Introduction
Laravel makes implementing authentication very simple. In fact,
almost everything is configured for you out of the box. The
authentication configuration file is located at
config/auth.php
, which contains several well documented
options for tweaking the behavior of the authentication services.
At its core, Laravel's authentication facilities are made up of
"guards" and "providers". Guards define how users are authenticated for
each request. For example, Laravel ships with a session
guard which maintains state using session storage and cookies and a
token
guard, which authenticates users using a "API token"
that is passed with each request.
Providers define how users are retrieved from your persistent storage. Laravel ships with support for retrieving users using Eloquent and the database query builder. However, you are free to define additional providers as needed for your application.
Don't worry if this all sounds confusing now! Most applications will never need to modify the default authentication configuration.
Database Considerations
By default, Laravel includes an App\User
Eloquent model in your app
directory. This model may be used with the default Eloquent
authentication driver. If your application is not using Eloquent, you
may use the database
authentication driver which uses the
Laravel query builder.
When building the database schema for the App\User
model, make sure the password column is at least 60 characters in
length, the default of 255 would be a good choice.
Also, you should verify that your users
(or equivalent)
table contains a nullable, string remember_token
column of
100 characters. This column will be used to store a token for "remember
me" sessions being maintained by your application. This can be done by
using $table->rememberToken();
in a migration.
Authentication Quickstart
Laravel ships with two authentication controllers out of the box,
which are located in the App\Http\Controllers\Auth
namespace. The AuthController
handles new user registration
and authentication, while the PasswordController
contains
the logic to help existing users reset their forgotten passwords. Each
of these controllers uses a trait to include their necessary methods.
For many applications, you will not need to modify these controllers at
all.
Routing
Laravel provides a quick way to scaffold all of the routes and views you need for authentication using one simple command:
php artisan make:auth
This command should be used on fresh applications and will install
registration and login views, as well as routes for all authentication
end-points. A HomeController
will also be generated, which
serves post-login requests to your application's dashboard. However, you
are free to customize or even remove this controller based on the needs
of your application.
Views
As mentioned in the previous section, the
php artisan make:auth
command will create all of the views
you need for authentication and place them in the
resources/views/auth
directory.
The make:auth
command will also create a
resources/views/layouts
directory containing a base layout
for your application. All of these views use the Bootstrap CSS
framework, but you are free to customize them however you wish.
Authenticating
Now that you have routes and views setup for the included authentication controllers, you are ready to register and authenticate new users for your application! You may simply access your application in a browser. The authentication controllers already contain the logic (via their traits) to authenticate existing users and store new users in the database.
Path Customization
When a user is successfully authenticated, they will be redirected to
the /
URI. You can customize the post-authentication
redirect location by defining a redirectTo
property on the
AuthController
:
protected $redirectTo = '/home';
When a user is not successfully authenticated, they will be redirected back to the login form location automatically.
Guard Customization
You may also customize the "guard" that is used to authenticate
users. To get started, define a guard
property on your
AuthController
. The value of this property should
correspond with one of the guards configured in your
auth.php
configuration file:
protected $guard = 'admin';
Validation / Storage Customization
To modify the form fields that are required when a new user registers
with your application, or to customize how new user records are inserted
into your database, you may modify the AuthController
class. This class is responsible for validating and creating new users
of your application.
The validator
method of the AuthController
contains the validation rules for new users of the application. You are
free to modify this method as you wish.
The create
method of the AuthController
is
responsible for creating new App\User
records in your
database using the Eloquent ORM. You are
free to modify this method according to the needs of your database.
Retrieving The Authenticated User
You may access the authenticated user via the Auth
facade:
$user = Auth::user();
Alternatively, once a user is authenticated, you may access the
authenticated user via an Illuminate\Http\Request
instance.
Remember, type-hinted classes will automatically be injected into your
controller methods:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
class ProfileController extends Controller
{
/**
* Update the user's profile.
*
* @param Request $request
* @return Response
*/
public function updateProfile(Request $request)
{
if ($request->user()) {
// $request->user() returns an instance of the authenticated user...
}
}
}
Determining If The Current User Is Authenticated
To determine if the user is already logged into your application, you
may use the check
method on the Auth
facade,
which will return true
if the user is authenticated:
if (Auth::check()) {
// The user is logged in...
}
However, you may use middleware to verify that the user is authenticated before allowing the user access to certain routes / controllers. To learn more about this, check out the documentation on protecting routes.
Protecting Routes
Route middleware can be used to allow
only authenticated users to access a given route. Laravel ships with the
auth
middleware, which is defined in
app\Http\Middleware\Authenticate.php
. All you need to do is
attach the middleware to a route definition:
// Using A Route Closure...
Route::get('profile', ['middleware' => 'auth', function() {
// Only authenticated users may enter...
}]);
// Using A Controller...
Route::get('profile', [
'middleware' => 'auth',
'uses' => 'ProfileController@show'
]);
Of course, if you are using controller
classes, you may call the middleware
method from the
controller's constructor instead of attaching it in the route definition
directly:
public function __construct()
{
$this->middleware('auth');
}
Specifying A Guard
When attaching the auth
middleware to a route, you may
also specify which guard should be used to perform the
authentication:
Route::get('profile', [
'middleware' => 'auth:api',
'uses' => 'ProfileController@show'
]);
The guard specified should correspond to one of the keys in the
guards
array of your auth.php
configuration
file.
Authentication Throttling
If you are using Laravel's built-in AuthController
class, the Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\ThrottlesLogins
trait
may be used to throttle login attempts to your application. By default,
the user will not be able to login for one minute if they fail to
provide the correct credentials after several attempts. The throttling
is unique to the user's username / e-mail address and their IP
address:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers\Auth;
use App\User;
use Validator;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\ThrottlesLogins;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\AuthenticatesAndRegistersUsers;
class AuthController extends Controller
{
use AuthenticatesAndRegistersUsers, ThrottlesLogins;
// Rest of AuthController class...
}
Manually Authenticating Users
Of course, you are not required to use the authentication controllers included with Laravel. If you choose to remove these controllers, you will need to manage user authentication using the Laravel authentication classes directly. Don't worry, it's a cinch!
We will access Laravel's authentication services via the
Auth
facade, so we'll need to
make sure to import the Auth
facade at the top of the
class. Next, let's check out the attempt
method:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Auth;
class AuthController extends Controller
{
/**
* Handle an authentication attempt.
*
* @return Response
*/
public function authenticate()
{
if (Auth::attempt(['email' => $email, 'password' => $password])) {
// Authentication passed...
return redirect()->intended('dashboard');
}
}
}
The attempt
method accepts an array of key / value pairs
as its first argument. The values in the array will be used to find the
user in your database table. So, in the example above, the user will be
retrieved by the value of the email
column. If the user is
found, the hashed password stored in the database will be compared with
the hashed password
value passed to the method via the
array. If the two hashed passwords match an authenticated session will
be started for the user.
The attempt
method will return true
if
authentication was successful. Otherwise, false
will be
returned.
The intended
method on the redirector will redirect the
user to the URL they were attempting to access before being caught by
the authentication filter. A fallback URI may be given to this method in
case the intended destination is not available.
Specifying Additional Conditions
If you wish, you also may add extra conditions to the authentication query in addition to the user's e-mail and password. For example, we may verify that user is marked as "active":
if (Auth::attempt(['email' => $email, 'password' => $password, 'active' => 1])) {
// The user is active, not suspended, and exists.
}
Note: In these examples,
Accessing Specific Guard Instances
You may specify which guard instance you would like to utilize using
the guard
method on the Auth
facade. This
allows you to manage authentication for separate parts of your
application using entirely separate authenticatable models or user
tables.
The guard name passed to the guard
method should
correspond to one of the guards configured in your auth.php
configuration file:
if (Auth::guard('admin')->attempt($credentials)) {
//
}
Logging Out
To log users out of your application, you may use the
logout
method on the Auth
facade. This will
clear the authentication information in the user's session:
Auth::logout();
Remembering Users
If you would like to provide "remember me" functionality in your
application, you may pass a boolean value as the second argument to the
attempt
method, which will keep the user authenticated
indefinitely, or until they manually logout. Of course, your
users
table must include the string
remember_token
column, which will be used to store the
"remember me" token.
if (Auth::attempt(['email' => $email, 'password' => $password], $remember)) {
// The user is being remembered...
}
If you are "remembering" users, you may use the
viaRemember
method to determine if the user was
authenticated using the "remember me" cookie:
if (Auth::viaRemember()) {
//
}
Other Authentication Methods
Authenticate A User Instance
If you need to log an existing user instance into your application,
you may call the login
method with the user instance. The
given object must be an implementation of the
Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\Authenticatable
contract. Of course, the App\User
model included with Laravel already implements this interface:
Auth::login($user);
// Login and "remember" the given user...
Auth::login($user, true);
Of course, you may specify the guard instance you would like to use:
Auth::guard('admin')->login($user);
Authenticate A User By ID
To log a user into the application by their ID, you may use the
loginUsingId
method. This method simply accepts the primary
key of the user you wish to authenticate:
Auth::loginUsingId(1);
// Login and "remember" the given user...
Auth::loginUsingId(1, true);
Authenticate A User Once
You may use the once
method to log a user into the
application for a single request. No sessions or cookies will be
utilized, which may be helpful when building a stateless API. The
once
method has the same signature as the
attempt
method:
if (Auth::once($credentials)) {
//
}
HTTP Basic Authentication
HTTP
Basic Authentication provides a quick way to authenticate users of
your application without setting up a dedicated "login" page. To get
started, attach the auth.basic
middleware to your route. The
auth.basic
middleware is included with the Laravel
framework, so you do not need to define it:
Route::get('profile', ['middleware' => 'auth.basic', function() {
// Only authenticated users may enter...
}]);
Once the middleware has been attached to the route, you will
automatically be prompted for credentials when accessing the route in
your browser. By default, the auth.basic
middleware will
use the email
column on the user record as the
"username".
A Note On FastCGI
If you are using PHP FastCGI, HTTP Basic authentication may not work
correctly out of the box. The following lines should be added to your
.htaccess
file:
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Authorization} ^(.+)$
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
Stateless HTTP Basic Authentication
You may also use HTTP Basic Authentication without setting a user
identifier cookie in the session, which is particularly useful for API
authentication. To do so, define a
middleware that calls the onceBasic
method. If no
response is returned by the onceBasic
method, the request
may be passed further into the application:
<?php
namespace Illuminate\Auth\Middleware;
use Auth;
use Closure;
class AuthenticateOnceWithBasicAuth
{
/**
* Handle an incoming request.
*
* @param \Illuminate\Http\Request $request
* @param \Closure $next
* @return mixed
*/
public function handle($request, Closure $next)
{
return Auth::onceBasic() ?: $next($request);
}
}
Next, register the route middleware and attach it to a route:
Route::get('api/user', ['middleware' => 'auth.basic.once', function() {
// Only authenticated users may enter...
}]);
Resetting Passwords
Database Considerations
Most web applications provide a way for users to reset their forgotten passwords. Rather than forcing you to re-implement this on each application, Laravel provides convenient methods for sending password reminders and performing password resets.
To get started, verify that your App\User
model
implements the Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\CanResetPassword
contract. Of course, the App\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.
Generating The Reset Token Table Migration
Next, a table must be created to store the password reset tokens. The
migration for this table is included with Laravel out of the box, and
resides in the database/migrations
directory. So, all you
need to do is migrate:
php artisan migrate
Routing
Laravel includes an Auth\PasswordController
that
contains the logic necessary to reset user passwords. All of the routes
needed to perform password resets may be generated using the
make:auth
Artisan command:
php artisan make:auth
Views
Again, Laravel will generate all of the necessary views for password
reset when the make:auth
command is executed. These views
are placed in resources/views/auth/passwords
. You are free
to customize them as needed for your application.
After Resetting Passwords
Once you have defined the routes and views to reset your user's
passwords, you may simply access the route in your browser at
/password/reset
. The PasswordController
included with the framework already includes the logic to send the
password reset link e-mails as well as update passwords in the
database.
After the password is reset, the user will automatically be logged
into the application and redirected to /home
. You can
customize the post password reset redirect location by defining a
redirectTo
property on the
PasswordController
:
protected $redirectTo = '/dashboard';
Note: By default, password reset tokens expire after one hour. You may change this via the password reset
expire
option in yourconfig/auth.php
file.
Customization
Authentication Guard Customization
In your auth.php
configuration file, you may configure
multiple "guards", which may be used to define authentication behavior
for multiple user tables. You can customize the included
PasswordController
to use the guard of your choice by
adding a $guard
property to the controller:
/**
* The authentication guard that should be used.
*
* @var string
*/
protected $guard = 'admins';
Password Broker Customization
In your auth.php
configuration file, you may configure
multiple password "brokers", which may be used to reset passwords on
multiple user tables. You can customize the included
PasswordController
to use the broker of your choice by
adding a $broker
property to the controller:
/**
* The password broker that should be used.
*
* @var string
*/
protected $broker = 'admins';
Adding Custom Guards
You may define your own authentication guards using the
extend
method on the Auth
facade. You should
place this call to provider
within a service provider:
<?php
namespace App\Providers;
use Auth;
use App\Services\Auth\JwtGuard;
use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;
class AuthServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
/**
* Perform post-registration booting of services.
*
* @return void
*/
public function boot()
{
Auth::extend('jwt', function($app, $name, array $config) {
// Return an instance of Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\Guard...
return new JwtGuard(Auth::createUserProvider($config['provider']));
});
}
/**
* Register bindings in the container.
*
* @return void
*/
public function register()
{
//
}
}
As you can see in the example above, the callback passed to the
extend
method should return an implementation of
Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\Guard
. This interface contains a
few methods you will need to implement to define a custom guard.
