Devise is a flexible authentication solution for Rails based on Warden. It:
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Is Rack based;
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Is a complete MVC solution based on Rails engines;
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Allows you to have multiple roles (or models/scopes) signed in at the same time;
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Is based on a modularity concept: use just what you really need.
It’s composed of 12 modules:
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Database Authenticatable: encrypts and stores a password in the database to validate the authenticity of a user while signing in. The authentication can be done both through POST requests or HTTP Basic Authentication.
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Token Authenticatable: signs in a user based on an authentication token (also known as “single access token”). The token can be given both through query string or HTTP Basic Authentication.
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Omniauthable: adds Omniauth (github.com/intridea/omniauth) support;
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Confirmable: sends emails with confirmation instructions and verifies whether an account is already confirmed during sign in.
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Recoverable: resets the user password and sends reset instructions.
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Registerable: handles signing up users through a registration process, also allowing them to edit and destroy their account.
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Rememberable: manages generating and clearing a token for remembering the user from a saved cookie.
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Trackable: tracks sign in count, timestamps and IP address.
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Timeoutable: expires sessions that have no activity in a specified period of time.
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Validatable: provides validations of email and password. It’s optional and can be customized, so you’re able to define your own validations.
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Lockable: locks an account after a specified number of failed sign-in attempts. Can unlock via email or after a specified time period.
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Encryptable: adds support of other authentication mechanisms besides the built-in Bcrypt (the default).
The Devise Wiki has lots of additional information about Devise including many “how-to” articles and answers to the most frequently asked questions. Please browse the Wiki after finishing this README:
wiki.github.com/plataformatec/devise
If you discover a problem with Devise, we would like to know about it. However, we ask that you please review these guidelines before submitting a bug report:
github.com/plataformatec/devise/wiki/Bug-reports
If you found a security bug, do NOT use the GitHub issue tracker. Send email or a private GitHub message to the maintainers listed at the bottom of the README.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please use the Google Group instead of the GitHub issue tracker:
groups.google.com/group/plataformatec-devise
You can view the Devise documentation in RDoc format here:
rubydoc.info/github/plataformatec/devise/master/frames
If you need to use Devise with Rails 2.3, you can always run ‘gem server` from the command line after you install the gem to access the old documentation.
There are a few example applications available on GitHub that demonstrate various features of Devise with different versions of Rails. You can view them here:
github.com/plataformatec/devise/wiki/Example-Applications
Our community has created a number of extensions that add functionality above and beyond what is included with Devise. You can view a list of available extensions and add your own here:
github.com/plataformatec/devise/wiki/Extensions
We hope that you will consider contributing to Devise. Please read this short overview for some information about how to get started:
github.com/plataformatec/devise/wiki/Contributing
You will usually want to write tests for your changes. To run the test suite, ‘cd` into Devise’s top-level directory and run ‘bundle install` and `rake`. For the tests to pass, you will need to have a MongoDB server (version 1.6 or newer) running on your system.
You can use the latest Rails 3 gem with the latest Devise gem:
gem install devise
After you install Devise and add it to your Gemfile, you need to run the generator:
rails generate devise:install
The generator will install an initializer which describes ALL Devise’s configuration options and you MUST take a look at it. When you are done, you are ready to add Devise to any of your models using the generator:
rails generate devise MODEL
Replace MODEL by the class name you want to add devise, like User, Admin, etc. This will create a model (if one does not exist) and configure it with default Devise modules. The generator will also create a migration file (if your ORM support them) and configure your routes. Continue reading this file to understand exactly what the generator produces and how to use it.
Support for Rails 2.3.x can be found by installing Devise 1.0.x from the v1.0 branch.
If you are building your first Rails application, we recommend you to not use Devise. Devise requires a good understanding of the Rails Framework. In such cases, we advise you to start a simple authentication system from scratch, today we have two resources:
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Michael Hartl’s online book: railstutorial.org/chapters/modeling-and-viewing-users-two#top
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Ryan Bates’ Railscast: railscasts.com/episodes/250-authentication-from-scratch
Once you have solidified you understanding of Rails and authentication mechanisms, we assure you Devise will be very pleasant to work with. :)
This is a walkthrough with all steps you need to setup a devise resource, including model, migration, route files, and optional configuration.
