Spring Security, Webjars, and MIME type error

| java | programming | ci |

I volunteered to be JLO (Java Language Owner) at CircleCI and I am currently working on getting a sample Spring Framework project running on CircleCI 2.0. I made a simple app bootstrapped with the Spring Initializer. I included Spring Security for the first time and I decided to try out WebJars for static Javascript libraries such as bootstrap. I am using Thymeleaf for templating.The app does not actually do anything yet but I ran into a pretty strange issue today that I wanted to write up here. My home page is pretty straightforward.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns:th="https://www.thymeleaf.org">
<head>
    <title>CircleCI Spring Demo</title>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">link</span> <span class="na">rel</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"stylesheet"</span> <span class="na">th:href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"@{/webjars/bootstrap/3.3.7/css/bootstrap.min.css}"</span> <span class="p">/&gt;</span>

<span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">link</span> <span class="na">rel</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"stylesheet"</span> <span class="na">th:href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"@{/css/style.css}"</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"../static/css/style.css"</span> <span class="p">/&gt;</span>

</head> <body>

<span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">nav</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"navbar"</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>
    <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"container"</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>
        <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"navbar-header"</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>
            <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"navbar-brand"</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"#"</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>CircleCI Demo Spring<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>
        <span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>
        <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">id</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"navbar"</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"collapse navbar-collapse"</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>
            <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">ul</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"nav navbar-nav"</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>
                <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">li</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"active"</span><span class="p">&gt;&lt;</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"#"</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>Home<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">&gt;&lt;/</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>
                <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;&lt;</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"#"</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>About<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">&gt;&lt;/</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>
            <span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">ul</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>
        <span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>
    <span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>
<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">nav</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>

<span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"container"</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>
    <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">h1</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> CircleCI Spring Demo <span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">h1</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>
<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>

<span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">script</span> <span class="na">th:src</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"@{/webjars/bootstrap/3.3.7/js/bootstrap.min.js}"</span><span class="p">&gt;&lt;/</span><span class="nt">script</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>

</body> </html>

However, when I tried to load up the app with mvn spring-boot:run none of the styles showed up and console showed the following error message:
Resource interpreted as Stylesheet but transferred with MIME type text/html
It turns out, that a default spring-security config will basically block any request unless you whitelist it. The MIME type is a red herring since what is actually happening is that my spring-security config is redirecting all unauthenticated users to my login page (which is login.html) instead of serving up the stylesheet from the/webjars directory. The solution is to update my security configuration to whitelist anything that comes from /webjars
package com.circleci.demojavaspring;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired; import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration; 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.config.annotation.web.configuration.EnableWebSecurity;

@Configuration @EnableWebSecurity public class WebSecurityConfig extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter { @Override protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception { http .authorizeRequests() .antMatchers("/", "/home", "/webjars/**").permitAll() .anyRequest().authenticated() .and() .formLogin() .loginPage("/login") .permitAll() .and() .logout() .permitAll(); } }

Now, the styles load as expected.

Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.

Check out some more stuff to read down below.

Most popular posts this month

Recent Favorite Blog Posts

This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.

Articles from blogs I follow around the net

Pluralistic: Carl Hiaasen's 'Fever Beach' (21 Oct 2025)

Today's links Carl Hiaasen's 'Fever Beach': If you didn't laugh, you'd have to cry. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Scary Godmother; Nightvale novel; The war on Worker's Comp; Cadillac's murdermo…

via Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow October 21, 2025

10 pointless facts about me

Found on Kev’s blog and originally started by Dave, here are my answers to this fun blog challenge: Do you floss your teeth? Sometimes. I’d say maybe a few times a week? I’m terrible at being consistent, and that includes flossing regularly. Tea, co…

via Manuel Moreale — Everything Feed October 21, 2025

Getting started with simple CSS View Transitions

There's (yet another) new piece of CSS to learn! Hurrah! Way back in 2011, jQuery mobile introduced the web to page-change animations. Clicking on a link would make your high-tech Nokia display a cool page-flip as you navigated from one page of a web…

via Terence Eden’s Blog October 21, 2025

Generated by openring