to check user authentication. On normal GET requests, a JSF managed bean is usually only constructed when the HTTP response is about to be created and sent, or maybe already is been committed. This is not controllable from inside the managed bean. If the response is already been committed, you would not be able anymore to change (redirect) it. Authentication and changing the request/response really needs to be done far before the response is about to be sent.
If you were not homegrowing authentication, then you could have used the Java EE provided container managed authentication for this which is to be declared by <security-constraint> entries in web.xml. Note that this is also decoupled from JSF, but it at least saves you from homegrowing a servlet filter and a managed bean.
The general approach is to group the restricted pages behind a certain URL pattern like /app/*, /private/*, /secured/*, etc and to take the advantage of the fact that JSF stores session scoped beans as HttpSession attributes. Imagine that you've a JSF session scoped managed bean UserManager which holds the logged-in user, then you could check for it as follows:
#WebFilter(urlPatterns={"/app/*"})
public class AuthenticationFilter implements Filter {
#Override
public void doFilter(ServletRequest req, ServletResponse res, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
HttpServletRequest request = (HttpServletRequest) req;
HttpServletResponse response = (HttpServletResponse) res;
HttpSession session = request.getSession(false);
UserManager userManager = (session != null) ? (UserManager) session.getAttribute("userManager") : null;
if (userManager == null || !userManager.isLoggedIn()) {
response.sendRedirect(request.getContextPath() + "/login.xhtml"); // No logged-in user found, so redirect to login page.
} else {
chain.doFilter(req, res); // Logged-in user found, so just continue request.
}
}
// ...
}
If you're using JSF 2.2+, there's another way to control the response right before it is been sent. You can make use of the <f:viewAction>. Put the following somewhere in your view:
<f:metadata>
<f:viewAction action="#{authenticator.check}" />
</f:metadata>
with
#Named
#RequestScoped // Scope doesn't matter actually. The listener will always be called on every request.
public class Authenticator {
public String check() {
if (authenticated) {
return null;
}
else {
return "login?faces-redirect=true";
}
}
// ...
}
This is guaranteed to be fired before the response is to be rendered. Otherwise when you do the job in e.g. #PostConstruct, then you may risk java.lang.IllegalStateException: response already committed when the bean is created for the first time when the response has already partially been rendered (and committed).
I only wouldn't consider it to be a "best" practice when it comes to handling HTTP authentication. It makes it too tight coupled into JSF. You should really keep using a servlet filter. But for other purposes, it may be fine.
See also:
When to use f:viewAction / preRenderView versus PostConstruct?
What can <f:metadata>, <f:viewParam> and <f:viewAction> be used for?
Limitations of using a PhaseListener instead of a Servlet Filter for authorization
I have a backing bean (say MyPageBean) with request scope, but it seems to be in session because, navigating my application, when I visit the page myPage, I always get the same instance.
I'm using JSF 1.2, IceFaces 1.8.2 and JBoss 5.1.0
Isn't it just your webbrowser or proxy which is aggressively caching the webpages?
Create a Filter which does the following in doFilter() method to instruct the client to not cache the HTTP response:
HttpServletResponse hsr = (HttpServletResponse) response;
hsr.setHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate"); // HTTP 1.1.
hsr.setHeader("Pragma", "no-cache"); // HTTP 1.0.
hsr.setDateHeader("Expires", 0); // Proxies.
chain.doFilter(request, response);
and map it in web.xml like follows:
<filter>
<filter-name>cacheFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>com.example.CacheFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>cacheFilter</filter-name>
<servlet-name>facesServlet</servlet-name>
</filter-mapping>
assuming that you've mapped the FacesServlet instance on <servlet-name> of facesServlet.
In ICEFaces request scope extends across partial submits. So if your application never refreshes the whole page, and uses only partial submits, you may encounter this.
Not using partial submit in the navigation should solve your problem.