/Dancer-Plugin-Auth-Extensible

Authentication framework for Dancer-based web applications

Primary LanguagePerl

NAME
    Dancer::Plugin::Auth::Extensible - extensible authentication framework
    for Dancer apps

DESCRIPTION
    A user authentication and authorisation framework plugin for Dancer
    apps.

    Makes it easy to require a user to be logged in to access certain
    routes, provides role-based access control, and supports various
    authentication methods/sources (config file, database, Unix system
    users, etc).

    Designed to support multiple authentication realms and to be as
    extensible as possible, and to make secure password handling easy. The
    base class for auth providers makes handling `RFC2307'-style hashed
    passwords really simple, so you have no excuse for storing plain-text
    passwords. A simple script to generate RFC2307-style hashed passwords is
    included (it now defaults to SHA-512), or you can use Crypt::SaltedHash
    yourself to do so (but choose a secure algorhytm), or use the
    `slappasswd' utility if you have it installed.

SYNOPSIS
    Configure the plugin to use the authentication provider class you wish
    to use:

      plugins:
            Auth::Extensible:
                realms:
                    users:
                        provider: Example
                        ....

    The configuration you provide will depend on the authentication provider
    module in use. For a simple example, see
    Dancer::Plugin::Auth::Extensible::Provider::Config.

    Define that a user must be logged in and have the proper permissions to
    access a route:

        get '/secret' => require_role Confidant => sub { tell_secrets(); };

    Define that a user must be logged in to access a route - and find out
    who is logged in with the `logged_in_user' keyword:

        get '/users' => require_login sub {
            my $user = logged_in_user;
            return "Hi there, $user->{username}";
        };

AUTHENTICATION PROVIDERS
    For flexibility, this authentication framework uses simple
    authentication provider classes, which implement a simple interface and
    do whatever is required to authenticate a user against the chosen source
    of authentication.

    For an example of how simple provider classes are, so you can build your
    own if required or just try out this authentication framework plugin
    easily, see Dancer::Plugin::Auth::Extensible::Provider::Example.

    This framework supplies the following providers out-of-the-box:

    Dancer::Plugin::Auth::Extensible::Provider::Unix
        Authenticates users using system accounts on Linux/Unix type boxes

    Dancer::Plugin::Auth::Extensible::Provider::Database
        Authenticates users stored in a database table

    Dancer::Plugin::Auth::Extensible::Provider::Config
        Authenticates users stored in the app's config

    Need to write your own? Just subclass
    Dancer::Plugin::Auth::Extensible::Provider::Base and implement the
    required methods, and you're good to go!

CONTROLLING ACCESS TO ROUTES
    Keywords are provided to check if a user is logged in / has appropriate
    roles.

    require_login - require the user to be logged in
            get '/dashboard' => require_login sub { .... };

        If the user is not logged in, they will be redirected to the login
        page URL to log in. The default URL is `/login' - this may be
        changed with the `login_page' option.

    require_role - require the user to have a specified role
            get '/beer' => require_role BeerDrinker => sub { ... };

        Requires that the user be logged in as a user who has the specified
        role. If the user is not logged in, they will be redirected to the
        login page URL. If they are logged in, but do not have the required
        role, they will be redirected to the access denied URL.

    require_any_roles - require the user to have one of a list of roles
            get '/drink' => require_any_role [qw(BeerDrinker VodaDrinker)] => sub {
                ...
            };

        Requires that the user be logged in as a user who has any one (or
        more) of the roles listed. If the user is not logged in, they will
        be redirected to the login page URL. If they are logged in, but do
        not have any of the specified roles, they will be redirected to the
        access denied URL.

    require_all_roles - require the user to have all roles listed
            get '/foo' => require_all_roles [qw(Foo Bar)] => sub { ... };

        Requires that the user be logged in as a user who has all of the
        roles listed. If the user is not logged in, they will be redirected
        to the login page URL. If they are logged in but do not have all of
        the specified roles, they will be redirected to the access denied
        URL.

  Replacing the Default ` /login ' and ` /login/denied ' Routes
    By default, the plugin adds a route to present a simple login form at
    that URL. If you would rather add your own, set the `no_default_pages'
    setting to a true value, and define your own route which responds to
    `/login' with a login page. Alternatively you can let DPAE add the
    routes and handle the status codes, etc. and simply define the setting
    `login_page_handler' and/or `permission_denied_page_handler' with the
    name of a subroutine to be called to handle the route. Note that it must
    be a fully qualified sub. E.g.

        plugins:
          Auth::Extensible:
            login_page_handler: 'My::App:login_page_handler'
            permission_denied_page_handler: 'My::App:permission_denied_page_handler'

    Then in your code you might simply use a template:

        sub permission_denied_page_handler {
            template 'account/login';
        }

    If the user is logged in, but tries to access a route which requires a
    specific role they don't have, they will be redirected to the
    "permission denied" page URL, which defaults to `/login/denied' but may
    be changed using the `denied_page' option.

