Enabling Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

Note	This repository contains the guide documentation source. To view the guide in published form, view it on the Open Liberty website.

Learn how to enable Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) in Open Liberty without writing Java code.

What you’ll learn

You will learn how to add two Liberty configurations to enable CORS. Next, you will write and run tests to validate that the CORS configurations work. These tests send two different CORS requests to a REST service that has two different endpoints.

CORS and its purpose

Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) is a W3C specification and mechanism that you can use to request restricted resources from a domain outside the current domain. In other words, CORS is a technique for consuming an API served from an origin different than yours.

CORS is useful for requesting different kinds of data from websites that aren’t your own. These types of data might include images, videos, scripts, stylesheets, iFrames, or web fonts.

However, you cannot request resources from another website domain without proper permission. In JavaScript, cross-origin requests with an XMLHttpRequest API and Ajax cannot happen unless CORS is enabled on the server that receives the request. Otherwise, same-origin security policy prevents the requests. For example, a web page that is served from the http://aboutcors.com server sends a request to get data to the http://openliberty.io server. Because of security concerns, browsers block the server response unless the server adds HTTP response headers to allow the web page to consume the data.

Different ports and different protocols also trigger CORS. For example, the http://abc.xyz:1234 domain is considered to be different from the https://abc.xyz:4321 domain.

Open Liberty has built-in support for CORS that gives you an easy and powerful way to configure the runtime to handle CORS requests without the need to write Java code.

Types of CORS requests

Familiarize yourself with two kinds of CORS requests to understand the attributes that you will add in the two CORS configurations.

Simple CORS request

According to the CORS specification, an HTTP request is a simple CORS request if the request method is GET, HEAD, or POST. The header fields are any one of the Accept, Accept-Language, Content-Language, or Content-Type headers. The Content-Type header has a value of application/x-www-form-urlencoded, multipart/form-data, or text/plain.

When clients, such as browsers, send simple CORS requests to servers on different domains, the clients include an Origin header with the original (referring) host name as the value. If the server allows the origin, the server includes an Access-Control-Allow-Origin header with a list of allowed origins or an asterisk (*) in the response back to the client. The asterisk indicates that all origins are allowed to access the endpoint on the server.

Preflight CORS request

A CORS request is not a simple CORS request if a client first sends a preflight CORS request before it sends the actual request. For example, the client sends a preflight request before it sends a DELETE HTTP request. To determine whether the request is safe to send, the client sends a preflight request, which is an OPTIONS HTTP request, to gather more information about the server. This preflight request has the Origin header and other headers to indicate the HTTP method and headers of the actual request to be sent after the preflight request.

Once the server receives the preflight request, if the origin is allowed, the server responds with headers that indicate the HTTP methods and headers that are allowed in the actual requests. The response might include more CORS-related headers.

Next, the client sends the actual request, and the server responds.

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Enabling CORS

Navigate to the start directory to begin.

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You will use a REST service that is already provided for you to test your CORS configurations. You can find this service in the src/main/java/io/openliberty/guides/cors/ directory.

You will send a simple request to the /configurations/simple endpoint and the preflight request to the /configurations/preflight endpoint.

Enabling a simple CORS configuration

Configure the Liberty to allow the /configurations/simple endpoint to accept a simple CORS request. Add a simple CORS configuration to the Liberty server.xml configuration file:

Replace the Liberty server.xml configuration file.
src/main/liberty/config/server.xml

server.xml

link:finish/src/main/liberty/config/server.xml[role=include]

The CORS configuration contains the following attributes:

Configuration Attribute	Value
domain	The endpoint to be configured for CORS requests. The value is set to /configurations/simple.
allowedOrigins	Origins that are allowed to access the endpoint. The value is set to http://openliberty.io.
allowedMethods	HTTP methods that a client is allowed to use when it makes requests to the endpoint. The value is set to GET.
allowCredentials	A boolean that indicates whether the user credentials can be included in the request. The value is set to true.
exposeHeaders	Headers that are safe to expose to clients. The value is set to MyHeader.

For more information about these and other CORS attributes, see the cors element documentation.

Save the changes to the server.xml configuration file. The /configurations/simple endpoint is now ready to be tested with a simple CORS request.

The Open Liberty instance was started in dev mode at the beginning of the guide and all the changes were automatically picked up.

Now, test the simple CORS configuration that you added. Add the testSimpleCorsRequest method to the CorsIT class.

Replace the CorsIT class.
src/test/java/it/io/openliberty/guides/cors/CorsIT.java

CorsIT.java

link:finish/src/test/java/it/io/openliberty/guides/cors/CorsIT.java[role=include]

The testSimpleCorsRequest test simulates a client. It first sends a simple CORS request to the /configurations/simple endpoint, and then it checks for a valid response and expected headers. Lastly, it prints the response headers for you to inspect.

The request is a GET HTTP request with the following header:

Request Header	Request Value
Origin	The value is set to http://openliberty.io. Indicates that the request originates from http://openliberty.io.

Expect the following response headers and values if the simple CORS request is successful, and the Liberty instance is correctly configured:

Response Header	Response Value
Access-Control-Allow-Origin	The expected value is http://openliberty.io. Indicates whether a resource can be shared based on the returning value of the Origin request header http://openliberty.io.
Access-Control-Allow-Credentials	The expected value is true. Indicates that the user credentials can be included in the request.
Access-Control-Expose-Headers	The expected value is MyHeader. Indicates that the header MyHeader is safe to expose.

