Module: Challah::Techniques

Included in:
Challah
Defined in:
lib/challah/techniques.rb

Overview

Techniques are used to allow different methods of authentication. By default, there are two techniques included: Password and ApiKey.

Techniques are just regular Ruby classes, that respond to several methods. At a minimum, any new techniques should contain an authenticate and persist? method. Authenticate will return a user if the authentication was successful, and persist? returns true if this session should be persisted using cookies. If persist? is false, then no cookies will be added, and the user will only be logged in for a single request.

Sample technique file that lets anyone in with the shared password:

class SharedPasswordTechnique
  def initialize(session)
    @session = session
  end

  # Authenticate this user, return a User instance if valid, nil otherwise
  def authenticate
    # was params[:secret] provided to the request
    if @session.secret?
      # does the params[:secret] value match our shared password?
      if @session.secret == 'let-me-in'
        # if the secret was correct, grab the username from params, and load the user
        user = User.find_for_session(@session.username)
        return user
      end
    end

    nil
  end

  # Keep this user logged in?
  def persist?
    true
  end
end

To add a new technique, just register it using:

Challah.register_technique(:shared_password, SharedPasswordTechnique)

The first parameter is just a key for that technique, the second p param is the class name to use.

You can remove an existing technique by calling remove_technique:

Challah.remove_technique(:shared_password)

This is useful for removing the techniques included by default PasswordTechnique and ApiKeyTechnique.

Instance Method Summary collapse

Instance Method Details

#register_technique(name, klass) ⇒ Object

Register a new technique class. Pass in a name as an identifier, and the class to use when attempting to authenticate.



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# File 'lib/challah/techniques.rb', line 58

def register_technique(name, klass)
  @techniques[name] = klass
end

#remove_technique(name) ⇒ Object

Remove an existing technique class. Pass in the identifier used in register_techinque



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# File 'lib/challah/techniques.rb', line 63

def remove_technique(name)
  @techniques.delete(name)
end

#techniques ⇒ Object

Get the list of all techniques that have been registered.



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# File 'lib/challah/techniques.rb', line 68

def techniques
  @techniques.dup
end