The play-pac4j project is an easy and powerful security library for Play framework v2 web applications and web services which supports authentication and authorization, but also logout and advanced features like CSRF protection. It can work with Deadbolt.
It's based on JDK 8 and Play 2.8 (Scala v2.12 or v2.13) and on the pac4j security engine v4. It's available under the Apache 2 license.
Several versions of the library are available for the different versions of the Play framework:
| Play version | pac4j version | play-pac4j version |
|---|---|---|
| 2.0 | 1.7 | play-pac4j_java v1.1.x (Java) / play-pac4j_scala2.9 v1.1.x (Scala) |
| 2.1 | 1.7 | play-pac4j_java v1.1.x (Java) / play-pac4j_scala2.10 v1.1.x (Scala) |
| 2.2 | 1.7 | play-pac4j_java v1.2.x (Java) / play-pac4j_scala v1.2.x (Scala) |
| 2.3 | 1.7 | play-pac4j_java v1.4.x (Java) / play-pac4j_scala2.10 v1.4.x and play-pac4j_scala2.11 v1.4.x (Scala) |
| 2.4 | 1.9 | play-pac4j v2.3.x (Java & Scala) |
| 2.5 | 2.x | play-pac4j_2.11 and play-pac4j_2.12 v3.1.x (Java & Scala) |
| 2.6 | 3.x | play-pac4j_2.11 and play-pac4j_2.12 v7.0.x (Java & Scala) |
| 2.7 | 3.7 | play-pac4j_2.11 and play-pac4j_2.12 v8.0.x (Java & Scala) |
| 2.7 | 4.x | play-pac4j_2.11 and play-pac4j_2.12 and play-pac4j_2.13 v9.0.x (Java & Scala) |
| 2.8 | 4.x | 10.0.x (Java & Scala) |
Do NOT use Play 2.6.3 and 2.6.5 versions which have issues in their Cache implementations!
- A client represents an authentication mechanism. It performs the login process and returns a user profile. An indirect client is for UI authentication while a direct client is for web services authentication:
▸ OAuth - SAML - CAS - OpenID Connect - HTTP - OpenID - Google App Engine - Kerberos - LDAP - SQL - JWT - MongoDB - CouchDB - IP address - REST API
- An authorizer is meant to check authorizations on the authenticated user profile(s) or on the current web context:
▸ Roles / permissions - Anonymous / remember-me / (fully) authenticated - Profile type, attribute - CORS - CSRF - Security headers - IP address, HTTP method
-
A matcher defines whether the security must be applied and can be used for additional web processing
-
The
Secureannotation and theSecuritytrait protect methods while theSecurityFilterprotects URLs by checking that the user is authenticated and that the authorizations are valid, according to the clients and authorizers configuration. If the user is not authenticated, it performs authentication for direct clients or starts the login process for indirect clients -
The
CallbackControllerfinishes the login process for an indirect client -
The
LogoutControllerlogs out the user from the application and triggers the logout at the identity provider level -
The
Pac4jScalaTemplateHelpercan be used to get the user profile(s) from a Twirl template.
- the security configuration
- the callback configuration, only for web applications
- the logout configuration
Two demo webapps: play-pac4j-java-demo & play-pac4j-scala-demo are available for tests and implement many authentication mechanisms: Facebook, Twitter, form, basic auth, CAS, SAML, OpenID Connect, JWT...
Test them online: https://play-pac4j-java-demo.herokuapp.com and https://play-pac4j-scala-demo.herokuapp.com.
The latest released version is the 
See the release notes. Learn more by browsing the pac4j documentation and the play-pac4j_2.12 Javadoc / play-pac4j_2.13 Javadoc.
See the migration guide as well.
If you need commercial support (premium support or new/specific features), contact us at [email protected].
If you have any questions, want to contribute or be notified about the new releases and security fixes, please subscribe to the following mailing lists: