Introduction
">Tip!! Want to get started fast? Just run
php artisan make:auth
andphp artisan migrate
in a fresh Laravel application. Then, navigate your browser tohttp://your-app.dev/register
or any other URL that is assigned to your application. These two commands will take care of scaffolding your entire authentication system!
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.
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! Many 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. Maintaining the default string column length of 255 characters 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 users that select the "remember me" option when logging into your application.
Authentication Quickstart
Laravel ships with several pre-built authentication controllers, which are located in the App\Http\Controllers\Auth
namespace. The RegisterController
handles new user registration, the LoginController
handles authentication, the ForgotPasswordController
handles e-mailing links for resetting passwords, and the ResetPasswordController
contains the logic to reset 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 a layout view, registration and login views, as well as routes for all authentication end-points. A HomeController
will also be generated to handle post-login requests to your application's dashboard.
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 access your application in a browser since 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 /home
URI. You can customize the post-authentication redirect location by defining a redirectTo
property on the LoginController
, RegisterController
, and ResetPasswordController
:
protected $redirectTo = '/';
If the redirect path needs custom generation logic you may define a redirectTo
method instead of a redirectTo
property:
protected function redirectTo()
{
return '/path';
}
">Tip!! The
redirectTo
method will take precedence over theredirectTo
attribute.
Username Customization
By default, Laravel uses the email
field for authentication. If you would like to customize this, you may define a username
method on your LoginController
:
public function username()
{
return 'username';
}
Guard Customization
You may also customize the "guard" that is used to authenticate and register users. To get started, define a guard
method on your LoginController
, RegisterController
, and ResetPasswordController
. The method should return a guard instance:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
protected function guard()
{
return Auth::guard('guard-name');
}
Validation / Storage Customization
To modify the form fields that are required when a new user registers with your application, or to customize how new users are stored into your database, you may modify the RegisterController
class. This class is responsible for validating and creating new users of your application.
The validator
method of the RegisterController
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 RegisterController
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:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
// Get the currently authenticated user...
$user = Auth::user();
// Get the currently authenticated user's ID...
$id = Auth::id();
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 update(Request $request)
{
// $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:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
if (Auth::check()) {
// The user is logged in...
}
">Tip!! Even though it is possible to determine if a user is authenticated using the
check
method, you will typically use a 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 only allow authenticated users to access a given route. Laravel ships with an auth
middleware, which is defined at Illuminate\Auth\Middleware\Authenticate
. Since this middleware is already registered in your HTTP kernel, all you need to do is attach the middleware to a route definition:
Route::get('profile', function () {
// Only authenticated users may enter...
})->middleware('auth');
Of course, if you are using controllers, 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 authenticate the user. The guard specified should correspond to one of the keys in the guards
array of your auth.php
configuration file:
public function __construct()
{
$this->middleware('auth:api');
}
Login Throttling
If you are using Laravel's built-in LoginController
class, the Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\ThrottlesLogins
trait will already be included in your controller. 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.
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 Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
class LoginController 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 password
value passed to the method via the array. You should not hash the password specified as the password
value, since the framework will automatically hash the value before comparing it to the hashed password in the database. 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 intercepted by the authentication middleware. A fallback URI may be given to this method in case the intended destination is not available.
Specifying Additional Conditions
If you wish, you may also 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], $remember)) {
// The user is being remembered...
}
">Tip!! If you are using the built-in
LoginController
that is shipped with Laravel, the proper logic to "remember" users is already implemented by the traits used by the controller.
If you are "remembering" users, you may use the viaRemember
method to determine if the user was authenticated using the "remember me" cookie:
if (Auth::viaRemember()) {
//
}
Other Authentication Methods
Authenticate A User Instance
If you need to log an existing user instance into your application, you may call the login
method with the user instance. The given object must be an implementation of the Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\Authenticatable
contract. Of course, the App\User
model included with Laravel already implements this interface:
Auth::login($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 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 means this method may be helpful when building a stateless API:
if (Auth::once($credentials)) {
//
}
HTTP Basic Authentication
HTTP Basic Authentication provides a quick way to authenticate users of your application without setting up a dedicated "login" page. To get started, attach the auth.basic
middleware to your route. The auth.basic
middleware is included with the Laravel framework, so you do not need to define it:
Route::get('profile', function () {
// Only authenticated users may enter...