Devise must be set up within the model (or models) you want to use. Devise routes must be created inside your config/routes.rb file.
We’re assuming here you want a User model with some Devise modules, as outlined below:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base devise :database_authenticatable, :confirmable, :recoverable, :rememberable, :trackable, :validatable end
After you choose which modules to use, you need to set up your migrations. Luckily, Devise has some helpers to save you from this boring work:
create_table :users do |t| t.database_authenticatable t.confirmable t.recoverable t.rememberable t.trackable t.timestamps end
Devise doesn’t use attr_accessible or attr_protected inside its modules, so be sure to define attributes as accessible or protected in your model.
Configure your routes after setting up your model. Open your config/routes.rb file and add:
devise_for :users
This will use your User model to create a set of needed routes (you can see them by running ‘rake routes`). If you invoked the devise generator, you noticed that this is exactly what the generator produces for us: model, routes and migrations.
Don’t forget to run rake db:migrate and you are ready to go! But don’t stop reading here, we still have a lot to tell you.
Devise will create some helpers to use inside your controllers and views. To set up a controller with user authentication, just add this before_filter:
before_filter :authenticate_user!
To verify if a user is signed in, use the following helper:
user_signed_in?
For the current signed-in user, this helper is available:
current_user
You can access the session for this scope:
user_session
After signing in a user, confirming the account or updating the password, Devise will look for a scoped root path to redirect. Example: For a :user resource, it will use user_root_path if it exists, otherwise default root_path will be used. This means that you need to set the root inside your routes:
root :to => "home"
You can also overwrite after_sign_in_path_for and after_sign_out_path_for to customize your redirect hooks.
Finally, you need to set up default url options for the mailer in each environment. Here is the configuration for config/environments/development.rb:
config.action_mailer.default_url_options = { :host => 'localhost:3000' }
Notice that if your devise model is not called “user” but “member”, then the helpers you should use are:
before_filter :authenticate_member! member_signed_in? current_member member_session
The devise method in your models also accepts some options to configure its modules. For example, you can choose which encryptor to use in database_authenticatable:
devise :database_authenticatable, :confirmable, :recoverable, :stretches => 20
Besides :stretches, you can define :pepper, :encryptor, :confirm_within, :remember_for, :timeout_in, :unlock_in and other values. For details, see the initializer file that was created when you invoked the “devise:install” generator described above.
Devise allows you to set up as many roles as you want. For example, you may have a User model and also want an Admin model with just authentication, trackable, lockable and timeoutable features and no confirmation or password-recovery features. Just follow these steps:
# Create a migration with the required fields create_table :admins do |t| t.database_authenticatable t.lockable t.trackable t.timestamps end # Inside your Admin model devise :database_authenticatable, :trackable, :timeoutable, :lockable # Inside your routes devise_for :admins # Inside your protected controller before_filter :authenticate_admin! # Inside your controllers and views admin_signed_in? current_admin admin_session
We built Devise to help you quickly develop an application that uses authentication. However, we don’t want to be in your way when you need to customize it.
Since Devise is an engine, all its views are packaged inside the gem. These views will help you get started, but after sometime you may want to change them. If this is the case, you just need to invoke the following generator, and it will copy all views to your application:
rails generate devise:views
Devise currently supports generating views for the following template engines (use the ‘-e` flag for the devise:views generator):
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Erb
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Haml (github.com/nex3/haml)
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Slim (github.com/stonean/slim)
Note: If you are generating Haml or Slim templates, you will need to have a few dependencies such as ‘ruby_parser` (for Haml), `hpricot` (for both Haml and Slim) and `haml2slim` (for Slim) installed.
If you have more than one role in your application (such as “User” and “Admin”), you will notice that Devise uses the same views for all roles. Fortunately, Devise offers an easy way to customize views. All you need to do is set “config.scoped_views = true” inside “config/initializers/devise.rb”.
