I have a Campaign model which has many Applicants. I'm currently nesting Applicants within Campaigns. I'm trying to authorize a user to applicants#index based on if they are the owner of the campaign.
resources :campaigns do
..
resources :applicants do
..
end
end
What's the best way to secure the applicants#index action in Pundit? Ideally I would like to pass the #Campaign to authorize.
class ApplicantsController < ApplicationController
def index
#applicants = Applicant.where(campaign: #campaign)
authorize #campaign
respond_with(#applicants)
end
But this results in Pundit looking for campaign_policy.
I'd probably use the show? method on the CampaignPolicy
authorize #campaign, :show?
where show? (call it whatever you want...manage?, etc...) would be
def show?
record.user_id = user.id
end
Just because the resource being displayed is a list of applicants doesn't mean you need to authorize against them directly. If your logic requires authorizing the owner of the campaign, do that.
Finally, if this is some wide-spread, common thing in your application, you might consider creating some value object to wrap your current user and campaign in.
class CurrentState < Struct.new(:user, :campaign); end
and then override the pundit_user method.
def pundit_user
CurrentState.new(current_user, Campaign.find(params[:campaign_id])
end
See Additional Context in the Pundit docs.
Related
I am perhaps misunderstanding Pundit policies but I am facing an issue where the UserPolicy is clashing with the SongPolicy.
What happens if that a statement in UserPolicy is being asserted ignoring what's written in SongPolicy:
Pundit::NotAuthorizedError in SongsController#edit
not allowed to edit? this User
def authorization
authorize Current.user
end
The issue emerged after introducing a new role for users but I believe that I probably haven't configured it right and for some reason only UserPolicy is looked at for asserting authorization in the SongsController?
I have two controllers that check for the user to be signed in (require_user_logged_in) and another to check on Pundit's policies (authorization):
class UsersController < ApplicationController
before_action :require_user_logged_in!, :authorization, :turbo_frame_check
# Actions were removed for brevity.
end
class SongsController < ApplicationController
before_action :require_user_logged_in!, :authorization, except: [:index, :show]
# Actions were removed for brevity.
end
The authorization methods looks like this:
def authorization
authorize Current.user
end
There's an application-level policy class, ApplicationPolicy:
# frozen_string_literal: true
class ApplicationPolicy
attr_reader :user, :params, :record
# Allows params to be part of policies.
def initialize(context, record)
if context.is_a?(Hash)
#user = context[:user]
#params = context[:params]
else
#user = context
#params = {}
end
#record = record
end
def index?
false
end
def show?
false
end
def create?
false
end
def new?
create?
end
def update?
false
end
def edit?
update?
end
def destroy?
false
end
class Scope
def initialize(user, scope)
#user = user
#scope = scope
end
def resolve
raise NotImplementedError, "You must define #resolve in #{self.class}"
end
private
attr_reader :user, :scope
end
end
The UserPolicy to protect user views:
class UserPolicy < ApplicationPolicy
class Scope < Scope
end
def index?
user.has_role?(:admin)
end
def show?
# Access if admin or the same user only.
user.has_role?(:admin) || is_same_user?
end
def create?
index?
end
def new?
create?
end
def update?
index? || is_same_user?
end
def edit?
update? # This is called when accessing a view for `SongsController`.
end
def destroy?
index? || is_same_user?
end
def delete?
destroy?
end
private
# Used to keep a user from editing another.
# Admins should be allowed to edit all users.
def is_same_user?
# Check if user being accessed is the one being logged in.
params[:id].to_s == Current.user.username.to_s
end
end
And the SongPolicy:
class SongPolicy < ApplicationPolicy
class Scope < Scope
end
def index?
end
def show?
end
def create?
user.has_role?(:admin) || user.has_role?(:collaborator) # This is ignored.
end
def new?
create?
end
def update?
create?
end
def edit?
create?
end
def destroy?
user.has_role?(:admin)
end
def delete?
destroy?
end
end
Not sure what else to try here, I'm sure I'm missing something, if someone with more knowledge of Pundit could let me know their thoughts on why a statement for one policy can leak into another, it would be really helpful.
You're calling authorize on the current user, which is a User, so Pundit is going to infer the UserPolicy policy. It won't automatically infer the SongPolicy policy unless you provide a Song record, even if you're in the SongController controller.
If you want to use a different policy, you'll need to provide it via authorize(policy_class:).
authorize Current.user, policy_class: SongPolicy
Implicit authorization like this is generally a code smell. Ideally, you should be explicitly authorizing the current Song record(s) against the current user context.
