Laravel 11.x Resetting Passwords

Introduction

Most web applications provide a way for users to reset their forgotten passwords. Rather than forcing you to re-implement this by hand for every application you create, Laravel provides convenient services for sending password reset links and secure resetting passwords.

lightbulb Note:
Want to get started fast? Install a Laravel application starter kit in a fresh Laravel application. Laravel's starter kits will take care of scaffolding your entire authentication system, including resetting forgotten passwords.

Model Preparation

Before using the password reset features of Laravel, your application's App\Models\User model must use the Illuminate\Notifications\Notifiable trait. Typically, this trait is already included on the default App\Models\User model that is created with new Laravel applications.

Next, verify that your App\Models\User model implements the Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\CanResetPassword contract. The App\Models\User model included with the framework already implements this interface, and uses the Illuminate\Auth\Passwords\CanResetPassword trait to include the methods needed to implement the interface.

Database Preparation

A table must be created to store your application's password reset tokens. Typically, this is included in Laravel's default 0001_01_01_000000_create_users_table.php database migration.

Configuring Trusted Hosts

By default, Laravel will respond to all requests it receives regardless of the content of the HTTP request's Host header. In addition, the Host header's value will be used when generating absolute URLs to your application during a web request.

Typically, you should configure your web server, such as Nginx or Apache, to only send requests to your application that match a given hostname. However, if you do not have the ability to customize your web server directly and need to instruct Laravel to only respond to certain hostnames, you may do so by using the trustHosts middleware method in your application's bootstrap/app.php file. This is particularly important when your application offers password reset functionality.

To learn more about this middleware method, please consult the TrustHosts middleware documentation.

Routing

To properly implement support for allowing users to reset their passwords, we will need to define several routes. First, we will need a pair of routes to handle allowing the user to request a password reset link via their email address. Second, we will need a pair of routes to handle actually resetting the password once the user visits the password reset link that is emailed to them and completes the password reset form.

Requesting the Password Reset Link

The Password Reset Link Request Form

First, we will define the routes that are needed to request password reset links. To get started, we will define a route that returns a view with the password reset link request form:

Route::get('/forgot-password', function () {
    return view('auth.forgot-password');
})->middleware('guest')->name('password.request');

The view that is returned by this route should have a form containing an email field, which will allow the user to request a password reset link for a given email address.

Handling the Form Submission

Next, we will define a route that handles the form submission request from the "forgot password" view. This route will be responsible for validating the email address and sending the password reset request to the corresponding user:

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Password;

Route::post('/forgot-password', function (Request $request) {
    $request->validate(['email' => 'required|email']);

    $status = Password::sendResetLink(
        $request->only('email')
    );

    return $status === Password::RESET_LINK_SENT
                ? back()->with(['status' => __($status)])
                : back()->withErrors(['email' => __($status)]);
})->middleware('guest')->name('password.email');

Before moving on, let's examine this route in more detail. First, the request's email attribute is validated. Next, we will use Laravel's built-in "password broker" (via the Password facade) to send a password reset link to the user. The password broker will take care of retrieving the user by the given field (in this case, the email address) and sending the user a password reset link via Laravel's built-in notification system.

The sendResetLink method returns a "status" slug. This status may be translated using Laravel's localization helpers in order to display a user-friendly message to the user regarding the status of their request. The translation of the password reset status is determined by your application's lang/{lang}/passwords.php language file. An entry for each possible value of the status slug is located within the passwords language file.

lightbulb Note:
By default, the Laravel application skeleton does not include the lang directory. If you would like to customize Laravel's language files, you may publish them via the lang:publish Artisan command.

You may be wondering how Laravel knows how to retrieve the user record from your application's database when calling the Password facade's sendResetLink method. The Laravel password broker utilizes your authentication system's "user providers" to retrieve database records. The user provider used by the password broker is configured within the passwords configuration array of your config/auth.php configuration file. To learn more about writing custom user providers, consult the authentication documentation.

lightbulb Note:
When manually implementing password resets, you are required to define the contents of the views and routes yourself. If you would like scaffolding that includes all necessary authentication and verification logic, check out the Laravel application starter kits.

