NAME

Mojolicious::Plugin::Authentication - A plugin to make authentication a bit easier

SYNOPSIS

use Mojolicious::Plugin::Authentication;

$self->plugin('Authentication' => {
    autoload_user   => 1,
    session_key     => 'wickedapp',
    load_user_p     => sub { ... },
    validate_user_p => sub { ... },
});
# ...
$self->authenticate_p(
    'username', 'password',
    { optional => 'extra data stuff' },
)->then(sub {
    my ($authenticated) = @_;
    if ($authenticated) {
        # ...
    }
});

# or, synchronous style
$self->plugin('Authentication' => {
    autoload_user   => 1,
    session_key     => 'wickedapp',
    load_user       => sub { ... },
    validate_user   => sub { ... },
    current_user_fn => 'user', # compatibility with old code
});
my $authenticated = $self->authenticate(
    'username', 'password',
    { optional => 'extra data stuff' },
);
if ($authenticated) {
    ...
}

METHODS

Like other Mojolicious plugins, loading this plugin will import some function helpers into the namespace of your application. This will not normally cause any trouble, but be aware that if you define methods with the same names as those below, you'll likely run into unexpected results.

authenticate($username, $password, $extra_data_hashref)

Authenticate will use the supplied load_user and validate_user subroutine refs to see whether a user exists with the given username and password, and will set up the session accordingly. Returns true when the user has been successfully authenticated, false otherwise. You can pass additional data along in the extra_data hashref, it will be passed to your validate_user subroutine as-is. If the extra data hash contains a key auto_validate, the value of that key will be used as the UID, and authenticate will not call your validate_user callback; this can be used when working with OAuth tokens or other authentication mechanisms that do not use a local username and password form.

authenticate_p($username, $password, $extra_data_hashref)

As above, but instead of returning a value, returns a promise of same. Available even if only synchronous callbacks are provided as these will be "promisified".

is_user_authenticated

Returns true if current_user() returns some valid object, false otherwise.

is_user_authenticated_p

As above, but instead of returning a value, returns a promise of same.

current_user

Returns the user object as it was returned from the supplied load_user subroutine ref.

You can change the current user by passing it in, but be careful: This bypasses the authentication. This is useful if you have multiple ways to authenticate users and want to re-use authorization checks that use current_user.

Note that the name of this helper can be changed with the current_user_fn field during initialisation (see below).

current_user_p

As above, but instead of returning a value, returns a promise of same.

reload_user

Flushes the current user object and then returns current_user().

reload_user_p

As above, but instead of returning a value, returns a promise of same.

signature_exists

Returns true if uid signature exist on the client side (in cookies), false otherwise.

Warning: non-secure check! Use this method only for a "fast & dirty" lookup to see if the client has the proper cookies. May be helpful in some cases (for example - in counting guest/logged users or for additional non-confidential information for logged users but not for guest).

logout

Removes the session data for authentication, and effectively logs a user out. Returns a true value, to allow for chaining.

CONFIGURATION

The following options can be set for the plugin, (but the "REQUIRED" ones can be replaced with a promise-returning equivalent with _p appended to the key):

• load_user (REQUIRED)

  A coderef for user loading (see "USER LOADING")

• validate_user (REQUIRED)

  A coderef for user validation (see "USER VALIDATION")

• session_key (optional)

  The name of the session key

• autoload_user (optional)

  Turn on/off automatic loading of user data - user data can be loaded only if it be used. May reduce site latency in some cases.

• current_user_fn (optional)

  Set the name for the current_user() helper function. _p will be appended for the asynchronous version.

• fail_render (optional)

  Specify what is to be rendered when the authenticated condition is not met.

  Set to a coderef which will be called with the following signature:

    sub {
        my ($routes, $controller, $captures, $required) = @_;
        ...
        return $hashref;
    }
  

  The return value of the subroutine will be ignored if it evaluates to false. If it returns a hash reference, it will be dereferenced and passed as-is to the controller's render function. If you return anything else, you are going to have a bad time.

  If set directly to a hash reference, that will be passed to render instead.

In order to set the session expiry time, use the following in your startup routine:

$app->plugin('authentication', { ... });
$app->sessions->default_expiration(86400); # set expiry to 1 day
$app->sessions->default_expiration(3600); # set expiry to 1 hour

USER LOADING

The coderef you pass to the load_user configuration key has the following signature:

sub {
    my ($app, $uid) = @_;
    ...
    return $user;
}

The uid is the value that was originally returned from the validate_user coderef. You must return either a user object (it can be a hashref, arrayref, or a blessed object) or undef.

