Spring boot web application does not have cache-control header

Question

I am using a Spring boot application and there is a requirement to enable security by disabling the caching between the web-pages. As I understand, by default, Spring Security sets specific cache-control header values for us, without us having to configure anything.

But for my web application, the following response headers are not present. Cache-Control", "no-store" Pragma", "no-cache" Expires", "0" I have tried setting them using an interceptor(implementing HandlerInterceptor) and adding the following code in the preHandle, postHandle and afterCompletionMethod.

    response.setHeader("Cache-Control", "no-store"); // HTTP 1.1.
    response.setHeader("Pragma", "no-cache"); // HTTP 1.0.
    response.setHeader("Expires", "0"); // Proxies.

Although the control comes to these methods and the header is set, when I inspect the web-browser, I don't see these headers.

What could be the reason?

David Stäheli · Accepted Answer · 2024-04-18 12:09:03Z

There are different types of setting the header.

I would suggest to set it either with a filter or the configuration.

Configuration

By default spring-boot sets security headers. With the .defaultsDisabled() you disable them and can selective activate the wanted headers.

@EnableWebSecurity
public class WebSecurityConfig extends
WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
    http
    // ...
    .headers()
        // do not use any default headers unless explicitly listed
        .defaultsDisabled()
        .cacheControl();
}
}

Will set the header to following settings:

Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, max-age=0, must-revalidate
Pragma: no-cache
Expires: 0

For more detail of the configuration here is the doc. https://docs.spring.io/spring-security/site/docs/4.0.x/reference/html/headers.html

Alternative you can use a filter.

Filter

@WebFilter("/filter-response-header/*")
public class AddResponseHeaderFilter implements Filter {
 
    @Override
    public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, 
      FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
        HttpServletResponse httpServletResponse = (HttpServletResponse) response;
        httpServletResponse.setHeader(
          "Cache-Control", "no-store");
httpServletResponse.setHeader(
              "Pragma", "no-cache");
httpServletResponse.setHeader(
              "Expires", "0");
        chain.doFilter(request, response);
    }

For a single response

HttpServletResponse:

HttpServletResponse response
response.addHeader("Cache-Control", "no-store");
response.addHeader("Pragma", "no-cache");
response.addHeader("Expires", "0");

for more have a look here: https://www.baeldung.com/spring-response-header

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