cancancan ability works as expected in tests, but not in practice? - ruby-on-rails

I have reviews set up similar to Airbnb.
These abilities should allow a guest to review a host, and a host to review a guest:
# ability.rb
can [:show], [Review] do |review|
if review.reviewable_type == "Host"
review.booking.guest_id == user.guest.id
elsif review.reviewable_type == "Guest"
review.booking.host_id == user.host.id
end
end
Here's the controller:
class ReviewsController < ApplicationController
authorize_resource
before_action :set_review, only: [:show]
def show
end
private
def set_review
#review = Review.find_by_id(params[:id])
end
end
When testing, everything works
host = Host.first
review = Review.first # A review of a host
ability = Ability.new(host.user)
ability.can?(:show, review)
# Returns false as expected
review2 = Review.second # A review of a guest
ability.can?(:show, review2)
# Returns true as expected
So everything's fine until this point.
But when I login as the host and visit the review for myself, I can review myself! The exact logic above denies access when it's tested in the console.
Why does cancancan prevent access in the console, but allow access in the browser?

Total noob mistake.
I had
authorize_resource
before_action :set_review, only: [:show]
But authorize_resource should be called after the before_action that sets the model instance for the action.
So after this simple reordering, it works as expected:
before_action :set_review, only: [:show]
authorize_resource

Related

Rails controller and permissions for users

I'm stuck with a very simple Rails problem.
I have a blog controller which has these lines:
skip_before_action :check_admin, only: [:index, :show], raise: false
...
private
...
def check_admin
redirect_to(root_path) unless current_user && current_user.admin?
end
I want the behavior to be the following:
if a user is not logged in or is logged in and its role is not admin, and tries to access other actions rather than :index and :show, it should redirect to the root path.
But right now, it shows the user login page for every action when a user is not logged in, whereas it allows every action for any logged in user, even not admin ones.
I am using Devise and CanCanCan. My ability.rb looks like this:
def initialize(user)
can :read, :all # allow everyone to read everything
if user && user.admin?
can :access, :rails_admin # only allow admin users to access Rails Admin
can :dashboard # allow access to dashboard
can :manage, :all
end
end
Where am I failing?
EDIT: I changed the action call in the controller to this:
before_action :check_admin, except: [:index, :show]
Now, the desired behavior is showing for logged users, whereas for unlogged users it is still redirecting to the user login page for every action including index and show.
EDIT 2: I have before_action :authenticate_user! in application_controller.rb while some other controllers are set with skip_before_action :authenticate_user!, :only => [:index]. But this shouldn't interfer with the blog controller in my opinion...
Also, I have the following in config/initializers/rails_admin.rb:
RailsAdmin.config do |config|
### Popular gems integration
## == Devise ==
config.authenticate_with do
warden.authenticate! scope: :user
end
config.current_user_method(&:current_user)
The problem is you have before_action :authenticate_user! in your application controller. if you see your controller definition,:
class BlogController< ApplicationController
'<' operator means BlogController inherits from ApplicationController, therefore all your controllers (except those with skip_before_action) will require authentication.
you'll need
Class BlogController < ApplicationController
skip_before_action :authenticate_user!, :only => [:index, :show]

Rails: Only allow admin user to create new users in Rails with Devise (No external modules)

Currently, my Users database has a column called "admin" with a boolean value and the default set to false. I have one admin user seeded into the database.
How do write my application so that users who are the admin can create new users, but users who are not cannot? (Also, users should be created only by the admin)
It seems like there should be a simple way to do this in devise that does not involve using some external module. So far however, I have not been able to find a satisfactory answer.
I would be more likely to mark the solution which is devise only. (One that is simply standard MVC/Rails solution a plus) However, if there really is a better way to do it that doesn't involve CanCan I may accept that too.
NOTE:
I have been searching around for a while and I've found several other stackoverflow questions that are very similar to this one, but either don't quite answer the question, or use other non-devise modules. (Or both)
To implement the authorization, use a method on the controller
Exactly as suggested by #diego.greyrobot
class UsersController < ApplicationController
before_filter :authorize_admin, only: :create
def create
# admins only
end
private
# This should probably be abstracted to ApplicationController
# as shown by diego.greyrobot
def authorize_admin
return unless !current_user.admin?
redirect_to root_path, alert: 'Admins only!'
end
end
To sidestep the Devise 'already logged in' problem, define a new route for creating users.
We will simply define a new route to handle the creation of users and then point the form to that location. This way, the form submission does not pass through the devise controller so you can feel free to use it anywhere you want in the normal Rails way.
# routes.rb
Rails.application.routes.draw do
devise_for :users
resources :users, except: :create
# Name it however you want
post 'create_user' => 'users#create', as: :create_user
end
# users/new.html.erb
# notice the url argument
<%= form_for User.new, url: create_user_path do |f| %>
# The form content
<% end %>
This seems like the simplist approach. It just requires sub-classing the devise controller. See the docs for how to do that.
# app/controllers/registrations_controller.rb
class RegistrationsController < Devise::RegistrationsController
before_action :authenticate_user!, :redirect_unless_admin, only: [:new, :create]
skip_before_action :require_no_authentication
private
def redirect_unless_admin
unless current_user.try(:admin?)
flash[:error] = "Only admins can do that"
redirect_to root_path
end
end
def sign_up(resource_name, resource)
true
end
end
# config/routes.rb
Rails.application.routes.draw do
devise_for :users, :controllers => { :registrations => 'registrations'}
end
Explaination:
Subclass the registration controller and create the route for it.
The before_action ensures that a user is logged in, and redirects them unless they are admin, if they try to sign up.
The already logged in issue is caused by Devise's require_no_authentication method and skipping it resolves the issue.
Next is that the newly created user is automatically signed in. The sign_up helper method which does this is overridden to do prevent automatic signup.
Finally, the Welcome! You have signed up successfully. sign up flash message can be changed via editing the config/locales/devise.en.yml file, if desired.
The problem is conceptual. Devise is only an Authentication library not an Authorization library. You have to implement this separately or use CanCan. Fret not however, it is easy in your case to implement this since you only have one role.
Guard your user create/update/destroy action with a before filter:
class UsersController < ApplicationController
before_filter :authorize_admin, except [:index, :show]
def create
# user create code (can't get here if not admin)
end
end
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
def authorize_admin
redirect_to root_path, alert: 'Access Denied' unless current_user.admin?
end
end
With this simple approach you run a before filter on any controller action that can affect a user record by first checking if the user is an admin and kicking them out to the home page if they're not.
I had this issue when working on a Rails 6 application.
I had an admin model which I Devise used to create admins.
Here's how I fixed it:
