Disable Spring Security for OPTIONS Http Method

If you're using an annotation based security config file (@EnableWebSecurity & @Configuration) you can do something like the following in the configure() method to allow for the OPTION requests to be permitted by Spring Security without authentication for a given path:

@Override
protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception
{
     http
    .csrf().disable()
    .authorizeRequests()
      .antMatchers(HttpMethod.OPTIONS,"/path/to/allow").permitAll()//allow CORS option calls
      .antMatchers("/resources/**").permitAll()
      .anyRequest().authenticated()
    .and()
    .formLogin()
    .and()
    .httpBasic();
}

Allow all OPTIONS in context:

    @Override
    public void configure(WebSecurity web) throws Exception {
        web.ignoring().antMatchers(HttpMethod.OPTIONS, "/**");
    }

Have you tried this

You can use multiple elements to define different access requirements for different sets of URLs, but they will be evaluated in the order listed and the first match will be used. So you must put the most specific matches at the top. You can also add a method attribute to limit the match to a particular HTTP method (GET, POST, PUT etc.).

<http auto-config="true">
    <intercept-url pattern="/client/edit" access="isAuthenticated" method="GET" />
    <intercept-url pattern="/client/edit" access="hasRole('EDITOR')" method="POST" />
</http>

Above means you need to select the url pattern to intercept and what methods you want

In case someone is looking for an easy solution using Spring Boot. Just add an additional bean:

   @Bean
   public IgnoredRequestCustomizer optionsIgnoredRequestsCustomizer() {
      return configurer -> {
         List<RequestMatcher> matchers = new ArrayList<>();
         matchers.add(new AntPathRequestMatcher("/**", "OPTIONS"));
         configurer.requestMatchers(new OrRequestMatcher(matchers));
      };
   }

Please note that depending on your application this may open it for potential exploits.

Opened issue for a better solution: https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-security/issues/4448

The accepted answer is not recommended and you shold not do that. Below is the correct way for CORS setup of Spring Security and jQuery's ajax.

@Configuration
public class WebSecurityConfig extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
   
    @Override
    protected void configure(AuthenticationManagerBuilder auth) throws Exception {
        auth.authenticationProvider(userAuthenticationProvider);
    }

    @Override
    protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
        http
            .cors() // <-- This let it use "corsConfigurationSource" bean.
                .and()
            .authorizeRequests()
                .anyRequest().authenticated()
                .and()
            ...
    }

    @Bean
    protected CorsConfigurationSource corsConfigurationSource() {
        final CorsConfiguration configuration = new CorsConfiguration();

        configuration.setAllowedOrigins(Collections.singletonList("http://localhost:3000"));
        configuration.setAllowedMethods(Arrays.asList("HEAD", "GET", "POST", "PUT", "DELETE", "PATCH"));

        // NOTE: setAllowCredentials(true) is important,
        // otherwise, the value of the 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header in the response
        // must not be the wildcard '*' when the request's credentials mode is 'include'.
        configuration.setAllowCredentials(true);

        // NOTE: setAllowedHeaders is important!
        // Without it, OPTIONS preflight request will fail with 403 Invalid CORS request
        configuration.setAllowedHeaders(Arrays.asList(
                "Authorization",
                "Accept",
                "Cache-Control",
                "Content-Type",
                "Origin",
                "ajax", // <-- This is needed for jQuery's ajax request.
                "x-csrf-token",
                "x-requested-with"
        ));

        final UrlBasedCorsConfigurationSource source = new UrlBasedCorsConfigurationSource();
        source.registerCorsConfiguration("/**", configuration);
        return source;
    }
}

And from jQuery side.

$.ajaxSetup({
    // NOTE: Necessary for CORS
    crossDomain: true,
    xhrFields: {
        withCredentials: true
    }
});

If you're using annotation-based security config then you should add spring's CorsFilter to the application context by calling .cors() in your config, something like this:

@Override
protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception
{
     http
    .csrf().disable()
    .authorizeRequests()
      .antMatchers("/resources/**").permitAll()
      .anyRequest().authenticated()
    .and()
    .formLogin()
    .and()
    .httpBasic()
    .and()
    .cors();
}

In some cases, it is needed add configuration.setAllowedHeaders(Arrays.asList("Content-Type")); to corsConfigurationSource() when using WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter to solve the cors problem.