Because you started Open Liberty in dev mode, you can run the tests by pressing the enter/return key from the command-line session where you started dev mode.

If the testSimpleCorsRequest test passes, the response headers with their values from the endpoint are printed. The /configurations/simple endpoint now accepts simple CORS requests.

Response headers with their values from the endpoint:

--- Simple CORS Request ---
Header null = [HTTP/1.1 200 OK]
Header Access-Control-Expose-Headers = [MyHeader]
Header Access-Control-Allow-Origin = [http://openliberty.io]
Header Access-Control-Allow-Credentials = [true]
Header Content-Length = [22]
Header Content-Language = [en-CA]
Header Date = [Thu, 21 Mar 2019 17:50:09 GMT]
Header Content-Type = [text/plain]
Header X-Powered-By = [Servlet/4.0]

Enabling a preflight CORS configuration

Configure the Liberty to allow the /configurations/preflight endpoint to accept a preflight CORS request. Add another CORS configuration in the Liberty server.xml configuration file:

Replace the Liberty server.xml configuration file.
src/main/liberty/config/server.xml

server.xml

link:finish/src/main/liberty/config/server.xml[role=include]

The preflight CORS configuration has different values than the simple CORS configuration.

Configuration Attribute	Value
domain	The value is set to /configurations/preflight because the domain is a different endpoint.
allowedOrigins	Origins that are allowed to access the endpoint. The value is set to an asterisk (*) to allow requests from all origins.
allowedMethods	HTTP methods that a client is allowed to use when it makes requests to the endpoint. The value is set to OPTIONS, DELETE.
allowCredentials	A boolean that indicates whether the user credentials can be included in the request. The value is set to true.

The following attributes were added:

• allowedHeaders: Headers that a client can use in requests. Set the value to MyOwnHeader1, MyOwnHeader2.

• maxAge: The number of seconds that a client can cache a response to a preflight request. Set the value to 10.

Save the changes to the server.xml configuration file. The /configurations/preflight endpoint is now ready to be tested with a preflight CORS request.

Add another test to the CorsIT.java file to test the preflight CORS configuration that you just added:

Replace the CorsIT class.
src/test/java/it/io/openliberty/guides/cors/CorsIT.java

CorsIT.java

link:finish/src/test/java/it/io/openliberty/guides/cors/CorsIT.java[role=include]

The testPreflightCorsRequest test simulates a client sending a preflight CORS request. It first sends the request to the /configurations/preflight endpoint, and then it checks for a valid response and expected headers. Lastly, it prints the response headers for you to inspect.

The request is an OPTIONS HTTP request with the following headers:

Request Header	Request Value
Origin	The value is set to anywebsiteyoulike.com. Indicates that the request originates from anywebsiteyoulike.com.
Access-Control-Request-Method	The value is set to DELETE. Indicates that the HTTP DELETE method will be used in the actual request.
Access-Control-Request-Headers	The value is set to MyOwnHeader2. Indicates the header MyOwnHeader2 will be used in the actual request.

Expect the following response headers and values if the preflight CORS request is successful, and the Liberty instance is correctly configured:

Response Header	Response Value
Access-Control-Max-Age	The expected value is 10. Indicates that the preflight request can be cached within 10 seconds.
Access-Control-Allow-Origin	The expected value is anywebsiteyoulike.com. Indicates whether a resource can be shared based on the returning value of the Origin request header anywebsiteyoulike.com.
Access-Control-Allow-Methods	The expected value is OPTIONS, DELETE. Indicates that HTTP OPTIONS and DELETE methods can be used in the actual request.
Access-Control-Allow-Credentials	The expected value is true. Indicates that the user credentials can be included in the request.
Access-Control-Allow-Headers	The expected value is MyOwnHeader1, MyOwnHeader2. Indicates that the header MyOwnHeader1 and MyOwnHeader2 are safe to expose.

The Access-Control-Allow-Origin header has a value of anywebsiteyoulike.com because the Liberty is configured to allow all origins, and the request came with an origin of anywebsiteyoulike.com.

Because you started Open Liberty in dev mode, you can run the tests by pressing the enter/return key from the command-line session where you started dev mode.

If the testPreflightCorsRequest test passes, the response headers with their values from the endpoint are printed. The /configurations/preflight endpoint now allows preflight CORS requests.

Response headers with their values from the endpoint:

--- Preflight CORS Request ---
Header null = [HTTP/1.1 200 OK]
Header Access-Control-Allow-Origin = [anywebsiteyoulike.com]
Header Access-Control-Allow-Methods = [OPTIONS, DELETE]
Header Access-Control-Allow-Credentials = [true]
Header Content-Length = [0]
Header Access-Control-Max-Age = [10]
Header Date = [Thu, 21 Mar 2019 18:21:13 GMT]
Header Content-Language = [en-CA]
Header Access-Control-Allow-Headers = [MyOwnHeader1, MyOwnHeader2]
Header X-Powered-By = [Servlet/4.0]

You can modify the Liberty configuration and the test code to experiment with the various CORS configuration attributes.

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Great work! You’re done!

You enabled CORS support in Open Liberty. You added two different CORS configurations to allow two kinds of CORS requests in the Liberty server.xml configuration file.

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