A clean, simple, and unobtrusive ruby authentication solution.
Tail Authlogic users in your logs!
| Version | branches | tag | ruby | activerecord |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unreleased | master, 4-stable | >= 2.1.0 | >= 3.2, < 5.2 | |
| 3 | 3-stable | v3.6.0 | >= 1.9.3 | >= 3.2, < 5.2 |
| 2 | rails2 | v2.1.11 | >= 1.9.3 | ~> 2.3.0 |
| 1 | ? | v1.4.3 | ? | ? |
It introduces a new type of model. You can have as many as you want, and name them whatever you want, just like your other models. In this example, we want to authenticate with the User model, which is inferred by the name:
class UserSession < Authlogic::Session::Base
# specify configuration here, such as:
# logout_on_timeout true
# ...many more options in the documentation
endIn a UserSessionsController, login the user by using it just like your other models:
UserSession.create(:login => "bjohnson", :password => "my password", :remember_me => true)
session = UserSession.new(:login => "bjohnson", :password => "my password", :remember_me => true)
session.save
# requires the authlogic-oid "add on" gem
UserSession.create(:openid_identifier => "identifier", :remember_me => true)
# skip authentication and log the user in directly, the true means "remember me"
UserSession.create(my_user_object, true)The above handles the entire authentication process for you by:
- authenticating (i.e. validating the record)
- sets up the proper session values and cookies to persist the session (i.e. saving the record).
You can also log out (i.e. destroying the session):
session.destroyAfter a session has been created, you can persist it (i.e. finding the record) across requests. Thus keeping the user logged in:
session = UserSession.findTo get all of the nice authentication functionality in your model just do this:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_authentic do |c|
c.my_config_option = my_value
end # the configuration block is optional
endThis handles validations, etc. It is also "smart" in the sense that it if a login field is present it will use that to authenticate, if not it will look for an email field, etc. This is all configurable, but for 99% of cases that above is all you will need to do.
You may specify how passwords are cryptographically hashed (or encrypted) by setting the Authlogic::CryptoProvider option:
c.crypto_provider = Authlogic::CryptoProviders::BCryptYou may validate international email addresses by enabling the provided alternate regex:
c.validates_format_of_email_field_options = {:with => Authlogic::Regex.email_nonascii}Also, sessions are automatically maintained. You can switch this on and off with configuration, but the following will automatically log a user in after a successful registration:
User.create(params[:user])You can switch this on and off with the following configuration:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_authentic do |c|
c.log_in_after_create = false
end # the configuration block is optional
endAuthlogic also updates the session when the user changes his/her password. You can also switch this on and off with the following configuration:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_authentic do |c|
c.log_in_after_password_change = false
end # the configuration block is optional
endAuthlogic is very flexible, it has a strong public API and a plethora of hooks to allow you to modify behavior and extend it. Check out the helpful links below to dig deeper.
You can find anything you want about Authlogic in the documentation, all that you need to do is understand the basic design behind it.
That being said, there are 2 models involved during authentication. Your Authlogic model and your ActiveRecord model:
- Authlogic::Session, your session models that extend Authlogic::Session::Base.
- Authlogic::ActsAsAuthentic, which adds in functionality to your ActiveRecord model when you call acts_as_authentic.
Each of the above has its various sub modules that contain common logic. The sub modules are responsible for including everything related to it: configuration, class methods, instance methods, etc.
For example, if you want to timeout users after a certain period of inactivity, you would look in Authlogic::Session::Timeout. To help you out, I listed the following publicly relevant modules with short descriptions. For the sake of brevity, there are more modules than listed here, the ones not listed are more for internal use, but you can easily read up on them in the documentation.
What if creating sessions worked like an ORM library on the surface...
UserSession.create(params[:user_session])If you want to enable all the features of Authlogic, a migration to create a +User+ model, for example, might look like this:
class CreateUser < ActiveRecord::Migration
def change
create_table :users do |t|
# Authlogic::ActsAsAuthentic::Email
t.string :email
# Authlogic::ActsAsAuthentic::Password
t.string :crypted_password
t.string :password_salt
# Authlogic::ActsAsAuthentic::PersistenceToken
t.string :persistence_token
t.index :persistence_token, unique: true
# Authlogic::ActsAsAuthentic::SingleAccessToken
t.string :single_access_token
t.index :single_access_token, unique: true
# Authlogic::ActsAsAuthentic::PerishableToken
t.string :perishable_token
t.index :perishable_token, unique: true
# Authlogic::Session::MagicColumns
t.integer :login_count, default: 0, null: false
t.integer :failed_login_count, default: 0, null: false
t.datetime :last_request_at
t.datetime :current_login_at
t.datetime :last_login_at
t.string :current_login_ip
t.string :last_login_ip
# Authlogic::Session::MagicStates
t.boolean :active, default: false
t.boolean :approved, default: false
t.boolean :confirmed, default: false
t.timestamps
end
end
endWhat if your user sessions controller could look just like your other controllers?