Resetting the Password

The Password Reset Form

Next, we will define the routes necessary to actually reset the password once the user clicks on the password reset link that has been emailed to them and provides a new password. First, let's define the route that will display the reset password form that is displayed when the user clicks the reset password link. This route will receive a token parameter that we will use later to verify the password reset request:

Route::get('/reset-password/{token}', function (string $token) {
    return view('auth.reset-password', ['token' => $token]);
})->middleware('guest')->name('password.reset');

The view that is returned by this route should display a form containing an email field, a password field, a password_confirmation field, and a hidden token field, which should contain the value of the secret $token received by our route.

Handling the Form Submission

Of course, we need to define a route to actually handle the password reset form submission. This route will be responsible for validating the incoming request and updating the user's password in the database:

use App\Models\User;
use Illuminate\Auth\Events\PasswordReset;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Hash;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Password;
use Illuminate\Support\Str;

Route::post('/reset-password', function (Request $request) {
    $request->validate([
        'token' => 'required',
        'email' => 'required|email',
        'password' => 'required|min:8|confirmed',
    ]);

    $status = Password::reset(
        $request->only('email', 'password', 'password_confirmation', 'token'),
        function (User $user, string $password) {
            $user->forceFill([
                'password' => Hash::make($password)
            ])->setRememberToken(Str::random(60));

            $user->save();

            event(new PasswordReset($user));
        }
    );

    return $status === Password::PASSWORD_RESET
                ? redirect()->route('login')->with('status', __($status))
                : back()->withErrors(['email' => [__($status)]]);
})->middleware('guest')->name('password.update');

Before moving on, let's examine this route in more detail. First, the request's token, email, and password attributes are validated. Next, we will use Laravel's built-in "password broker" (via the Password facade) to validate the password reset request credentials.

If the token, email address, and password given to the password broker are valid, the closure passed to the reset method will be invoked. Within this closure, which receives the user instance and the plain-text password provided to the password reset form, we may update the user's password in the database.

The reset method returns a "status" slug. This status may be translated using Laravel's localization helpers in order to display a user-friendly message to the user regarding the status of their request. The translation of the password reset status is determined by your application's lang/{lang}/passwords.php language file. An entry for each possible value of the status slug is located within the passwords language file. If your application does not contain a lang directory, you may create it using the lang:publish Artisan command.

Before moving on, you may be wondering how Laravel knows how to retrieve the user record from your application's database when calling the Password facade's reset method. The Laravel password broker utilizes your authentication system's "user providers" to retrieve database records. The user provider used by the password broker is configured within the passwords configuration array of your config/auth.php configuration file. To learn more about writing custom user providers, consult the authentication documentation.

Deleting Expired Tokens

Password reset tokens that have expired will still be present within your database. However, you may easily delete these records using the auth:clear-resets Artisan command:

php artisan auth:clear-resets

If you would like to automate this process, consider adding the command to your application's scheduler:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schedule;

Schedule::command('auth:clear-resets')->everyFifteenMinutes();

Customization

Reset Link Customization

You may customize the password reset link URL using the createUrlUsing method provided by the ResetPassword notification class. This method accepts a closure which receives the user instance that is receiving the notification as well as the password reset link token. Typically, you should call this method from your App\Providers\AppServiceProvider service provider's boot method:

use App\Models\User;
use Illuminate\Auth\Notifications\ResetPassword;

/**
 * Bootstrap any application services.
 */
public function boot(): void
{
    ResetPassword::createUrlUsing(function (User $user, string $token) {
        return 'https://example.com/reset-password?token='.$token;
    });
}

Reset Email Customization

You may easily modify the notification class used to send the password reset link to the user. To get started, override the sendPasswordResetNotification method on your App\Models\User model. Within this method, you may send the notification using any notification class of your own creation. The password reset $token is the first argument received by the method. You may use this $token to build the password reset URL of your choice and send your notification to the user:

use App\Notifications\ResetPasswordNotification;

/**
 * Send a password reset notification to the user.
 *
 * @param  string  $token
 */
public function sendPasswordResetNotification($token): void
{
    $url = 'https://example.com/reset-password?token='.$token;

    $this->notify(new ResetPasswordNotification($url));
}