My opinion is that you have a misconception on Pundit's approach. Particularly you're twisting the subject of the authorization with the object of the authorization. Let's try to explain.
You have an actor who wants to apply an action on an object. The object may be authorized to receive the action.
By default Pundit's always consider the actor to be the current_user.
The action is a method on a Policy.
The object is the resource you're working on; in the most trivial scenario it could be an ActiveRecord object - but it doesn't have to.
Pundit's authorize methods is intended, in plain english, as "authorize the the resource bar to receive the action foo from the current user".
What you're trying to do is instead "authorize the current user to apply the action foo on the resource bar.
What's the difference? The subject and the object of the authorization are swapped. IMO, while doing the authorization process, you should respond to the question: "Is this object authorized to receive this action by the actor?"
object action
------------ ------
authorize Current.user, :edit?
NOTE: the actor implicitly is current_user
NOTE: if action is not declared, then it will implicitly be action_name
which resolves to the question "is this specific user authorized to receive :edit? from the current user?"
Following the reasoning, this is what I'd consider the right approach for your example scenario:
class SongsController < ApplicationController
before_action :require_user_logged_in!, :authorization, except: [:index, :show]
private
def authorization
authorize Song
end
end
I do not advise to rely on callbacks and I'd rather write more explicit code
def edit
#song = Song.find(params[:id])
authorize #song, :edit?
end
This code resolves to the question "is this specific song authorized to receive :edit? from the current user?"
A word of warning about using a custom policy_class
like in
authorize Current.user, policy_class: SongPolicy
With this code the authorization will be made by calling SongPolicy#edit? but the record will regularly be set to Current.user's value ; let's suppose to have
class SongPolicy
def edit?
record.in_my_playlist?
end
end
where in_my_playlist? is Song's instance method: you'll end having
undefined method `in_my_playlist?` for #<User>
Probably you're not doing the thing you intended to do there.
A word of warning about the use of Current.user into your logic
If Current.user is using http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveSupport/CurrentAttributes.html and your entire application is relying on that singleton, then you probably want to redefine Pundit's default user as documented here
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
def pundit_user
Current.user
end
end
otherwise you'll end up having your business logic and your authorization logic relying on two - potentially - different sources of truth.
I have a table of users with enum user_type [Manager, Developer, QA]. Currently, I'm handling sign in using Devise and after login I'm using the following logic to display the appropriate webpage:
class HomeController < ApplicationController
before_action :authenticate_user!
def index
if current_user.manager?
redirect_to manager_path(current_user.id)
end
if current_user.developer?
redirect_to developer_path(current_user.id)
end
if current_user.quality_assurance?
redirect_to qa_path(current_user.id)
end
end
end
I want to use pundit gem to handle this. From the documentation, it transpired that this logic will be delegated to policies but I can't figure out how. Can somebody help me in implementing pundit in my project?
This is my users table:
I have created a user_policy but its mostly empty:
class UserPolicy < ApplicationPolicy
class Scope < Scope
def resolve
scope.all
end
end
end
User model:
You want to use Pundit to authorize a user, as in check if that user should be allowed to visit a controller action. If the user is not authorized for a specific action it raises a Pundit::NotAuthorizedError
You can check if a user is allowed to perform an action in the pundit policy, in which you have access to record (the instance thats passed to authorize) and user. So assuming you have a Flat Model, where only the owner can edit the Flat you might do this:
# flats_policy.rb
def edit?
record.user == user
end
Now lets say you also want to allow admins to edit you might do this
# flats_policy.rb
def owner_or_admin?
record.user == user || user.admin # where admin is a boolean
end
def edit?
owner_or_admin?
end
and the controller:
# flats_controller.rb
def edit
#flat = Flat.find(params[:id])
authorize #flat
# other code here
end
Now the index action is the odd one out because you would essentially have to call authorize on each instance, so the way Pundit handles this is with the Scope:
# flats_policy.rb
class Scope < Scope
def resolve
scope.all
end
end
and a corresponding index action might look like:
def index
#flats = policy_scope(Flat) # note that we call the model here
end
So lets say a user can only see flats that he/she owns:
# flats_policy.rb
class Scope < Scope
def resolve
scope.where(user: user)
end
end
and if admins can see all flats:
# flats_policy.rb
class Scope < Scope
def resolve
if user.admin
scope.all
else
scope.where(user: user)
end
end
end
In any case if the user is not allowed to perform an action you can rescue from the error like so:
# application_controller
rescue_from Pundit::NotAuthorizedError, with: :user_not_authorized
def user_not_authorized
flash[:alert] = "You are not authorized to perform this action."
redirect_to(root_path)
end
I guess you could do some dirty redirecting here, as in send admins to an admins_root_path, users to a default_root_path and so on...
