Migration from the AuthComponent¶

Differences¶

• This plugin intentionally does not handle authorization. It was decoupled from authorization on purpose for a clear separation of concerns. See also Computer access control. This plugin handles only identification and authentication. We might have another plugin for authorization.

• There is no automatic checking of the session. To get the actual user data from the session you’ll have to use the SessionAuthenticator. It will check the session if there is data in the configured session key and put it into the identity object.

• The user data is no longer available through the old AuthComponent but is accessible via a request attribute and encapsulated in an identity object: $request->getAttribute('authentication')->getIdentity();. Additionally, you can leverage the AuthenticationComponent getIdentity() or getIdentityData() methods.

• The logic of the authentication process has been split into authenticators and identifiers. An authenticator will extract the credentials from the request, while identifiers verify the credentials and find the matching user.

• DigestAuthenticate has been renamed to HttpDigestAuthenticator

• BasicAuthenticate has been renamed to HttpBasicAuthenticator

Similarities¶

• All the existing authentication adapters, Form, Basic, Digest are still there but have been refactored into authenticators.

Identifiers and authenticators¶

Following the principle of separation of concerns, the former authentication objects were split into separate objects, identifiers and authenticators.

• Authenticators take the incoming request and try to extract identification credentials from it. If credentials are found, they are passed to a collection of identifiers where the user is located. For that reason authenticators take an IdentifierCollection as first constructor argument.

• Identifiers verify identification credentials against a storage system. eg. (ORM tables, LDAP etc) and return identified user data.

This makes it easy to change the identification logic as needed or use several sources of user data.

If you want to implement your own identifiers, your identifier must implement the IdentifierInterface.

Migrating your authentication setup¶

The first step to migrating your application is to load the authentication plugin in your application’s bootstrap method:

public function bootstrap(): void
{
    parent::bootstrap();
    $this->addPlugin('Authentication');
}

Then update your application to implement the authentication provider interface. This lets the AuthenticationMiddleware know how to get the authentication service from your application:

// in src/Application.php

// Add the following use statements.
use Authentication\AuthenticationService;
use Authentication\AuthenticationServiceInterface;
use Authentication\AuthenticationServiceProviderInterface;
use Authentication\Middleware\AuthenticationMiddleware;
use Psr\Http\Message\ResponseInterface;
use Psr\Http\Message\ServerRequestInterface;

// Add the authentication interface.
class Application extends BaseApplication implements AuthenticationServiceProviderInterface
{
    /**
     * Returns a service provider instance.
     *
     * @param \Psr\Http\Message\ServerRequestInterface $request Request
     * @param \Psr\Http\Message\ResponseInterface $response Response
     * @return \Authentication\AuthenticationServiceInterface
     */
    public function getAuthenticationService(ServerRequestInterface $request) : AuthenticationServiceInterface
    {
        $service = new AuthenticationService();
        // Configure the service. (see below for more details)
        return $service;
    }
}

Next add the AuthenticationMiddleware to your application:

// in src/Application.php
public function middleware($middlewareQueue)
{
    // Various other middlewares for error handling, routing etc. added here.

    // Add the middleware to the middleware queue
    $middlewareQueue->add(new AuthenticationMiddleware($this));

    return $middlewareQueue;
}

$this->loadComponent('Auth', [
    'authentication' => [
        'Form' => [
            'fields' => [
                'username' => 'email',
                'password' => 'password',
            ]
        ]
    ]
]);

// Instantiate the service
$service = new AuthenticationService();

// Load identifiers
$service->loadIdentifier('Authentication.Password', [
    'fields' => [
        'username' => 'email',
        'password' => 'password',
    ]
]);

// Load the authenticators
$service->loadAuthenticator('Authentication.Session');
$service->loadAuthenticator('Authentication.Form');

// Instantiate the service
$service = new AuthenticationService();

// Load identifiers
$service->loadIdentifier('Authentication.Password', [
    'resolver' => [
        'className' => 'Authentication.Orm',
        'userModel' => 'Employees',
    ],
    'fields' => [
        'username' => 'email',
        'password' => 'password',
    ]
]);

public function login()
{
    $result = $this->Authentication->getResult();

    // regardless of POST or GET, redirect if user is logged in
    if ($result->isValid()) {
        $target = $this->Authentication->getLoginRedirect();
        return $this->redirect($target);
    }

    // display error if user submitted and authentication failed
    if ($this->request->is(['post'])) {
        $this->Flash->error('Invalid username or password');
    }
}

$user = $request->getAttribute('identity');

$result = $request->getAttribute('authentication')->getResult();
// Boolean if the result is valid
$isValid = $result->isValid();
// A status code
$statusCode = $result->getStatus();
// An array of error messages or data if the identifier provided any
$errors = $result->getErrors();

// Assume you need to read a user by access token
$user = $this->Users->find('byToken', ['token' => $token])->first();

// Persist the user into configured authenticators.
$this->Authentication->setIdentity($user);

// In your controller's beforeFilter method.
$this->Authentication->allowUnauthenticated(['view']);

$action = $this->getRequest()->getParam('action');
if ($action !== 'register') {
    $this->Authentication->allowUnauthenticated([$action]);
}

Migrating Unauthenticated Redirects¶

By default AuthComponent redirects users back to the login page when authentication is required. In contrast, the AuthenticationComponent in this plugin will raise an exception in this scenario. You can convert this exception into a redirect using the unauthenticatedRedirect when configuring the AuthenticationService.

You can also pass the current request target URI as a query parameter using the queryParam option:

// In the getAuthenticationService() method of your src/Application.php

$service = new AuthenticationService();

// Configure unauthenticated redirect
$service->setConfig([
    'unauthenticatedRedirect' => '/users/login',
    'queryParam' => 'redirect',
]);

Then in your controller’s login method you can use getLoginRedirect() to get the redirect target safely from the query string parameter:

public function login()
{
    $result = $this->Authentication->getResult();

    // Regardless of POST or GET, redirect if user is logged in
    if ($result->isValid()) {
        // Use the redirect parameter if present.
        $target = $this->Authentication->getLoginRedirect();
        if (!$target) {
            $target = ['controller' => 'Pages', 'action' => 'display', 'home'];
        }
        return $this->redirect($target);
    }
}

Migrating Hashing Upgrade Logic¶

If your application uses AuthComponent’s hash upgrade functionality. You can replicate that logic with this plugin by leveraging the AuthenticationService:

public function login()
{
    $result = $this->Authentication->getResult();

    // regardless of POST or GET, redirect if user is logged in
    if ($result->isValid()) {
        $authService = $this->Authentication->getAuthenticationService();

        // Assuming you are using the `Password` identifier.
        if ($authService->identifiers()->get('Password')->needsPasswordRehash()) {
            // Rehash happens on save.
            $user = $this->Users->get($this->Authentication->getIdentityData('id'));
            $user->password = $this->request->getData('password');
            $this->Users->save($user);
        }

        // Redirect to a logged in page
        return $this->redirect([
            'controller' => 'Pages',
            'action' => 'display',
            'home'
        ]);
    }
}