Blog

Securing RESTFul endpoints with ColdBox 4

Luis Majano February 03, 2015

Spread the word

Luis Majano

February 03, 2015

Spread the word


Share your thoughts

ColdBox has sported RESTFul capabilities since the 3.0.0 days (that's since 2011).  As each release matures, our RESTFul suite of tools mature as well.  In our latest release we introduced a great way to intercept when RESTFul endpoints are called with invalid HTTP methods.  Every ColdBox handler has the this.allowedMethods structure which can tell the framework what actions can be executed with what HTTP methods.


this.allowedMethods = {
  index = "GET",
  save = "PUT,POST",
  remove = "DELETE"
}

The security map above tells the framework what HTTP methods you can use for which action. For example, the remove() action can only be executed with the DELETE HTTP method. If you execute the action with any other HTTP method, then the framework will throw a security exception. In previous version, you had to do hoops in order to intercept and gracefully show users a nice message. With ColdBox 4 we introduce the onInvalidHTTPMethod() action.

Tip: By default, every event handler controller action can be executed using ANY HTTP method.

You can place this action in the same handler or a base handler and it will become alive as soon as an action is executed with an invalid HTTP method. The signature for the method is:

 


function onInvalidHTTPMethod( faultAction, event, rc, prc ){
    event.renderData( 
       type="json", 
       data={ "error" : true, "message" : "The endpoint you called cannot be executed using the #event.getHTTPMethod()# HTTP method." } 
    ).setHTTPHeader( statusCode="405", statusMessage="Invalid HTTP Method #event.getHTTPMethod()#" );
}

The faultAction tells you what action was invalidly called and you can use the event.getHTTPMethod() to retrieve the offending method. This way you can make sure you can uniformly respond to RESTFul requests that are invalid.

Add Your Comment

Recent Entries

QR Codes Come to BoxLang Images

QR Codes Come to BoxLang Images

The bx-image module can now generate and read QR codes. Two new functions, a string member function, and two new bx:image actions. No extra dependencies for you to manage.

Luis Majano
Luis Majano
October 14, 2026
ACF2021 extended support ends on November 10. Is Your Application Ready?

ACF2021 extended support ends on November 10. Is Your Application Ready?

Adobe ColdFusion 2021 reaches the end of extended support on November 10, 2026. If your application still runs on this release, the time to decide what comes next is now.

Adobe ended core support for ColdFusion 2021 on November 10, 2025. The current extended support period is best effort and does not include security patches or hotfixes. When it ends on November 10 2026, organizations will no longer have that support option from Adobe for ColdFusion 2021.

What ...

Cristobal Escobar
Cristobal Escobar
October 13, 2026