class UserSessionsController < ApplicationController
def new
@user_session = UserSession.new
end
def create
@user_session = UserSession.new(user_session_params)
if @user_session.save
redirect_to account_url
else
render :action => :new
end
end
def destroy
current_user_session.destroy
redirect_to new_user_session_url
end
private
def user_session_params
params.require(:user_session).permit(:email, :password)
end
endAs you can see, this fits nicely into the RESTful development pattern.
How about persisting the session?
class ApplicationController
helper_method :current_user_session, :current_user
private
def current_user_session
return @current_user_session if defined?(@current_user_session)
@current_user_session = UserSession.find
end
def current_user
return @current_user if defined?(@current_user)
@current_user = current_user_session && current_user_session.user
end
end<%= form_for @user_session do |f| %>
<% if @user_session.errors.any? %>
<div id="error_explanation">
<h2><%= pluralize(@user_session.errors.count, "error") %> prohibited:</h2>
<ul>
<% @user_session.errors.full_messages.each do |msg| %>
<li><%= msg %></li>
<% end %>
</ul>
</div>
<% end %>
<%= f.label :login %><br />
<%= f.text_field :login %><br />
<br />
<%= f.label :password %><br />
<%= f.password_field :password %><br />
<br />
<%= f.submit "Login" %>
<% end %>Because Authlogic introduces its own methods for storing user sessions, the CSRF (Cross Site Request Forgery) protection that is built into Rails will not work out of the box.
No generally applicable mitigation by the authlogic library is possible, because
the instance variable you use to store a reference to the user session in def current_user_session will not be known to authlogic.
You will need to override ActionController::Base#handle_unverified_request to
do something appropriate to how your app handles user sessions, e.g.:
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
...
protected
def handle_unverified_request
# raise an exception
fail ActionController::InvalidAuthenticityToken
# or destroy session, redirect
if current_user_session
current_user_session.destroy
end
redirect_to root_url
end
end- API Reference: http://rdoc.info/projects/binarylogic/authlogic
- Repository: http://github.com/binarylogic/authlogic/tree/master
- Railscasts Screencast: http://railscasts.com/episodes/160-authlogic
- Example repository with tutorial in README: http://github.com/binarylogic/authlogic_example/tree/master
- Tutorial: Reset passwords with Authlogic the RESTful way: http://www.binarylogic.com/2008/11/16/tutorial-reset-passwords-with-authlogic
- Tutorial: Rails Authentication with Authlogic http://www.sitepoint.com/rails-authentication-with-authlogic
- Issues: http://github.com/binarylogic/authlogic/issues
- Authlogic OpenID addon: http://github.com/binarylogic/authlogic_openid
- Authlogic LDAP addon: http://github.com/binarylogic/authlogic_ldap
- Authlogic Facebook Connect: http://github.com/kalasjocke/authlogic_facebook_connect
- Authlogic Facebook Connect (New JS API): http://github.com/studybyte/authlogic_facebook_connect
- Authlogic Facebook Shim http://github.com/james2m/authlogic_facebook_shim
- Authlogic OAuth (Twitter): http://github.com/jrallison/authlogic_oauth
- Authlogic Oauth and OpenID: http://github.com/viatropos/authlogic-connect
- Authlogic PAM: http://github.com/nbudin/authlogic_pam
- Authlogic x509: http://github.com/auth-scc/authlogic_x509
If you create one of your own, please let us know about it so we can add it to this list. Or just fork the project, add your link, and send us a pull request.
Interested in how all of this all works? Think about an ActiveRecord model. A database connection must be established before you can use it. In the case of Authlogic, a controller connection must be established before you can use it. It uses that controller connection to modify cookies, the current session, login with HTTP basic, etc. It connects to the controller through a before filter that is automatically set in your controller which lets Authlogic know about the current controller object. Then Authlogic leverages that to do everything, it's a pretty simple design. Nothing crazy going on, Authlogic is just leveraging the tools your framework provides in the controller object.
Copyright (c) 2012 Ben Johnson of Binary Logic, released under the MIT license