The declarative authorization plugin offers an authorization mechanism inspired by RBAC. The most notable distinction to other authorization plugins is the declarative approach. That is, authorization rules are not defined programmatically in between business logic but in an authorization configuration.
With programmatic authorization rules, the developer needs to specify which roles are allowed to access a specific controller action or a part of a view, which is not DRY. With a growing application code base rolesâ permissions often change and new roles are introduced. Then, at several places of the source code the changes have to be implemented, possibly leading to omissions and thus hard to find errors. In these cases, a declarative approach as offered by decl_auth increases the development and maintenance efficiency.
Plugin features
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Authorization at controller action level
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Authorization helpers for Views
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Authorization at model level
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Authorize CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) activities
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Query rewriting to automatically only fetch authorized records
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DSL for specifying Authorization rules in an authorization configuration
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Support for Rails 4, with backwards compatibility through Rails 2
Requirements
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An authentication mechanism
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User object in Controller#current_user
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(For model security) Setting Authorization.current_user
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User objects need to respond to a method :role_symbols that returns an array of role symbols
See below for installation instructions.
There is a decl_auth screencast by Ryan Bates, nicely introducing the main concepts: railscasts.com/episodes/188-declarative-authorization
Declarative Authorization comes with an installer to make setup easy.
First, include declarative_authorization in your gemfile.
#! Gemfile gem 'declarative_authorization'
Next, bundle and install.
$ bundle $ rails g authorization:install [UserModel=User] [field:type field:type ...] [--create-user --commit --user-belongs-to-role]
This installer will create a Role model, an admin and a user role, and set a has_and_belongs_to_many relationship between the User model and the Role model. It will also add a ârole_symbols` method to the user model to meet declarative_authorizationâs requirements. The default User model is User. You can override this by simply typing the name of a model as above.
You can create the model with the fields provided by using the ââcreate-user` option.
The ââcommit` option will run `rake db:migrate` and `rake db:seed`.
The ââuser-belongs-to-role` option will set up a one-to-many relationship between Users and Roles. That is, each user has a role_id column and can only have one role. Role inheritance can be used in authorization rules.
Finally, the installer also copies default authorization rules, as below.
To copy a default set of authorization rules which includes CRUD priveleges, run:
$ rails g authorization:rules
This command will copy the following to âconfig/authorization_rules.rb`. Remember to implement the requirements of this gem as described in the Installation section at the end of this README if you do not use the above installer.
authorization do role :guest do # add permissions for guests here, e.g. # has_permission_on :conferences, :to => :read end # permissions on other roles, such as # role :admin do # has_permission_on :conferences, :to => :manage # end # role :user do # has_permission_on :conferences, :to => [:read, :create] # has_permission_on :conferences, :to => [:update, :delete] do # if_attribute :user_id => is {user.id} # end # end # See the readme or GitHub for more examples end privileges do # default privilege hierarchies to facilitate RESTful Rails apps privilege :manage, :includes => [:create, :read, :update, :delete] privilege :create, :includes => :new privilege :read, :includes => [:index, :show] privilege :update, :includes => :edit privilege :delete, :includes => :destroy end
For RESTful controllers, add âfilter_resource_access`:
class MyRestfulController < ApplicationController filter_resource_access ... end
For a non-RESTful controller, you can use âfilter_access_to`:
class MyOtherController < ApplicationController filter_access_to :all # or a group: filter_access_to [:action1, :action2] ... end
Declarative Authorization will use âcurrent_user` to check authorization.
<%= link_to 'Edit Post', edit_post_path(@post) if permitted_to? :update, @post %>
----- App domain ----|-------- Authorization conf ---------|------- App domain ------ includes includes .--. .---. | v | v .------. can_play .------. has_permission .------------. requires .----------. | User |----------->| Role |----------------->| Permission |<-----------| Activity | '------' * * '------' * * '------------' 1 * '----------' | .-------+------. 1 / | 1 \ * .-----------. .---------. .-----------. | Privilege | | Context | | Attribute | '-----------' '---------' '-----------'
In the application domain, each User may be assigned to Roles that should define the usersâ job in the application, such as Administrator. On the right-hand side of this diagram, application developers specify which Permissions are necessary for users to perform activities, such as calling a controller action, viewing parts of a View or acting on records in the database. Note that Permissions consist of an Privilege that is to be performed, such as read, and a Context in that the Operation takes place, such as companies.
In the authorization configuration, Permissions are assigned to Roles and Role and Permission hierarchies are defined. Attributes may be employed to allow authorization according to dynamic information about the context and the current user, e.g. âonly allow access on employees that belong to the current userâs branch.â
A fully functional example application can be found at github.com/stffn/decl_auth_demo_app
Details on the demonstrated methods can be found in the API docs, either generated by yourself or at www.tzi.org/~sbartsch/declarative_authorization
If authentication is in place, there are two ways to enable user-specific access control on controller actions. For resource controllers, which more or less follow the CRUD pattern, filter_resource_access
is the simplest approach. It sets up instance variables in before filters and calls filter_access_to with the appropriate parameters to protect the CRUD methods.
class EmployeesController < ApplicationController filter_resource_access ... end
See Authorization::AuthorizationInController::ClassMethods for options on nested resources and custom member and collection actions.
By default, declarative_authorization will enable filter_resource_access compatibility with strong_parameters in Rails 4. If you want to disable this behavior, you can use the â:strong_parameters` option.
class EmployeesController < ApplicationController filter_resource_access :strong_parameters => false ... end
Simalarly, you can use â:strong_parameters => true` if you are using strong_parameters in Rails 3.
If you prefer less magic or your controller has no resemblance with the resource controllers, directly calling filter_access_to may be the better option. Examples are given in the following. E.g. the privilege index users is required for action index. This works as a first default configuration for RESTful controllers, with these privileges easily handled in the authorization configuration, which will be described below.
class EmployeesController < ApplicationController filter_access_to :all def index ... end ... end
When custom actions are added to such a controller, it helps to define more clearly which privileges are the respective requirements. That is when the filter_access_to call may become more verbose:
class EmployeesController < ApplicationController filter_access_to :all # this one would be included in :all, but :read seems to be # a more suitable privilege than :auto_complete_for_user_name filter_access_to :auto_complete_for_employee_name, :require => :read def auto_complete_for_employee_name ... end ... end
For some actions it might be necessary to check certain attributes of the object the action is to be acting on. Then, the object needs to be loaded before the actionâs access control is evaluated. On the other hand, some actions might prefer the authorization to ignore specific attribute checks as the object is unknown at checking time, so attribute checks and thus automatic loading of objects needs to be enabled explicitly.
class EmployeesController < ApplicationController filter_access_to :update, :attribute_check => true def update # @employee is already loaded from param[:id] because of :attribute_check end end
You can provide the needed object through before_filters. This way, you have full control over the object that the conditions are checked against. Just make sure, your before_filters occur before any of the filter_access_to calls.
class EmployeesController < ApplicationController before_filter :new_employee_from_params, :only => :create before_filter :new_employee, :only => [:index, :new] filter_access_to :all, :attribute_check => true def create @employee.save! end protected def new_employee_from_params @employee = Employee.new(params[:employee]) end end
If the access is denied, a permission_denied
method is called on the current_controller, if defined, and the issue is logged. For further customization of the filters and object loading, have a look at the complete API documentation of filter_access_to in Authorization::AuthorizationInController::ClassMethods.
In views, a simple permitted_to? helper makes showing blocks according to the current userâs privileges easy:
<% permitted_to? :create, :employees do %> <%= link_to 'New', new_employee_path %> <% end %>
Only giving a symbol :employees as context prevents any checks of attributes as there is no object to check against. For example, in case of nested resources a new object may come in handy:
<% permitted_to? :create, Branch.new(:company => @company) do # or @company.branches.new # or even @company.branches %> <%= link_to 'New', new_company_branch_path(@company) %> <% end %>
Lists are straight-forward:
<% for employee in @employees %> <%= link_to 'Edit', edit_employee_path(employee) if permitted_to? :update, employee %> <% end %>
See also Authorization::AuthorizationHelper.
There are two distinct features for model security built into this plugin: authorizing CRUD operations on objects as well as query rewriting to limit results according to certain privileges.
See also Authorization::AuthorizationInModel.
To activate model security, all it takes is an explicit enabling for each model that model security should be enforced on, i.e.
class Employee < ActiveRecord::Base using_access_control ... end
Thus,
Employee.create(...)
fails, if the current user is not allowed to :create :employees according to the authorization rules. For the application to find out about what happened if an operation is denied, the filters throw Authorization::NotAuthorized exceptions.
As access control on read are costly, with possibly lots of objects being loaded at a time in one query, checks on read need to be activated explicitly by adding the :include_read option.
When retrieving large sets of records from databases, any authorization needs to be integrated into the query in order to prevent inefficient filtering afterwards and to use LIMIT and OFFSET in SQL statements. To keep authorization rules out of the source code, this plugin offers query rewriting mechanisms through named scopes. Thus,
Employee.with_permissions_to(:read)
returns all employee records that the current user is authorized to read. In addition, just like normal named scopes, query rewriting may be chained with the usual find method:
Employee.with_permissions_to(:read).find(:all, :conditions => ...)
If the current user is completely missing the permissions, an Authorization::NotAuthorized exception is raised. Through Model.obligation_conditions, application developers may retrieve the conditions for manual rewrites.
Authorization rules are defined in config/authorization_rules.rb (Or redefine rules files path via Authorization::AUTH_DSL_FILES
). E.g.
authorization do role :admin do has_permission_on :employees, :to => [:create, :read, :update, :delete] end end
There is a default role :guest
that is used if a request is not associated with any user or with a user without any roles. So, if your application has public pages, :guest
can be used to allow access for users that are not logged in. All other roles are application defined and need to be associated with users by the application.
If you need to change the default role, you can do so by adding an initializer that contains the following statement:
Authorization.default_role = :anonymous
Privileges, such as :create, may be put into hierarchies to simplify maintenance. So the example above has the same meaning as
authorization do role :admin do has_permission_on :employees, :to => :manage end end privileges do privilege :manage do includes :create, :read, :update, :delete end end
Privilege hierarchies may be context-specific, e.g. applicable to :employees.
privileges do privilege :manage, :employees, :includes => :increase_salary end
For more complex use cases, authorizations need to be based on attributes. Note that you then also need to set :attribute_check => true in controllers for filter_access_to. E.g. if a branch admin should manage only employees of his branch (see Authorization::Reader in the API docs for a full list of available operators):
authorization do role :branch_admin do has_permission_on :employees do to :manage # user refers to the current_user when evaluating if_attribute :branch => is {user.branch} end end end
To reduce redundancy in has_permission_on blocks, a rule may depend on permissions on associated objects:
authorization do role :branch_admin do has_permission_on :branches, :to => :manage do if_attribute :managers => contains {user} end has_permission_on :employees, :to => :manage do if_permitted_to :manage, :branch # instead of #if_attribute :branch => {:managers => contains {user}} end end end
Lastly, not only privileges may be organized in a hierarchy but roles as well. Here, project manager inherit the permissions of employees.
role :project_manager do includes :employee end
See also Authorization::Reader.
declarative_authorization provides a few helpers to ease the testing with authorization in mind.
In your test_helper.rb, to enable the helpers add
require 'declarative_authorization/maintenance' class Test::Unit::TestCase include Authorization::TestHelper ... end
For using the test helpers with RSpec, just add the following lines to your spec_helper.rb (somewhere after require âspec/railsâ):
require 'declarative_authorization/maintenance' include Authorization::TestHelper
Now, in unit tests, you may deactivate authorization if needed e.g. for test setup and assume certain identities for tests:
class EmployeeTest < ActiveSupport::TestCase def test_should_read without_access_control do Employee.create(...) end assert_nothing_raised do with_user(admin) do Employee.find(:first) end end end end
Or, with RSpec, it would work like this:
describe Employee do it "should read" do without_access_control do Employee.create(...) end with_user(admin) do Employee.find(:first) end end end
In functional tests, get, posts, etc. may be tested in the name of certain users:
get_with admin, :index post_with admin, :update, :employee => {...}
See Authorization::TestHelper for more information.
One of three options to install the plugin:
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Install by Gem: Add to your environment.rb in the initializer block:
config.gem "declarative_authorization"
Note: you need gemcutter support in place, i.e. call
gem install gemcutter gem tumble
And call from your applicationâs root directory
rake gems:install
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Alternativelyi, in Rails 2, to install from github, execute in your applicationâs root directory
cd vendor/plugins && git clone git://github.com/stffn/declarative_authorization.git
Then,
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provide the requirements as noted below,
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create a basic config/authorization_rules.rbâyou might want to take the provided example authorization_rules.dist.rb in the plugin root as a starting point,
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add
filter_access_to
,permitted_to
? and model security as needed.
The requirements are
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Rails >= 2.2, including 3 and Ruby >= 1.8.6, including 1.9
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An authentication mechanism
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A user object returned by Controller#current_user
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An array of role symbols returned by User#role_symbols
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(For model security) Setting Authorization.current_user to the requestâs user
Of the various ways to provide these requirements, here is one way employing restful_authentication.
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Install restful_authentication
cd vendor/plugins && git clone git://github.com/technoweenie/restful-authentication.git restful_authentication cd ../.. && ruby script/generate authenticated user sessions
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Move âinclude AuthenticatedSystemâ to ApplicationController
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Add
filter_access_to
calls as described above. -
If youâd like to use model security, add a before_filter that sets the user globally to your ApplicationController. This is thread-safe.
before_filter :set_current_user protected def set_current_user Authorization.current_user = current_user end
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Add roles field to the User model through a :
has_many
association (this is just one possible approach; you could just as easily use :has_many
:through
or a serialized roles array):-
create a migration for table roles
class CreateRoles < ActiveRecord::Migration def self.up create_table "roles" do |t| t.column :title, :string t.references :user end end def self.down drop_table "roles" end end
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create a model Role,
class Role < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user end
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add
has_many
:roles
to the User model and a roles method that returns the roles as an Array of Symbols, e.g.class User < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :roles def role_symbols (roles || []).map {|r| r.title.to_sym} end end
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add roles to your User objects using e.g.
user.roles.create(:title => "admin")
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Note: If you choose to generate an Account model for restful_authentication instead of a User model as described above, you have to customize the examples and create a ApplicationController#current_user method.
Currently, the main means of debugging authorization decisions is logging and exceptions. Denied access to actions is logged to warn
or info
, including some hints about what went wrong.
All bang methods throw exceptions which may be used to retrieve more information about a denied access than a Boolean value.
If your authorization rules become more complex, you might be glad to use the authorization rules browser that comes with declarative_authorization. It has a syntax-highlighted and a graphical view with filtering of the current authorization rules.
By default, it will only be available in development mode. To use it, add the following lines to your authorization_rules.rb for the appropriate role:
has_permission_on :authorization_rules, :to => :read
Then, point your browser to
http://localhost/authorization_rules
The browser needs Rails 2.3 (for Engine support). The graphical view requires Graphviz (which e.g. can be installed through the graphviz package under Debian and Ubuntu) and has only been tested under Linux. Note: for Change Support youâll need to have a User#login method that returns a non-ambiguous user name for identification.
We have an issue tracker for bugs and feature requests as well as a Google Group for discussions on the usage of the plugin. You are very welcome to contribute. Just fork the git repository and create a new issue, send a pull request or contact me personally.
Maintained by
Steffen Bartsch TZI, UniversitÀt Bremen, Germany sbartsch at tzi.org
Thanks to John Joseph Bachir, Dennis Blöte, Eike Carls, Damian Caruso, Kai Chen, Erik Dahlstrand, Jeroen van Dijk, Alexander Dobriakov, Sebastian Dyck, Ari Epstein, Jeremy Friesen, Tim Harper, John Hawthorn, hollownest, Daniel Kristensen, Jeremy Kleindl, Joel Kociolek, Benjamin ter Kuile, Brad Langhorst, Brian Langenfeld, Georg Ledermann, Geoff Longman, Olly Lylo, Mark Mansour, Thomas Maurer, Kevin Moore, Tyler Pickett, Edward Rudd, Sharagoz, TJ Singleton, Mike Vincent, Joel Westerberg
Copyright © 2008 Steffen Bartsch, TZI, UniversitÀt Bremen, Germany released under the MIT license