Spring security and authentication provider

Question

I'm trying to implement Spring 3 Security in a project, but I can not get rid of the following error:

SEVERE: Exception sending context initialized event to listener instance of class org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name '_methodSecurityInterceptor': Cannot resolve reference to bean '_authenticationManager' while setting bean property 'authenticationManager'; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name '_authenticationManager': Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: No authentication providers were found in the application context
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.BeanDefinitionValueResolver.resolveReference(BeanDefinitionValueResolver.java:328)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.BeanDefinitionValueResolver.resolveValueIfNecessary(BeanDefinitionValueResolver.java:106)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyPropertyValues(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1317)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.populateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1076)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:517)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:456)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:291)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:222)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:288)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:190)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:563)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:872)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:423)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.createWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:276)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:197)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:47)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:3972)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:4467)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:791)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:771)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:546)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDescriptor(HostConfig.java:637)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDescriptors(HostConfig.java:563)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployApps(HostConfig.java:498)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.start(HostConfig.java:1277)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.lifecycleEvent(HostConfig.java:321)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:119)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1053)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.start(StandardHost.java:785)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1045)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine.start(StandardEngine.java:443)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.start(StandardService.java:519)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.start(StandardServer.java:710)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:581)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:289)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:414)
Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name '_authenticationManager': Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: No authentication providers were found in the application context
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1412)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:519)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:456)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:291)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:222)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:288)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:190)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.BeanDefinitionValueResolver.resolveReference(BeanDefinitionValueResolver.java:322)
    ... 39 more
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: No authentication providers were found in the application context
    at org.springframework.util.Assert.notEmpty(Assert.java:268)
    at org.springframework.security.config.NamespaceAuthenticationManager.afterPropertiesSet(NamespaceAuthenticationManager.java:31)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1469)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1409)
    ... 46 more

This seems weird, as I did provide an authentication provider!

I've added these lines to web.

<filter>
    <filter-name>springSecurityFilterChain</filter-name>
    <filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.DelegatingFilterProxy</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>springSecurityFilterChain</filter-name>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>

And this is my applicationContext-security.xml: (Edit: full xml)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans:beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/security"
         xmlns:beans="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
       http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
       http://www.springframework.org/schema/security
       http://www.springframework.org/schema/security/spring-security-3.0.xsd"&gt;
    <http auto-config="false">
        <intercept-url pattern="/**" access="ROLE_USER" />        
        <http-basic />
    </http>

    <authentication-manager alias="authenticationManager">
        <authentication-provider>
            <user-service>
                <user name="jimi" password="jimispassword" authorities="ROLE_USER, ROLE_ADMIN"/>
                <user name="bob" password="bobspassword" authorities="ROLE_USER"/>
            </user-service>
        </authentication-provider>
    </authentication-manager>
</beans:beans>

Google couldn't help me much further, nor could the official documentation.

Answer 1

What version of Spring Security are you using? The XML namespace definitions suggest >3.0. However the stacktrace line:

afterPropertiesSet(NamespaceAuthenticationManager.java:31)

suggests some older version. Version tagged as 3.0.0.M1 seems to have the check on line 32, not 31.