Spring Boot Register and Login Tutorial with MySQL Database

If you’re learning Spring Boot, one of the best beginner projects is building a user registration and login system with a MySQL database. In this tutorial, we’ll create a fully working authentication system from scratch.

1. Project Overview

• User Registration – Create new accounts
• User Login – Login using email & password
• Password Encryption – Using BCrypt
• MySQL Database – Store users
• Spring Boot + Spring Security – For authentication

2. Prerequisites

• Java 17+
• Maven
• MySQL Server
• IDE – IntelliJ or Eclipse

3. Create Spring Boot Project

Use Spring Initializr with the following settings:

• Project: Maven
• Language: Java
• Spring Boot: 3.x.x
• Dependencies: Spring Web, Spring Data JPA, Spring Security, MySQL Driver, Thymeleaf, Validation

4. Configure MySQL Database

spring.datasource.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/user_db?useSSL=false&serverTimezone=UTC
spring.datasource.username=root
spring.datasource.password=your_password
spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto=update
spring.jpa.show-sql=true
spring.thymeleaf.cache=false

5. Create User Entity

package com.acesoftech.springbootrestapi.model;

import jakarta.persistence.*;
import jakarta.validation.constraints.Email;
import jakarta.validation.constraints.NotEmpty;
import lombok.Getter;
import lombok.Setter;

@Entity
@Getter
@Setter
@Table(name = "users")
public class User {

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    private Long id;

    @NotEmpty(message = "Name is required")
    private String name;

    @Email(message = "Please enter a valid email")
    @NotEmpty(message = "Email is required")
    @Column(unique = true)
    private String email;

    @NotEmpty(message = "Password is required")
    private String password;
}

6. Create Repository

package com.acesoftech.springbootrestapi.repository;

import com.acesoftech.springbootrestapi.model.User;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaRepository;

public interface UserRepository extends JpaRepository<User, Long> {
    User findByEmail(String email);
}

7. Create Service Layer

package com.acesoftech.springbootrestapi.service;

import com.acesoftech.springbootrestapi.model.User;

public interface UserService {
    void save(User user);
    User findByEmail(String email);
}

package com.acesoftech.springbootrestapi.service;

import com.acesoftech.springbootrestapi.model.User;
import com.acesoftech.springbootrestapi.repository.UserRepository;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.security.crypto.bcrypt.BCryptPasswordEncoder;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Service;

@Service
public class UserServiceImpl implements UserService {

    @Autowired
    private UserRepository userRepository;

    private BCryptPasswordEncoder passwordEncoder = new BCryptPasswordEncoder();

    @Override
    public void save(User user) {
        user.setPassword(passwordEncoder.encode(user.getPassword()));
        userRepository.save(user);
    }

    @Override
    public User findByEmail(String email) {
        return userRepository.findByEmail(email);
    }
}

8. Configure Spring Security

package com.acesoftech.springbootrestapi.config;

import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.security.authentication.AuthenticationManager;
import org.springframework.security.config.annotation.authentication.configuration.AuthenticationConfiguration;
import org.springframework.security.config.annotation.web.builders.HttpSecurity;
import org.springframework.security.crypto.bcrypt.BCryptPasswordEncoder;
import org.springframework.security.web.SecurityFilterChain;

@Configuration
public class SecurityConfig {

    @Bean
    public BCryptPasswordEncoder passwordEncoder() {
        return new BCryptPasswordEncoder();
    }

    @Bean
    public SecurityFilterChain filterChain(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
        http
            .authorizeHttpRequests(auth -> auth
                .requestMatchers("/register", "/login", "/css/**").permitAll()
                .anyRequest().authenticated()
            )
            .formLogin(login -> login
                .loginPage("/login")
                .defaultSuccessUrl("/home", true)
                .permitAll()
            )
            .logout(logout -> logout.permitAll());

        return http.build();
    }

    @Bean
    public AuthenticationManager authenticationManager(AuthenticationConfiguration authConfig) throws Exception {
        return authConfig.getAuthenticationManager();
    }
}

9. Create Controllers

package com.acesoftech.springbootrestapi.controller;

import com.acesoftech.springbootrestapi.model.User;
import com.acesoftech.springbootrestapi.service.UserService;
import jakarta.validation.Valid;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.Model;
import org.springframework.validation.BindingResult;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.*;

@Controller
public class AuthController {

    @Autowired
    private UserService userService;

    @GetMapping("/register")
    public String showRegistrationForm(Model model) {
        model.addAttribute("user", new User());
        return "register";
    }

    @PostMapping("/register")
    public String registerUser(@Valid @ModelAttribute("user") User user,
                               BindingResult result, Model model) {
        if (userService.findByEmail(user.getEmail()) != null) {
            result.rejectValue("email", null, "Email already exists");
        }
        if (result.hasErrors()) {
            return "register";
        }
        userService.save(user);
        return "redirect:/login?success";
    }

    @GetMapping("/login")
    public String loginPage() {
        return "login";
    }

    @GetMapping("/home")
    public String homePage() {
        return "home";
    }
}

10. Create HTML Views (Thymeleaf)

<!-- register.html -->
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns:th="http://www.thymeleaf.org">
<head>
    <title>Register</title>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Register</h2>
<form th:action="@{/register}" method="post" th:object="${user}">
    Name: <input type="text" th:field="*{name}"><br>
    Email: <input type="email" th:field="*{email}"><br>
    Password: <input type="password" th:field="*{password}"><br>
    <button type="submit">Register</button>
</form>
</body>
</html>

<!-- login.html -->
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns:th="http://www.thymeleaf.org">
<head>
    <title>Login</title>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Login</h2>
<form th:action="@{/login}" method="post">
    Email: <input type="email" name="username"><br>
    Password: <input type="password" name="password"><br>
    <button type="submit">Login</button>
</form>
</body>
</html>

<!-- home.html -->
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns:th="http://www.thymeleaf.org">
<head>
    <title>Home</title>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Welcome to Home Page</h2>
<a th:href="@{/logout}">Logout</a>
</body>
</html>

11. Run the Project

mvn spring-boot:run

12. Conclusion

You’ve successfully built a Spring Boot Register/Login system with MySQL using Spring Security and Thymeleaf. You now have a secure authentication setup with password encryption and database integration.