Once your custom guard has been defined, you may use the guard in
your guards
configuration:
'guards' => [
'api' => [
'driver' => 'jwt',
'provider' => 'users',
],
],
Adding Custom User Providers
If you are not using a traditional relational database to store your
users, you will need to extend Laravel with your own authentication user
provider. We will use the provider
method on the
Auth
facade to define a custom user provider. You should
place this call to provider
within a service provider:
<?php
namespace App\Providers;
use Auth;
use App\Extensions\RiakUserProvider;
use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;
class AuthServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
/**
* Perform post-registration booting of services.
*
* @return void
*/
public function boot()
{
Auth::provider('riak', function($app, array $config) {
// Return an instance of Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\UserProvider...
return new RiakUserProvider($app['riak.connection']);
});
}
/**
* Register bindings in the container.
*
* @return void
*/
public function register()
{
//
}
}
After you have registered the provider with the provider
method, you may switch to the new user provider in your
config/auth.php
configuration file. First, define a
provider
that uses your new driver:
'providers' => [
'users' => [
'driver' => 'riak',
],
],
Then, you may use this provider in your guards
configuration:
'guards' => [
'web' => [
'driver' => 'session',
'provider' => 'users',
],
],
The User Provider Contract
The Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\UserProvider
implementations are only responsible for fetching a
Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\Authenticatable
implementation
out of a persistent storage system, such as MySQL, Riak, etc. These two
interfaces allow the Laravel authentication mechanisms to continue
functioning regardless of how the user data is stored or what type of
class is used to represent it.
Let's take a look at the
Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\UserProvider
contract:
<?php
namespace Illuminate\Contracts\Auth;
interface UserProvider {
public function retrieveById($identifier);
public function retrieveByToken($identifier, $token);
public function updateRememberToken(Authenticatable $user, $token);
public function retrieveByCredentials(array $credentials);
public function validateCredentials(Authenticatable $user, array $credentials);
}
The retrieveById
function typically receives a key
representing the user, such as an auto-incrementing ID from a MySQL
database. The Authenticatable
implementation matching the
ID should be retrieved and returned by the method.
The retrieveByToken
function retrieves a user by their
unique $identifier
and "remember me" $token
,
stored in a field remember_token
. As with the previous
method, the Authenticatable
implementation should be
returned.
The updateRememberToken
method updates the
$user
field remember_token
with the new
$token
. The new token can be either a fresh token, assigned
on a successful "remember me" login attempt, or a null when the user is
logged out.
The retrieveByCredentials
method receives the array of
credentials passed to the Auth::attempt
method when
attempting to sign into an application. The method should then "query"
the underlying persistent storage for the user matching those
credentials. Typically, this method will run a query with a "where"
condition on $credentials['username']
. The method should
then return an implementation of UserInterface
.
This method should not attempt to do any password validation or
authentication.
The validateCredentials
method should compare the given
$user
with the $credentials
to authenticate
the user. For example, this method might compare the
$user->getAuthPassword()
string to a
Hash::make
of $credentials['password']
. This
method should only validate the user's credentials and return a
boolean.
The Authenticatable Contract
Now that we have explored each of the methods on the
UserProvider
, let's take a look at the
Authenticatable
contract. Remember, the provider should
return implementations of this interface from the
retrieveById
and retrieveByCredentials
methods:
<?php
namespace Illuminate\Contracts\Auth;
interface Authenticatable {
public function getAuthIdentifierName();
public function getAuthIdentifier();
public function getAuthPassword();
public function getRememberToken();
public function setRememberToken($value);
public function getRememberTokenName();
}
This interface is simple. The getAuthIdentifierName
method should return the name of the "primary key" field of the user and
the getAuthIdentifier
method should return the "primary
key" of the user. In a MySQL back-end, again, this would be the
auto-incrementing primary key. The getAuthPassword
should
return the user's hashed password. This interface allows the
authentication system to work with any User class, regardless of what
ORM or storage abstraction layer you are using. By default, Laravel
includes a User
class in the app
directory
which implements this interface, so you may consult this class for an
implementation example.
Events
Laravel raises a variety of events during
the authentication process. You may attach listeners to these events in
your EventServiceProvider
:
/**
* The event listener mappings for the application.
*
* @var array
*/
protected $listen = [
'Illuminate\Auth\Events\Attempting' => [
'App\Listeners\LogAuthenticationAttempt',
],
'Illuminate\Auth\Events\Login' => [
'App\Listeners\LogSuccessfulLogin',
],
'Illuminate\Auth\Events\Logout' => [
'App\Listeners\LogSuccessfulLogout',
],
'Illuminate\Auth\Events\Lockout' => [
'App\Listeners\LogLockout',
],
];