Spring security without form login

I have implemented Spring Security Expression in my application Spring controller:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("init")
public class InitController {
    @PreAuthorize("hasRole('ROLE_ADMIN')")
    @RequestMapping(value = "/", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public @ResponseBody String home(){
        return "This is the init page";
    }
}

With this security configuration:

<http auto-config="true" create-session="stateless" use-expressions="true">
    <intercept-url pattern="/_ah*" access="permitAll" />
    <intercept-url pattern="/init/*" access="hasRole('ROLE_ADMIN')"/>
    <intercept-url pattern="/init*" access="hasRole('ROLE_ADMIN')"/>
</http>

When this resource is accessed the the default Spring login form is displayed (http://localhost:8888/spring_security_login) however I don't want this to happen and that I just want to have the credentials to be inserted in the request header like "x-authorization-key" or whatever that fits the scenario.

What is the possible solution for this?

• Is it a good to just have the x-authorization-key to be in the request
• If so, how does it fit with the Spring security mechanism, that is how that it fit with the "hasRole" expression
• It is important the the my web service is stateless, and each request gets authenticated
• Finally, how to do deal with Spring security without having to deal with the Spring login form

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