First I generated a Devise controller for the Admin model, which created the following files:
app/controllers/admins/confirmations_controller.rb
app/controllers/admins/omniauth_callbacks_controller.rb
app/controllers/admins/passwords_controller.rb
app/controllers/admins/registrations_controller.rb
app/controllers/admins/sessions_controller.rb
app/controllers/admins/unlocks_controller.rb
Next, I modified the new and create actions of the app/controllers/admins/registrations_controller.rb this way to restrict signup to admin using Devise:
class Admins::RegistrationsController < Devise::RegistrationsController
before_action :configure_sign_up_params, only: [:create]
before_action :configure_account_update_params, only: [:update]
# GET /resource/sign_up
def new
if admin_signed_in?
super
else
redirect_to root_path
end
end
# POST /resource
def create
if admin_signed_in?
super
else
redirect_to root_path
end
end
.
.
.
end
Afterwhich, I added the skip_before_action :require_no_authentication, only: [:new, :create] action to the app/controllers/admins/registrations_controller.rb this way to allow an already existing admin to create a new admin while being logged in:
class Admins::RegistrationsController < Devise::RegistrationsController
before_action :configure_sign_up_params, only: [:create]
before_action :configure_account_update_params, only: [:update]
skip_before_action :require_no_authentication, only: [:new, :create]
.
.
.
end
You may need to also hide the Register and Forgot password buttons in the login form, to only been by logged in admins:
# app/views/admins/sessions/new.html.erb
<% if admin_signed_in? %>
<%= render "admins/shared/links" %>
<% end %>
Optionally, I added first_name and last_name parameters to the allowed parameters in the app/controllers/admins/registrations_controller.rb file, after already adding it to the admin model through a database migration:
class Admins::RegistrationsController < Devise::RegistrationsController
before_action :configure_sign_up_params, only: [:create]
before_action :configure_account_update_params, only: [:update]
skip_before_action :require_no_authentication, only: [:new, :create]
.
.
.
# If you have extra params to permit, append them to the sanitizer.
def configure_sign_up_params
devise_parameter_sanitizer.permit(:sign_up, keys: [:first_name,
:last_name])
end
# If you have extra params to permit, append them to the sanitizer.
def configure_account_update_params
devise_parameter_sanitizer.permit(:account_update, keys: [:first_name,
:last_name])
end
.
.
.
end
Note: You will need to modify your app/views/admin/registrations views accordingly as well to cater for this
Additionally, you may need to create a new controller where you can create the index action for admins, say, app/controllers/admins/admins_controller.rb:
class Admins::AdminsController < ApplicationController
before_action :set_admin, only: [:show, :edit, :update, :destroy]
before_action :authenticate_admin!
# GET /admins
# GET /admins.json
def index
#admins = Admin.all
end
.
.
.
end
Note: If you need more control like managing admins by updating and deleting information of other admins from your dashboard, you may need to add other action like show, edit, update, destroy, and others to this file.
And for the routes:
## config/routes.rb
# List of Admins
get 'admins', to: 'admins/admins#index'
namespace :admins do
resources :admins
end
And then modify the path used after sign up in the app/controllers/admins/registrations_controller.rb to redirect to the admins_path, this will show you a list of all the admins that have been created:
class Admins::RegistrationsController < Devise::RegistrationsController
before_action :configure_sign_up_params, only: [:create]
before_action :configure_account_update_params, only: [:update]
skip_before_action :require_no_authentication, only: [:new, :create]
.
.
.
# The path used after sign up.
def after_sign_up_path_for(resource)
admins_path
end
# The path used after sign up for inactive accounts.
def after_inactive_sign_up_path_for(resource)
admins_path
end
end
Finally, you may need to change the notice that Devise gives when you create a user in the config/locales/devise.en.yml file, from:
Welcome, You have signed up successfully
to, say:
Account was created successfully.
That's all.
I hope this helps.

