[FIXED] Can not resolve symbol "security" in spring boot application

Issue

I'm trying to learn Java Spring and doing exactly like here: https://spring.io/guides/gs/securing-web/

But my IDE says "cannot resolve 'security' symbol" while importing config. I'm using the same version of spring and have the same code. I don't know what is wrong.

package com.github.SpringSite.config;

import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.security.config.annotation.web.configuration.EnableWebSecurity;
import org.springframework.security.config.annotation.web.configuration.WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter;
import org.springframework.security.core.userdetails.User;
import org.springframework.security.core.userdetails.UserDetails;
import org.springframework.security.core.userdetails.UserDetailsService;
import org.springframework.security.provisioning.InMemoryUserDetailsManager;

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

    @Bean
    @Override
    public UserDetailsService userDetailsService() {
        UserDetails user =
                User.withDefaultPasswordEncoder()
                        .username("user")
                        .password("password")
                        .roles("USER")
                        .build();

        return new InMemoryUserDetailsManager(user);
    }
}

My pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.1.6.RELEASE</version>
        <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>
    <groupId>com.github</groupId>
    <artifactId>SpringSite</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <name>SpringSite</name>
    <description>Simple website using Spring Boot</description>

    <properties>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-security-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <properties>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    </properties>


    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>

I would also be grateful for the recommendation of a good guide to learn spring.

Solution

It looks that your current spring-security dependency is only for test scope.

If we follow the tutorial, it states that you have to add the following dependency for WebSecurityConfig:

<dependencies>
    ...
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-security</artifactId>
        </dependency>
    ...
</dependencies>

Note that the scope is not set here, i.e. it will be the default scope, which is compile.

You may need to manually re-import the maven project after changing dependencies:

After re-importing, the dependencies in pom.xml shouldn't be displayed as red.

Slight update

To be 146% sure, here is my pom.xml that works:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>gs-securing-web</artifactId>
    <version>0.1.0</version>

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.1.6.RELEASE</version>
    </parent>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-security-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-security</artifactId>
        </dependency>

    </dependencies>

    <properties>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    </properties>


    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>

Update 2 - fix of actual current problem

Actually the problem (as well as in the question text itself) is just a missing import of HttpSecurity class in WebSecurityConfig.

So adding

import org.springframework.security.config.annotation.web.builders.HttpSecurity;

will make the code compile and SpringSiteApplication start.

Update 3 - what was the REAL problem after we investigated it via TeamViewer.

The Spring dependencies haven't been downloaded, since the computer had no access to central maven repo (https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2). After disabling Windows firewall, the connections started to work.

IDEA was too slow when updating repo indexes, but a command-line mvn install helped to finally download the libraries. After it, the IDEA started to show the imported classes as well.

Answered By - Dmitriy Popov
Answer Checked By - Marilyn (JavaFixing Volunteer)