After doing so, you will be able to have views based on the role like “users/sessions/new” and “admins/sessions/new”. If no view is found within the scope, Devise will use the default view at “devise/sessions/new”. You can also use the generator to generate scoped views:
rails generate devise:views users
If the customization at the views level is not enough, you can customize each controller by following these steps:
1) Create your custom controller, for example a Admins::SessionsController:
class Admins::SessionsController < Devise::SessionsController end
2) Tell the router to use this controller:
devise_for :admins, :controllers => { :sessions => "admins/sessions" }
3) And since we changed the controller, it won’t use the “devise/sessions” views, so remember to copy “devise/sessions” to “admin/sessions”.
Remember that Devise uses flash messages to let users know if sign in was successful or failed. Devise expects your application to call “flash” and “flash” as appropriate.
Devise also ships with default routes. If you need to customize them, you should probably be able to do it through the devise_for method. It accepts several options like :class_name, :path_prefix and so on, including the possibility to change path names for I18n:
devise_for :users, :path => "usuarios", :path_names => { :sign_in => 'login', :sign_out => 'logout', :password => 'secret', :confirmation => 'verification', :unlock => 'unblock', :registration => 'register', :sign_up => 'cmon_let_me_in' }
Be sure to check devise_for documentation for details.
If you have the need for more deep customization, for instance to also allow “/sign_in” besides “/users/sign_in”, all you need to do is to create your routes normally and wrap them in a devise_scope block in the router:
devise_scope :user do get "sign_in", :to => "devise/sessions#new" end
This way you tell devise to use the scope :user when “/sign_in” is accessed. Notice devise_scope is also aliased as as and you can also give a block to devise_for, resulting in the same behavior:
devise_for :users do get "sign_in", :to => "devise/sessions#new" end
Feel free to choose the one you prefer!
Devise uses flash messages with I18n with the flash keys :success and :failure. To customize your app, you can set up your locale file:
en:
devise:
sessions:
signed_in: 'Signed in successfully.'
You can also create distinct messages based on the resource you’ve configured using the singular name given in routes:
en:
devise:
sessions:
user:
signed_in: 'Welcome user, you are signed in.'
admin:
signed_in: 'Hello admin!'
The Devise mailer uses a similar pattern to create subject messages:
en:
devise:
mailer:
confirmation_instructions:
subject: 'Hello everybody!'
user_subject: 'Hello User! Please confirm your email'
reset_password_instructions:
subject: 'Reset instructions'
Take a look at our locale file to check all available messages. You may also be interested in one of the many translations that are available on our wiki:
github.com/plataformatec/devise/wiki/I18n
Devise includes some tests helpers for functional specs. To use them, you just need to include Devise::TestHelpers in your test class and use the sign_in and sign_out method. Such methods have the same signature as in controllers:
sign_in :user, @user # sign_in(scope, resource) sign_in @user # sign_in(resource) sign_out :user # sign_out(scope) sign_out @user # sign_out(resource)
You can include the Devise Test Helpers in all of your tests by adding the following to the bottom of your test/test_helper.rb file:
class ActionController::TestCase include Devise::TestHelpers end
If you’re using RSpec and want the helpers automatically included within all describe blocks, add a file called spec/support/devise.rb with the following contents:
RSpec.configure do |config| config.include Devise::TestHelpers, :type => :controller end
Do not use such helpers for integration tests such as Cucumber or Webrat. Instead, fill in the form or explicitly set the user in session. For more tips, check the wiki (wiki.github.com/plataformatec/devise).
Devise comes with OAuth support out of the box if you’re using Devise from the git repository (for now). You can read more about OAuth2 support in the wiki:
Devise supports ActiveRecord (default) and Mongoid. To choose other ORM, you just need to require it in the initializer file.
Devise implements encryption strategies for Clearance, Authlogic and Restful-Authentication. To make use of these strategies, you need set the desired encryptor in the encryptor initializer config option and add :encryptable to your model. You might also need to rename your encrypted password and salt columns to match Devise’s fields (encrypted_password and password_salt).
Devise is based on Warden, which is a general Rack authentication framework created by Daniel Neighman. We encourage you to read more about Warden here:
We have a long list of valued contributors. Check them all at:
github.com/plataformatec/devise/contributors
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José Valim (github.com/josevalim)
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Carlos Antônio da Silva (github.com/carlosantoniodasilva)
MIT License. Copyright 2010 Plataforma Tecnologia. blog.plataformatec.com.br