    Again, by default a route is added to respond to that URL with a default
    page; again, you can disable this by setting `no_default_pages' and
    creating your own.

    This would still leave the routes `post '/login'' and `any '/logout''
    routes in place. To disable them too, set the option `no_login_handler'
    to a true value. In this case, these routes should be defined by the
    user, and should do at least the following:

        post '/login' => sub {
            my ($success, $realm) = authenticate_user(
                params->{username}, params->{password}
            );
            if ($success) {
                session logged_in_user => params->{username};
                session logged_in_user_realm => $realm;
                # other code here
            } else {
                # authentication failed
            }
        };
    
        any '/logout' => sub {
            session->destroy;
        };
    
    If you want to use the default `post '/login'' and `any '/logout''
    routes you can configure them. See below.

  Keywords
    require_login
        Used to wrap a route which requires a user to be logged in order to
        access it.

            get '/secret' => require_login sub { .... };

    require_role
        Used to wrap a route which requires a user to be logged in as a user
        with the specified role in order to access it.

            get '/beer' => require_role BeerDrinker => sub { ... };

        You can also provide a regular expression, if you need to match the
        role using a regex - for example:

            get '/beer' => require_role qr/Drinker$/ => sub { ... };

    require_any_role
        Used to wrap a route which requires a user to be logged in as a user
        with any one (or more) of the specified roles in order to access it.

            get '/foo' => require_any_role [qw(Foo Bar)] => sub { ... };

    require_all_roles
        Used to wrap a route which requires a user to be logged in as a user
        with all of the roles listed in order to access it.

            get '/foo' => require_all_roles [qw(Foo Bar)] => sub { ... };

    logged_in_user
        Returns a hashref of details of the currently logged-in user, if
        there is one.

        The details you get back will depend upon the authentication
        provider in use.

    user_has_role
        Check if a user has the role named.

        By default, the currently-logged-in user will be checked, so you
        need only name the role you're looking for:

            if (user_has_role('BeerDrinker')) { pour_beer(); }

        You can also provide the username to check;

            if (user_has_role($user, $role)) { .... }

    user_roles
        Returns a list of the roles of a user.

        By default, roles for the currently-logged-in user will be checked;
        alternatively, you may supply a username to check.

        Returns a list or arrayref depending on context.

    authenticate_user
        Usually you'll want to let the built-in login handling code deal
        with authenticating users, but in case you need to do it yourself,
        this keyword accepts a username and password, and optionally a
        specific realm, and checks whether the username and password are
        valid.

        For example:

            if (authenticate_user($username, $password)) {
                ...
            }

        If you are using multiple authentication realms, by default each
        realm will be consulted in turn. If you only wish to check one of
        them (for instance, you're authenticating an admin user, and there's
        only one realm which applies to them), you can supply the realm as
        an optional third parameter.

        In boolean context, returns simply true or false; in list context,
        returns `($success, $realm)'.

  SAMPLE CONFIGURATION
    In your application's configuration file:

        session: simple
        plugins:
            Auth::Extensible:
                # Set to 1 if you want to disable the use of roles (0 is default)
                disable_roles: 0
                # After /login: If no return_url is given: land here ('/' is default)
                user_home_page: '/user'
                # After /logout: If no return_url is given: land here (no default)
                exit_page: '/'
            
                # List each authentication realm, with the provider to use and the
                # provider-specific settings (see the documentation for the provider
                # you wish to use)
                realms:
                    realm_one:
                        provider: Database
                            db_connection_name: 'foo'

    Please note that you must have a session provider configured. The
    authentication framework requires sessions in order to track information
    about the currently logged in user. Please see Dancer::Session for
    information on how to configure session management within your
    application.

AUTHOR
    David Precious, `<davidp at preshweb.co.uk>'

BUGS / FEATURE REQUESTS
    This is an early version; there may still be bugs present or features
    missing.

    This is developed on GitHub - please feel free to raise issues or pull
    requests against the repo at:
    https://github.com/bigpresh/Dancer-Plugin-Auth-Extensible

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
    Valuable feedback on the early design of this module came from many
    people, including Matt S Trout (mst), David Golden (xdg), Damien
    Krotkine (dams), Daniel Perrett, and others.

    Configurable login/logout URLs added by Rene (hertell)

    Regex support for require_role by chenryn

    Support for user_roles looking in other realms by Colin Ewen (casao)

    Config options for default login/logout handlers by Henk van Oers
    (hvoers)

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT
    Copyright 2012-16 David Precious.

    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.