Set a before action to all member routes?

Playing around with Rails 4, I noticed that it defines a before_action filter set_[model], that is called for the actions show, edit, update and destroy.
It is in fact very useful, but I don't see much sense in not having it to all member actions. After all, if you are using a member action, you want to act on that member, thus you need to recover it from database at some point.
Note that by member actions, I also means the ones configured on routes.rb in the members block.
Is there a straight-forward way to do this, without list all member actions on the before_action filter?
Edit: To clarify, the whole point is use some rails magic to get all member routes and generate the array that would be pass in the :only. So I can do something like
before_action set_model only: all_member_routes
where all_member_routes is a piece of code that returns all member routes for my model.
Or even better,
before_action set_model, only_member_actions: true
The show, edit, update, destroy actions are precisely all member actions. They are the only ones that require to find the model.
If you have your own member action, then you'll have to add it to the list yourself.
before_action :set_item, only: [:edit, ..., :my_member_action]
Or, you can use the :except option to exclude all the collection actions that do not need it:
before_action :set_item, except: [:index, :create]
This way, if you add other member actions, you wont have to change anything.
Personally, I prefer to be explicit and use :only.
I'm pretty sure there is no easier way to do it, you can't detect all member actions automatically.
edit:
I really don't think you should do that but...
You can access the name of your controller with the controller_name method.
Getting the routes related to the controller:
routes = Rails.application.routes.routes.select { |r| r.defaults[:controller] == controller_name }
Then, I think the best way to see if a route is a member route is that the #parts array includes :id. Maybe you can find a more robust way.
So I would do:
routes.select { |r| r.parts.include?(:id) }.map { |r| r.defaults[:action] }.map &:to_sym
That would give you: [:show, :preview, :my_challenges] for
resources :users, only: [:index, :show], controller: 'accounts/users' do
member do
get :preview
get :my_challenges
end
end
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
def member_routes
Rails.application.routes.routes
.select { |r| r.defaults[:controller] == controller_name && r.parts.include?(:id) }
.map { |r| r.defaults[:action] }
.map(&:to_sym)
end
end
class UsersController < ApplicationController
before_action set_model, only: member_routes
end
If you ask for a before_action without :only or :except options, it will apply to all member actions:
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
before_action :require_login
private
def require_login
unless logged_in?
flash[:error] = "You must be logged in to access this section"
redirect_to new_login_url # halts request cycle
end
end
end
In this particular case, it will require login from all actions on all controllers, since controllers will inherit from ApplicationController.
You can skip a before_action if you need it (for example, you need to skip require_login if you want to login into the system or sign up) like this:
class LoginsController < ApplicationController
skip_before_action :require_login, only: [:new, :create]
end
Source: Rails Guides
So, in your particular case:
You could have one usual UserController:
class UserController < ApplicationController
def index
end
...
/* you define here `index`, `create`, `update`, ... */
def destroy
...
end
end
And you could have a separate controller with all your member actions:
class UserCustomController < ApplicationController
before_action :set_model
def profile
...
end
def preview
end
def custom_member_action
end
...
/* all your member actions */
end
This would be actually better than having a single controller with lots of methods.

Devise authenticate_user

help my in that question:
i have 2 models ( admin and user ) -> created with devise,
and i have post_controller:
and the question arises:
if i have one model ( user.rb ) -> in my controller i put that:
before_filter :authenticate_user!, :except => [:show, :index]
but i have 2 models and i want to User have access to 'show' and 'index' action of post controller and Admin have access to all actions.
and i do something like that:
before_filter :logged_in
.
.
.
private
def logged_in
if admin_signed_in?
else
authenticate_user!
end
end
but i want change my string:
authenticate_user!
to something like that:
:authenticate_user!, :except => [:show, :index]
but except refers to before_filter
how can I do it ( without 'cancan' gem )
Try using two before filters - one for admin only actions, and another for admin or user actions.
# ensure admin for other actions
before_filter :check_admin_logged_in!, :except => [:show, :index]
# ensure user or admin logged in for these actions (:only option is optional)
before_filter :check_user_logged_in!, :only => [:show, :index]
private
def check_admin_logged_in! # admin must be logged in
authenticate_admin!
end
def check_user_logged_in! # if admin is not logged in, user must be logged in
if !admin_signed_in?
authenticate_user!
end
end

Devise: Restricting Actions to Administrators

Following the guide here, I added a boolean attribute to my database using a migration:
rails generate migration add_admin_to_user admin:boolean
I've configured my account to be an admin (admin = 1) via Rails console. I have a controller that I want to restrict access to certain actions (new, edit, create, and destroy) for administrators only.
I'll also have normal users, I just want to restrict access to these actions for admins only in this controller. Currently, I'm using the code:
before_filter :authenticate_user!, :only => [:new, :edit, :create, :destroy]
Which restricts access to registered users -- how do I take this a step further and require admins?
you can easily implement your own before_filter to allow access to only admin users by using the .admin? method associated with your user model. for instance:
before_filter :verify_is_admin
private
def verify_is_admin
(current_user.nil?) ? redirect_to(root_path) : (redirect_to(root_path) unless current_user.admin?)
end
You will want to define your own method in the before filter and then detect whether the user is an admin or not in that method prior to calling :authenticate_user!
before_filter :custom_method, :only => [:new, :edit, :create, :destroy]
private
def custom_method
authenticate_user!
if current_user.admin
return
else
redirect_to root_url # or whatever
end
end
You will want to do the authenticate_user! step prior to checking the current_user variable.
ian.

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