Cannot access javax.servlet.Filter; class file for javax.servlet.Filter not found

Question

I am trying to implement OAuth2 AuthorizationServer as described in this article but I keep getting the error below. For a spring security config:

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Value;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.core.annotation.Order;
import org.springframework.security.config.annotation.authentication.builders.AuthenticationManagerBuilder;
import org.springframework.security.config.annotation.web.builders.HttpSecurity;
import org.springframework.security.config.annotation.web.configuration.WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter;
import org.springframework.security.crypto.bcrypt.BCryptPasswordEncoder;

@Configuration
@Order(1)
class SecurityConfig extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {

    @Value("${user.oauth.user.username}")
    private String username;
    @Value("${user.oauth.user.password}")
    private String password;

    @Override
    protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
        http.requestMatchers()
                .antMatchers("/login", "/oauth/authorize")
                .and()
                .authorizeRequests()
                .anyRequest().authenticated()
                .and()
                .formLogin().permitAll();
    }

    @Override
    protected void configure(AuthenticationManagerBuilder auth) throws Exception {
        auth.inMemoryAuthentication()
                .withUser(username)
                .password(passwordEncoder().encode(password))
                .roles("USER");
    }

    @Bean
    public BCryptPasswordEncoder passwordEncoder() {
        return new BCryptPasswordEncoder();
    }
}

I keep getting this error:

[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:3.8.0:compile (default-compile) on project auth-service: Compilation failure
[ERROR] /home/mcs/auth-service/src/main/java/com/example/authservice/config/SecurityConfig.java:[14,1] cannot access javax.servlet.Filter
[ERROR] class file for javax.servlet.Filter not found

What does it mean and what seems to be wrong?

My pom.xml generated form start.spring.io using the latest M2 release for Spring Boot:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.2.0.M2</version>
        <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>
    <groupId>com.example</groupId>
    <artifactId>auth-service</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <name>auth-service</name>
    <description>Authorization service</description>

    <properties>
        <java.version>11</java.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-security</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.okta.spring</groupId>
            <artifactId>okta-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
            <version>1.1.0</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.security.oauth</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-security-oauth2</artifactId>
            <version>2.3.5.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.projectlombok</groupId>
            <artifactId>lombok</artifactId>
            <version>2.6.7</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-security-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>

    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

    <repositories>
        <repository>
            <id>spring-snapshots</id>
            <name>Spring Snapshots</name>
            <url>https://repo.spring.io/snapshot</url>
            <snapshots>
                <enabled>true</enabled>
            </snapshots>
        </repository>
        <repository>
            <id>spring-milestones</id>
            <name>Spring Milestones</name>
            <url>https://repo.spring.io/milestone</url>
        </repository>
    </repositories>
    <pluginRepositories>
        <pluginRepository>
            <id>spring-snapshots</id>
            <name>Spring Snapshots</name>
            <url>https://repo.spring.io/snapshot</url>
            <snapshots>
                <enabled>true</enabled>
            </snapshots>
        </pluginRepository>
        <pluginRepository>
            <id>spring-milestones</id>
            <name>Spring Milestones</name>
            <url>https://repo.spring.io/milestone</url>
        </pluginRepository>
    </pluginRepositories>

</project>

score 93 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 28 '19 at 08:14

93

The article which you have shared asks you to add web dependency which i dont see in your pom.xml file. Add the below dependency which should solve the javax.servlet error

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>

If you check within the spring-boot-starter-web pom file you will see a dependency to javax.servlet-api - 3.1.0.

answered Apr 28 '19 at 08:14

Sachin

2,087
16
22

1

[here](https://search.maven.org/artifact/org.springframework.boot/spring-boot-starter-web/2.4.5/jar) is that pom file - it does not contain javax.servlet-api dependency. – eis May 05 '21 at 12:28

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 19 '21 at 10:19

5

I faced the same issue but fixed after adding dependency spring-boot-starter-web

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    <version>2.4.2</version>
</dependency>

answered Mar 19 '21 at 10:19

Shivam Pandey

3,756
2
19
26

1

that fixed that weird error message for me – MiniScalope Dec 03 '21 at 16:45

score 4 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 30 '20 at 12:45

4

Look at the version of the servlet api that spring is dependent on then in Gradle include:

    compileOnly("javax.servlet:javax.servlet-api:X")

Where X is the version of servlet-api spring is dependent on.

edited Dec 30 '20 at 12:45

Dragonthoughts

2,180
8
25
28

answered Dec 30 '20 at 00:12

adam_j_knight

111
7

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 14 '23 at 14:10

The error message you are seeing (cannot access javax.servlet.Filter) suggests that there is a problem with the classpath and that the Servlet API is missing.

<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
    <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
    <version>4.0.1</version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

Once you have added the Servlet API to your classpath, you should be able to compile your code successfully.

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 28 '19 at 07:04

0

Check your dependency hierarchy tree. Does it contain javax servlet api. If not, choose a relevant version from here https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/javax.servlet/javax.servlet-api and add it to your pom.xml

answered Apr 28 '19 at 07:04

tryingToLearn

10,691
12
80
114

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 06 '21 at 13:59

While this is a different problem, it has the same error message so if you get here and were trying to get WebFlux to work and you see this error

public class PreAuthorizeSecurityConfigAdapter extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
       ^
  class file for javax.servlet.Filter not found

It's probably that WebFlux does not support your usecase. I was trying to get @PreAuthorize(hasPermission(...)) but after much googling found WebFlux doesn't support it and that you should just use your own bean like this instead:

@PreAuthorize("@somePermissionEvaluatorBean.hasPermission(authentication, ...")

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 03 '22 at 18:35

0

For those using gradle just add and you are good to go

  implementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web'

answered Apr 03 '22 at 18:35

Odwori

1,460
13
14

Cannot access javax.servlet.Filter; class file for javax.servlet.Filter not found

7 Answers7