REST Security

In addition to providing the ability to secure OWS style services, GeoServer also supports securing RESTful services.

As with layer and service security, RESTful security configuration is based on security_roles. The mapping of request URI to role is defined in a file named rest.properties, located in the security directory of the GeoServer data directory.

Syntax

The following syntax defines access control rules for RESTful services (parameters in brackets [] are optional):

uriPattern;method[,method,...]=role[,role,...]

The parameters are:

  • uriPattern—ant pattern that matches a set of request URIs

  • method—HTTP request method, one of GET, POST, PUT, POST, DELETE, or HEAD

  • role—Name of a predefined role. The wildcard ‘* is used to indicate the permission is applied to all users, including anonymous users.

Note

  • URI patterns should account for the first component of the rest path, usually rest or api

  • Method and role lists should not contain any spaces

Ant patterns

Ant patterns are commonly used for pattern matching directory and file paths. The examples section contains some basic instructions. The Apache ant user manual contains more sophisticated use cases.

Examples

Most of the examples in this section are specific to the GeoServer REST but any RESTful GeoServer service may be configured in the same manner.

Allowing only authenticated access

The most secure configuration is one that forces any request to be authenticated. The following example locks down access to all requests:

/**;GET,POST,PUT,DELETE=ROLE_ADMINISTRATOR

A less restricting configuration locks down access to operations under the path /rest, but will allow anonymous access to requests that fall under other paths (for example /api):

/rest/**;GET,POST,PUT,DELETE=ROLE_ADMINISTRATOR

The following configuration is similar to the previous one except it grants access to a specific role rather than the administrator:

/**;GET,POST,PUT,DELETE=ROLE_TRUSTED

ROLE_TRUSTED is a role defined in users.properties.

Providing anonymous read-only access

The following configuration allows anonymous access when the GET (read) method is used but forces authentication for a POST, PUT, or DELETE (write):

/**;GET=IS_AUTHENTICATED_ANONYMOUSLY
/**;POST,PUT,DELETE=TRUSTED_ROLE

Securing a specific resource

The following configuration forces authentication for access to a particular resource (in this case a feature type):

/rest/**/states*;GET=TRUSTED_ROLE
/rest/**;POST,PUT,DELETE=TRUSTED_ROLE

The following secures access to a set of resources (in this case all data stores):

/rest/**/datastores/*;GET=TRUSTED_ROLE
/rest/**/datastores/*.*;GET=TRUSTED_ROLE
/rest/**;POST,PUT,DELETE=TRUSTED_ROLE
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