HTTP basic authentication in Grails with Spring Security

Setting up HTTP basic authentication in Grails using Spring Security is pretty straightforward. Here's a quick how-to:

1. grails create-app basicauthdemo
2. cd basicauthdemo
3. grails install-plugin spring-security-core
4. grails s2-quickstart basicauthdemo User Role
5. Edit grails-app/conf/Config.groovy and add two lines telling the Spring Security plugin to use HTTP basic authentication:

   grails.plugins.springsecurity.useBasicAuth = true
   grails.plugins.springsecurity.basic.realmName = "HTTP Basic Auth Demo"
   

6. Edit grails-app/conf/BootStrap.groovy to setup a user and role:

   import basicauthdemo.*
   
   class BootStrap {
   
       def init = { servletContext ->
           def userRole = Role.findByAuthority("ROLE_USER") ?: new Role(authority: "ROLE_USER").save(flush: true)
           def user = User.findByUsername("tst") ?: new User(username: "tst", password: "foo", enabled: true).save(flush: true)
           UserRole.create(user, userRole, true)
       }
       def destroy = {
       }
   }
   

7. grails create-controller hello
8. Edit grails-app/controllers/basicauthdemo/HelloController.groovy and add a security annotation:

   package basicauthdemo
   
   import grails.plugins.springsecurity.Secured
   
   class HelloController {
   
       @Secured(['ROLE_USER'])
       def index() {
           render "Hello World!"
       }
   }
   

9. grails run-app
10. Open http://localhost:8080/basicauthdemo/hello

Presto!