basic ruby on rails authentication trouble - ruby-on-rails

Question

I am working on a basic authentication system for a rails app. The authentication is verifying account information from Active Directory using a net-ldap class (this part is working fine).
Something seems to be wrong with my session_helper however. Even though ActiveDirectoryUser.authenticate is successful, the signed_in helper always returns false. After signing in, the script redirects to root_path (default_controller's home) and then immediately redirects back to signin_path again-- as a result of the signed_in helper returning false.
See the code below. What am I missing?
Thanks
application_controller.rb
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
protect_from_forgery
include SessionsHelper
end
default_controller.rb
class DefaultController < ApplicationController
before_filter :signed_in_user
def home
end
private
def signed_in_user
redirect_to signin_path, notice: "Please sign in." unless signed_in?
end
end
sessions_helper.rb
module SessionsHelper
def sign_in(user)
#current_user = user
end
def current_user
#current_user ||= nil
end
def signed_in?
!#current_user.nil?
end
def sign_out
#current_user = nil
end
end
sessions_controller.rb
class SessionsController < ApplicationController
def new
end
def create
user = ActiveDirectoryUser.authenticate(params[:session][:username],params[:session][:password])
if user.nil?
# authentication failed
flash.now[:error] = 'Invalid email/password combination'
render 'new'
else
# authentication succeeded
sign_in #user
flash[:error] = 'Great success'
redirect_to root_path
end
end
def destroy
sign_out
redirect_to root_path
end
end

Answer 1

You should use session for to persist that kind of data (will be assessable for every request), it's user data. But I highly recommend you to use something like the devise gem that do all that authentication things and more for you. Why reinvent the weel right?
I believe this would work for you.
module SessionsHelper
def sign_in(user)
session[:user_id] = user.id
end
def current_user
ActiveDirectoryUser.find(session[:user_id]) ||= nil
end
def signed_in?
!session[:user_id].nil?
end
def sign_out
session[:user_id] = nil
end
end