How do I enable logging for Spring Security?

Assuming you're using Spring Boot, another option is to put the following in your application.properties:

logging.level.org.springframework.security=DEBUG

This is the same for most other Spring modules as well.

If you're not using Spring Boot, try setting the property in your logging configuration, e.g. logback.

Here is the application.yml version as well:

logging:
  level:
    org:
      springframework:
        security: DEBUG

---

You can easily enable debugging support using an option for the @EnableWebSecurity annotation:

@EnableWebSecurity(debug = true)
public class SecurityConfiguration extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
    …
}

---

Basic debugging using Spring's DebugFilter can be configured like this:

@EnableWebSecurity
public class WebSecurityConfiguration extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {

    @Override
    public void configure(WebSecurity web) throws Exception {
        web.debug(true);
    }
}

---

You can easily enable debugging support using an option for the @EnableWebSecurity annotation:

@EnableWebSecurity(debug = true)
public class SecurityConfiguration extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
    …
}

If you need profile-specific control the in your application-{profile}.properties file

org.springframework.security.config.annotation.web.builders.WebSecurity.debugEnabled=false

Get Detailed Post: http://www.bytefold.com/enable-disable-profile-specific-spring-security-debug-flag/

---

We can always check the registered filters inside Spring Security with the below configuration

@EnableWebSecurity(debug=true) - We need to enable the debugging of the security details Enable logging of the details by adding the below property in the application.properties logging.level.org.springframework.security.web.FilterChainProxy=DEBUG

Below mentioning some of the internal filters of Spring Security that gets executed in the authentication flow:

Security filter chain: [
  CharacterEncodingFilter
  WebAsyncManagerIntegrationFilter
  SecurityContextPersistenceFilter
  HeaderWriterFilter
  CsrfFilter
  LogoutFilter
  X509AuthenticationFilter
  UsernamePasswordAuthenticationFilter
  RequestCacheAwareFilter
  SecurityContextHolderAwareRequestFilter
  RememberMeAuthenticationFilter
  AnonymousAuthenticationFilter
  SessionManagementFilter
  ExceptionTranslationFilter
  FilterSecurityInterceptor
]

---

Spring security logging for webflux reactive apps is now available starting with version 5.4.0-M2 (as mentionned by @bzhu in comment How do I enable logging for Spring Security?)

Until this gets into a GA release, here is how to get this milestone release in gradle

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
    if (!version.endsWith('RELEASE')) {
        maven { url "https://repo.spring.io/milestone" }
    }
}

// Force earlier milestone release to get securing logging preview
// https://docs.spring.io/spring-security/site/docs/current/reference/html5/#getting-gradle-boot
// https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-security/pull/8504
// https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-security/releases/tag/5.4.0-M2
ext['spring-security.version']='5.4.0-M2'
dependencyManagement {
    imports {
        mavenBom "org.springframework.cloud:spring-cloud-dependencies:${springCloudVersion}"
    }

}

---

Using Spring Boot with default spring security filters (without customizing anything, and without even setting debug in the EnableWebSecurity annotation), setting TRACEP as the following application.properties shows:

logging.level.org.springframework.security=TRACE

Is enough for it to show in detail what filters are being called and what they are doing.

TRACE w.c.HttpSessionSecurityContextRepository : No HttpSession currently exists
TRACE w.c.HttpSessionSecurityContextRepository : Created SecurityContextImpl [Null authentication]
DEBUG w.c.HttpSessionSecurityContextRepository : Created HttpSession as SecurityContext is non-default
...
DEBUG o.s.security.web.FilterChainProxy        : Securing POST /api/product/productname01
TRACE o.s.security.web.FilterChainProxy        : Invoking WebAsyncManagerIntegrationFilter (1/16)
...
TRACE o.s.security.web.FilterChainProxy        : Invoking CsrfFilter (5/16)
DEBUG o.s.security.web.csrf.CsrfFilter         : Invalid CSRF token found for http://localhost/api/product/productname01
DEBUG o.s.s.w.access.AccessDeniedHandlerImpl   : Responding with 403 status code

Versions:

Spring Framework Bom version 5.3.16
Spring Boot 2.6.4
Spring 5.3.16
Spring Security 5.6.2

---