})->middleware('auth.basic');
Once the middleware has been attached to the route, you will automatically be prompted for credentials when accessing the route in your browser. By default, the auth.basic
middleware will use the email
column on the user record as the "username".
A Note On FastCGI
If you are using PHP FastCGI, HTTP Basic authentication may not work correctly out of the box. The following lines should be added to your .htaccess
file:
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Authorization} ^(.+)$
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 exception is thrown by the onceBasic
method, the request may be passed further into the application:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Middleware;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
class AuthenticateOnceWithBasicAuth
{
/**
* Handle an incoming request.
*
* @param \Illuminate\Http\Request $request
* @param \Closure $next
* @return mixed
*/
public function handle($request, $next)
{
Auth::onceBasic();
return $next($request);
}
}
Next, register the route middleware and attach it to a route:
Route::get('api/user', function () {
// Only authenticated users may enter...
})->middleware('auth.basic.once');
Adding Custom Guards
You may define your own authentication guards using the extend
method on the Auth
facade. You should place this call to extend
within a service provider. Since Laravel already ships with an AuthServiceProvider
, we can place the code in that provider:
<?php
namespace App\Providers;
use App\Services\Auth\JwtGuard;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Support\Providers\AuthServiceProvider as ServiceProvider;
class AuthServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
/**
* Register any application authentication / authorization services.
*
* @return void
*/
public function boot()
{
$this->registerPolicies();
Auth::extend('jwt', function ($app, $name, array $config) {
// Return an instance of Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\Guard...
return new JwtGuard(Auth::createUserProvider($config['provider']));
});
}
}
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 this guard in the guards
configuration of your auth.php
configuration file:
'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:
<?php
namespace App\Providers;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use App\Extensions\RiakUserProvider;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Support\Providers\AuthServiceProvider as ServiceProvider;
class AuthServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
/**
* Register any application authentication / authorization services.
*
* @return void
*/
public function boot()
{
$this->registerPolicies();
Auth::provider('riak', function ($app, array $config) {
// Return an instance of Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\UserProvider...
return new RiakUserProvider($app->make('riak.connection'));
});
}
}
After you have registered the provider using the provider
method, you may switch to the new user provider in your auth.php
configuration file. First, define a provider
that uses your new driver:
'providers' => [
'users' => [
'driver' => 'riak',
],
],
Finally, 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 when the user is logging 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 Authenticatable
. 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 should probably use Hash::check
to compare the value of $user->getAuthPassword()
to the value of $credentials['password']
. This method should return true
or false
indicating on whether the password is valid.
The Authenticatable Contract
Now that we have explored each of the methods on the UserProvider
, let's take a look at the Authenticatable
contract. Remember, the provider should return implementations of this interface from the retrieveById
and retrieveByCredentials
methods:
<?php
namespace Illuminate\Contracts\Auth;
interface Authenticatable {
public function getAuthIdentifierName();
public function getAuthIdentifier();
public function getAuthPassword();
public function getRememberToken();
public function setRememberToken($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\Registered' => [
'App\Listeners\LogRegisteredUser',
],
'Illuminate\Auth\Events\Attempting' => [
'App\Listeners\LogAuthenticationAttempt',
],
'Illuminate\Auth\Events\Authenticated' => [
'App\Listeners\LogAuthenticated',
],
'Illuminate\Auth\Events\Login' => [
'App\Listeners\LogSuccessfulLogin',
],
'Illuminate\Auth\Events\Failed' => [
'App\Listeners\LogFailedLogin',
],
'Illuminate\Auth\Events\Logout' => [
'App\Listeners\LogSuccessfulLogout',
],
'Illuminate\Auth\Events\Lockout' => [
'App\Listeners\LogLockout',
],
'Illuminate\Auth\Events\PasswordReset' => [
'App\Listeners\LogPasswordReset',
],
];