module ActionController::HttpAuthentication::Basic
Makes it dead easy to do HTTP Basic and Digest authentication.
Simple Basic example¶ ↑
class PostsController < ApplicationController http_basic_authenticate_with :name => "dhh", :password => "secret", :except => :index def index render :text => "Everyone can see me!" end def edit render :text => "I'm only accessible if you know the password" end end
Advanced Basic example¶ ↑
Here is a more advanced Basic example where only Atom feeds and the XML API is protected by HTTP authentication, the regular HTML interface is protected by a session approach:
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base before_filter :set_account, :authenticate protected def set_account @account = Account.find_by_url_name(request.subdomains.first) end def authenticate case request.format when Mime::XML, Mime::ATOM if user = authenticate_with_http_basic { |u, p| @account.users.authenticate(u, p) } @current_user = user else request_http_basic_authentication end else if session_authenticated? @current_user = @account.users.find(session[:authenticated][:user_id]) else redirect_to(login_url) and return false end end end end
In your integration tests, you can do something like this:
def test_access_granted_from_xml get( "/notes/1.xml", nil, 'HTTP_AUTHORIZATION' => ActionController::HttpAuthentication::Basic.encode_credentials(users(:dhh).name, users(:dhh).password) ) assert_equal 200, status end
Simple Digest example¶ ↑
require 'digest/md5' class PostsController < ApplicationController REALM = "SuperSecret" USERS = {"dhh" => "secret", #plain text password "dap" => Digest::MD5.hexdigest(["dap",REALM,"secret"].join(":"))} #ha1 digest password before_filter :authenticate, :except => [:index] def index render :text => "Everyone can see me!" end def edit render :text => "I'm only accessible if you know the password" end private def authenticate authenticate_or_request_with_http_digest(REALM) do |username| USERS[username] end end end
Notes¶ ↑
The authenticate_or_request_with_http_digest
block must return
the user's password or the ha1 digest hash so the framework can
appropriately hash to check the user's credentials. Returning
nil
will cause authentication to fail.
Storing the ha1 hash: MD5(username:realm:password), is better than storing
a plain password. If the password file or database is compromised, the
attacker would be able to use the ha1 hash to authenticate as the user at
this realm
, but would not have the user's password to try
using at other sites.
In rare instances, web servers or front proxies strip authorization headers before they reach your application. You can debug this situation by logging all environment variables, and check for HTTP_AUTHORIZATION, amongst others.
Public Instance Methods
# File lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 133 def authenticate(request, &login_procedure) unless request.authorization.blank? login_procedure.call(*user_name_and_password(request)) end end
# File lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 151 def authentication_request(controller, realm) controller.headers["WWW-Authenticate"] = %Q(Basic realm="#{realm.gsub(/"/, "")}") controller.response_body = "HTTP Basic: Access denied.\n" controller.status = 401 end
# File lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 143 def decode_credentials(request) ::Base64.decode64(request.authorization.split(' ', 2).last || '') end
# File lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 147 def encode_credentials(user_name, password) "Basic #{::Base64.strict_encode64("#{user_name}:#{password}")}" end
# File lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 139 def user_name_and_password(request) decode_credentials(request).split(/:/, 2) end