Handling Authentication Errors and Entry Points
Customize how your JWT-secured Spring app responds to missing, invalid, or expired tokens using AuthenticationEntryPoint and AccessDeniedHandler.
Two Kinds of Security Failure
Spring Security distinguishes two failures:
- Authentication failure (401): the user is not identified — missing or bad token
- Authorization failure (403): the user is known but lacks permission
Each is handled by a different component.
The Default Behavior
Out of the box, a JWT app without a custom handler may redirect to a login page or return an HTML error. For a stateless API you usually want a clean JSON 401 instead.
All lessons in this course
- Designing the JWT Authentication Flow
- Implementing a Custom JWT Filter
- AuthenticationManager and Provider Integration
- Handling Authentication Errors and Entry Points