On a final note, since this post is already too long you can check a policy in the view like this:
<% if policy(restaurant).edit? %>
You can see me if you have edit rights
<% end %>
How would I provide pundit authorization for a dashboard controller which provides data from various models?
My DashboardsController looks like this:
class DashboardsController < ApplicationController
before_action :authenticate_user!
before_action :set_user
before_action :set_business
after_action :verify_authorized
def index
end
private
def set_user
#user = current_user
end
def set_business
#business = current_user.business
end
end
How would I authorize for both #user and #business within my DashboardsPolicy?
I would argue that trying to get access to a dashboard is not a policy based on a resource named dashboard, but simply a special method in the business policy.
Therefore, I would add this to the BusinessPolicy as a method dashboard.
# in your controller
authorize #business, :dashboard?
# and the business_policy
class BusinessPolicy < ApplicationPolicy
def dashboard?
# condition depending on a `user` (current_user) and a record (business)
user.admin? || user.business == record
end
end
Or it might be even simpler. If someone is allowed to see the dashboard when she is allowed to show the business, then just re-use BusinessPolicy#show? in your controller:
authorize #business, show?
Pundit expects a current user and a model object to be passed to it. In this case I think what you would want is a DashboardsPolicy class, and you would authorize it like:
def index
authorize(#business)
end
From the README:
Pundit will call the current_user method to retrieve what to send into
this argument
The authorize method automatically infers that Post will have a
matching PostPolicy class, and instantiates this class, handing in the
current user and the given record
There is also a specific section in the README regarding headless policies that uses the Dashboard as the example action: https://github.com/varvet/pundit#headless-policies
You can also create a plain ruby object that takes two entities and use that as your object to authorize:
class UserBusiness
def initialize(user, business)
end
...other methods here
end
#model = UserBusiness.new(user, business)
authorize(#model)
I'm using the pundit gem and trying to figure out how to use it to prevent access to an index page that belongs to a user other than the current_user.
The examples only talk about how to scope the results to the current_user but no how to actually prevent access to the page itself if the current_user is NOT the owner of the record.
Any help appreciated
Thanks
Maybe you want something like this? (For class ModelName)
# /policies/model_name_policy.rb
class ModelNamePolicy
attr_reader :current_user, :resource
def initialize(current_user, resource)
#current_user = current_user
#resource = resource
end
def index?
current_user.authorized_to_edit?(resource)
end
end
# /models/user.rb
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
def authorized_to_edit?(resource)
admin? | (id == resource.created_by) # Or whatever method you want to call on your model to determine ownership
end
end
EDIT: Note that you will also need to call authorize from your controller to invoke the policy.
I'm using Rails 3 with Devise for user auth. Let's say I have a User model, with Devise enabled, and a Product model, and that a User has_many Products.
In my Products controller I'd like my find method to be scoped by current_user, ie.
#product = current_user.products.find(params[:id])
unless the user is an admin user, i.e. current_user.admin?
Right now, I'm running that code in almost every method, which seems messy:
if current_user.admin?
#product = Product.find(params[:id])
else
#product = current_user.products.find(params[:id])
end
Is there a more elegant/standard way of doing this?
I like to do this as follows:
class Product
scope :by_user, lambda { |user|
where(:owner_id => user.id) unless user.admin?
}
end
this allows you to write the following in your controller:
Product.by_user(current_user).find(params[:id])
If you're running this code in a lot of your controllers, you should probably make it a before filter, and define a method to do that in your ApplicationController:
before_filter :set_product, :except => [:destroy, :index]
def set_product
#product = current_user.admin? ? Product.find(params[:id]) : current_user.products.find(params[:id])
end
I don't know what you use to determine if a user is an admin or not (roles), but if you look into CanCan, it has an accessible_by scope that accepts an ability (an object that controls what users can and can't do) and returns records that user has access to based on permissions you write yourself. That is probably really what you want, but ripping out your permissions system and replacing it may or may not be feasible for you.
You could add a class method on Product with the user sent as an argument.
class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
...
def self.for_user(user)
user.admin? ? where({}) : where(:owner_id => user.id)
end
Then you can call it like this:
Product.for_user(current_user).find(params[:id])
PS: There's probably a better way to do the where({}).