CakePHP HierAuth Plugin

HierAuth is a simple, hierarchical ACL authorization plugin for CakePHP 3. You can grant and deny access based on roles, and create virtual ones to include sub-roles.

Installing

Using composer, install the plugin:

composer require btaens/cakephp-hier-auth

Insert the following line into your config/bootstrap.php file:

Plugin::load('HierAuth');

Setup

Load and configure HierAuth through AuthComponent:

$this->loadComponent('Auth', [
    'authorize' => [
        'HierAuth.Hier' => [
            'hierarchyFile' => 'hierarchy.yml',
            'aclFile' => 'acl.yml',
            'roleColumn' => false,
            'roleKeys' => [
                'roles' => [
                    'multi' => true,
                    'column' => 'label',
                ],
            ],
        ],
    ],
]);

Hierarchy and ACL

hierarchyFile is a YAML file in which you will define the hierarchy of your roles. Put this in your config directory. The basic structure of it is the following:

hierarchy:
   ROOT:
       - DEVELOPER
       - OWNER
   MODERATOR:
       - FINANCE
       - LABOR
   ADMIN:
       - "@MODERATOR"
       - SALES
       - CONTACT
   USER:
       - MEMBER

Here you have defined a ROOT role. ROOT doesn't necessarily have to be an actual role your users have, however any users with the role DEVELOPER or OWNER will be granted access to any route that ROOT has access to.

ADMIN also includes @MODERATOR. This means that all roles in MODERATOR will have all access (or deny) rights of ADMIN. You can do this recursively (up to 10 depth) as well, so one role could include another, which in turn could also include another.

Not all roles need to be written into your hierarchy file if you don't need to setup a hierarchy for them, you can also grant and deny access to roles not listed here.

You can also include existing roles, and give them the access rights of other existing roles:

hierarchy:
    SALES:
        - CONTACT

In this case, all your users with the CONTACT role would get all the access rights of your SALES role.

aclFile is a YAML file in which you will grant or deny access to your routes. Put this in your config directory. The basic structure is the following:

controllers:
    ALL: [ROOT, ADMIN]
    Posts:
        ALL: [MODERATOR, -ADMIN, CONTACT]
        index: [USER, NEWBIE]

The controllers you wish to define access rights to sit under a controllers key. The ALL key (all caps) defines access to all sub-members (the one under controllers to all controllers, the ones under the individual controllers to all its actions (even the ones not listed).

According to this example, ROOT and ADMIN are by default granted access to all controllers and actions (even the ones not listed).

All actions of Posts get access by MODERATOR, however all actions in Posts are denied to ADMIN (- signifies access denial), except CONTACT, who is granted access as well. From this, you can see order matters ([CONTACT, -ADMIN] would've meant CONTACT is denied, as that role is later set to denied as it's part of ADMIN, however [-ADMIN, CONTACT] grants access to CONTACT, as first we denied it to all in ADMIN, but then granted it to CONTACT).

Table setup

HierAuth can get your user's roles from multiple tables, all of which can be associated through hasMany or hasAndBelongsToMany, or even a column of the User table itself, as a JSON field.

If you're using one of your user table's column for your users' role setup, you'll have to save the roles JSON encoded, or return them through dataType manipulation in the form of an array (so a user with DEVELOPER and MEMBER roles would have, say, a roles column with a value of: ["DEVELOPER","MEMBER"]. Then you'd set roleColumn in the above config to be the name of the column: 'roleColumn' => 'roles'.

A more recommended way however is to store your roles in a seperate table, and associate it with your users' table. Pass in the associations you'd like to use in the roleKeys config key, in the following manner:

'roleKeys' => [
    'roles' => [
        'multi' => true,
        'column' => 'label',
    ],
    'right' => [
        'multi' => false,
        'column' => 'label',
    ],
],

For each association, you have to provide whether the user has multiple or single ones through the multi key, which is either true or false. The column key is the column in the table from which HierAuth reads the role's label (the one you write an your acl and hirarchy configuration). This can be 'id', however, a more verbose unique column is recommended for readability (and maintainability, if you later want to move your database and the role table happens to start with a different id, you have to rewrite your entire ACL roles configuration).

Whichever associations you choose to define, you also have to make sure they get saved in the session when the user logs in through whichever authentication method you use. You will need to write a custom finder method to ensure the correct data is contained.

$this->loadComponent('Auth', [
    'authenticate' => [
        'Form' => [
            'finder'=>'AuthUser'
        ],
    ],
]);

// In your UsersTable
public function findAuthUser(Query $query, $options)
{
    $query->contain([
        'Roles',
        'Rights'
    ]);
    return $query;
}

Requirements

• PHP >= 5.4.16
• CakePHP >= 3.0
• Symfony/YAML >= 2.6

Future plans

• Create a component to check whether a user's role passes a certain super-role
• Create a helper as above

Inspired by dereuromark's TinyAuth.