USER VALIDATION

User validation is what happens when we need to authenticate someone. The coderef you pass to the validate_user configuration key has the following signature:

sub {
    my ($c, $username, $password, $extradata) = @_;
    ...
    return $uid;
}

You must return either a user id or undef. The user id can be numerical or a string. Do not return hashrefs, arrayrefs or objects, since the behaviour of this plugin could get a little bit on the odd side of weird if you do that.

EXAMPLES

For a code example using this, see the t/01-functional.t and t/02-functional_lazy.t tests, it uses Mojolicious::Lite and this plugin.

ROUTING VIA CONDITION

This plugin also exports a routing condition you can use in order to limit access to certain documents to only authenticated users.

$r->route('/foo')->requires(authenticated => 1)->to('mycontroller#foo');

my $authenticated_only = $r->route('/members')
    ->requires(authenticated => 1)
    ->to('members#index');

$authenticated_only->route('online')->to('members#online');

If someone is not authenticated, these routes will not be considered by the dispatcher and unless you have set up a catch-all route, a 404 Not Found will be generated instead.

And another condition for fast and unsecured checking for users, having a signature (without validating it). This method just checks client cookies for uid data existing.

$r->route('/foo')->requires(signed => 1)->to('mycontroller#foo');

This behavior is similar to the "authenticated" condition.

Prior to Mojolicious 9, use "over" instead of "requires."

ROUTING VIA CALLBACK

If you want to be able to send people to a login page, you will have to use the following:

my $members_only = $r->route('/members')->to(cb => sub {
    my $self = shift;

    $self->redirect_to('/login') and return 0
        unless($self->is_user_authenticated);

    return 1;
});

$members_only->route('online')->to('members#online');

Lazy and unsecured methods:

my $members_only = $r->route('/unimportant')->to(cb => sub {
    my $self = shift;

    $self->redirect_to('/login') and return 0
        unless($self->signature_exists);

    return 1;
});

$members_only->route('pages')->to('unimportant#pages');

ROUTING VIA BRIDGE

If you want to be able to send people to a login page, you will have to use the following:

my $auth_bridge = $r->under('/members')->to('auth#check');
# only visible to logged in users
$auth_bridge->route('/list')->to('members#list');

And in your Auth controller you would put:

sub check {
    my $self = shift;

    $self->redirect_to('/login') and return 0
        unless($self->is_user_authenticated);

    return 1;
};

Lazy and unsecured methods:

sub check {
    my $self = shift;

    $self->redirect_to('/login') and return 0
        unless($self->signature_exists);

    return 1;
};

SEE ALSO

• Mojolicious::Sessions
• Mojocast 3: Authentication

AUTHOR

• Ben van Staveren, <madcat at cpan.org>
• José Joaquín Atria, <jjatria@cpan.org>

BUGS / CONTRIBUTING

Please report any bugs or feature requests through the web interface at https://github.com/benvanstaveren/mojolicious-plugin-authentication/issues.

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

perldoc Mojolicious::Plugin::Authentication

You can also look for information at:

• AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation

  http://annocpan.org/dist/Mojolicious-Plugin-Authentication

• CPAN Ratings

  http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/Mojolicious-Plugin-Authentication

• Search CPAN

  http://search.cpan.org/dist/Mojolicious-Plugin-Authentication/

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Andrew Parker - For pointing out some bugs that crept in; a silent reminder not to code while sleepy

Mirko Westermeier (memowe) - For doing some (much needed) code cleanup

Terrence Brannon (metaperl) - Documentation patches

Karpich Dmitry (meettya) - lazy_mode and signature_exists functionality, including a test and documentation

Ivo Welch - For donating his first ever Mojolicious application that shows an example of how to use this module

Ed Wildgoose (ewildgoose) - Adding the current_user() functionality, as well as some method renaming to make things a bit more sane.

Colin Cyr (SailingYYC) - For reporting an issue with routing conditions; I really should not code while sleepy, brainfarts imminent!

Carlos Ramos (carragom) - For fixing the bug that'd consider an uid of 0 or "0" to be a problem

Doug Bell (preaction) - For improving the Travis CI integration and enabling arguments for current_user

Roman F (moltar) - For fixing some pesky typos in sample code

Hernan Lopes (hernan604) - For updating some deprecated method names in the documentation

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2011-2021 Ben van Staveren.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; or the Artistic License.

See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.