Authentication

Authentication

• Introduction
• Configuration
• Storing Passwords
• Authenticating Users
• Basic Usage

Introduction

All the classes of the Auth system live in the namespace Auth and is implemented as a reference structure for User Authentication in the App namespace.

To note that additional Route Filters are also added to support this reference implementation, and the proper configuration of a valid ENCRYPT_KEY is required.

Being a Users Management, a Database is required and in scripts/nova_users.sql you will find the associated MySQL dump for a users table.

The AppControllersUsers also implements a small private area for the authenticated User. The private area is a simple Dashboard and a Profile page, where the users have the ability to change their password.

Important: Nova's Authentication uses the new Database API and not the HelpersDatabase. If you choose to use the Nova Authentication, you would need to use the new Database API in the whole application and to not touch the HelpersDatabase instances.

Configuration

Nova aims to make implementing authentication very simple. In fact, almost everything is configured for you out of the box. The authentication configuration file is located at app/Config/Auth.php, which contains several well documented options for tweaking the behavior of the authentication facilities.

By default, Nova includes a User model in your app/Models directory which may be used with the default extended authentication driver, which uses DatabaseORM.

If your application is not using ORM, you may use the database authentication driver which uses the Nova query builder.

Storing Passwords

The Nova Hash class provides secure Bcrypt hashing:

Hashing A Password Using Bcrypt

$password = Hash::make('secret');

Verifying A Password Against A Hash

if (Hash::check('secret', $hashedPassword))
{
    // The passwords match...
}

Checking If A Password Needs To Be Rehashed

if (Hash::needsRehash($hashed))
{
    $hashed = Hash::make('secret');
}

Authenticating Users

To log a user into your application, you may use the Auth::attempt method.

if (Auth::attempt(array('email' => $email, 'password' => $password)))
{
    // User is authenticated there.
}

Take note that email is not a required option, it is merely used for an example. You should use whatever column name corresponds to a "username" in your database. The Redirect::intended function will redirect the user to the URL they were trying to access before being caught by the authentication filter. A fallback URI may be given to this method in case the intended destination is not available.

When the attempt method is called, the auth.attempt event will be fired. If the authentication attempt is successful and the user is logged in, the auth.login event will be fired as well.

Determining If A User Is Authenticated

To determine if the user is already logged into your application, you may use the check method:

if (Auth::check())
{
    // The user is logged in...
}

Authenticating A User And "Remembering" Them

If you would like to provide "remember me" functionality in your application, you may pass true as the second argument to the attempt method, which will keep the user authenticated indefinitely (or until they manually logout). Of course, your users table must include the string remember_token column, which will be used to store the "remember me" token.

if (Auth::attempt(array('email' => $email, 'password' => $password), true))
{
    // The user is being remembered...
}

Note: If the attempt method returns true, the user is considered logged into the application.

Determining If User Authed Via Remember

If you are "remembering" user logins, you may use the viaRemember method to determine if the user was authenticated using the "remember me" cookie:

if (Auth::viaRemember())
{
    //
}

Authenticating A User With Conditions

You also may add extra conditions to the authenticating query:

if (Auth::attempt(array('email' => $email, 'password' => $password, 'active' => 1)))
{
    // The user is active, not suspended, and exists.
}

Note: For added protection against session fixation, the user's session ID will automatically be regenerated after authenticating.

Accessing The Logged In User

Once a user is authenticated, you may access the User model / record:

$email = Auth::user()->email;

To retrieve the authenticated user's ID, you may use the id method:

$id = Auth::id();

To simply log a user into the application by their ID, use the loginUsingId method:

Auth::loginUsingId(1);

Validating User Credentials Without Login

The validate method allows you to validate a user's credentials without actually logging them into the application:

if (Auth::validate($credentials))
{
    //
}

Logging A User In For A Single Request

You may also use the once method to log a user into the application for a single request. No sessions or cookies will be utilized.

if (Auth::once($credentials))
{
    //
}

Logging A User Out Of The Application

Auth::logout();

Basic Usage

    public function postLogin()
    {
        // Retrieve the Authentication credentials.
        $credentials = Input::only('username', 'password');

        // Prepare the 'remember' parameter.
        $remember = (Input::get('remember') == 'on');

        // Make an attempt to login the Guest with the given credentials.
        if(! Auth::attempt($credentials, $remember)) {
            // An error has happened on authentication.
            $status = __d('users', 'Wrong username or password.');

            return Redirect::back()->withStatus($status, 'danger');
        }

        // The User is authenticated now; retrieve his Model instance.
        $user = Auth::user();

        if (Hash::needsRehash($user->password)) {
            $password = $credentials['password'];

            $user->password = Hash::make($password);

            // Save the User Model instance - used with the Extended Auth Driver.
            $user->save();

            // Save the User Model instance - used with the Database Auth Driver.
            //$this->model->updateGenericUser($user);
        }

        if($user->active == 0) {
            Auth::logout();

            // User not activated; logout and redirect him back.
            $status = __d('users', 'There is a problem. Have you activated your Account?');

            return Redirect::back()->withStatus($status, 'warning');
        }

        // Prepare the flash message.
        $status = __d('users', '<b>{0}</b>, you have successfully logged in.', $user->username);

        // Redirect to the User's Dashboard.
        return Redirect::to('admin/dashboard')->withStatus($status);
    }