module ActionController::HttpAuthentication::Token

Makes it dead easy to do HTTP Token authentication.

Simple Token example:

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  TOKEN = "secret"

  before_action :authenticate, except: [ :index ]

  def index
    render plain: "Everyone can see me!"
  end

  def edit
    render plain: "I'm only accessible if you know the password"
  end

  private
    def authenticate
      authenticate_or_request_with_http_token do |token, options|
        # Compare the tokens in a time-constant manner, to mitigate
        # timing attacks.
        ActiveSupport::SecurityUtils.secure_compare(token, TOKEN)
      end
    end
end

Here is a more advanced Token example where only Atom feeds and the XML API is protected by HTTP token authentication, the regular HTML interface is protected by a session approach:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  before_action :set_account, :authenticate

  private
    def set_account
      @account = Account.find_by(url_name: request.subdomains.first)
    end

    def authenticate
      case request.format
      when Mime[:xml], Mime[:atom]
        if user = authenticate_with_http_token { |t, o| @account.users.authenticate(t, o) }
          @current_user = user
        else
          request_http_token_authentication
        end
      else
        if session_authenticated?
          @current_user = @account.users.find(session[:authenticated][:user_id])
        else
          redirect_to(login_url) and return false
        end
      end
    end
end

In your integration tests, you can do something like this:

def test_access_granted_from_xml
  authorization = ActionController::HttpAuthentication::Token.encode_credentials(users(:dhh).token)

  get "/notes/1.xml", headers: { 'HTTP_AUTHORIZATION' => authorization }

  assert_equal 200, status
end

On shared hosts, Apache sometimes doesn't pass authentication headers to FCGI instances. If your environment matches this description and you cannot authenticate, try this rule in your Apache setup:

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [E=X-HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization},QSA,L]

Constants

AUTHN_PAIR_DELIMITERS
TOKEN_KEY
TOKEN_REGEX

Public Instance Methods

authenticate(controller, &login_procedure) click to toggle source

If token Authorization header is present, call the login procedure with the present token and options.

controller

ActionController::Base instance for the current request.

login_procedure

Proc to call if a token is present. The Proc should take two arguments:

authenticate(controller) { |token, options| ... }

Returns the return value of login_procedure if a token is found. Returns nil if no token is found.

# File lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 441
def authenticate(controller, &login_procedure)
  token, options = token_and_options(controller.request)
  unless token.blank?
    login_procedure.call(token, options)
  end
end
authentication_request(controller, realm, message = nil) click to toggle source

Sets a WWW-Authenticate header to let the client know a token is desired.

controller - ActionController::Base instance for the outgoing response. realm - String realm to use in the header.

Returns nothing.

# File lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 514
def authentication_request(controller, realm, message = nil)
  message ||= "HTTP Token: Access denied.\n"
  controller.headers["WWW-Authenticate"] = %(Token realm="#{realm.tr('"', "")}")
  controller.__send__ :render, plain: message, status: :unauthorized
end
encode_credentials(token, options = {}) click to toggle source

Encodes the given token and options into an Authorization header value.

token - String token. options - optional Hash of the options.

Returns String.

# File lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 501
def encode_credentials(token, options = {})
  values = ["#{TOKEN_KEY}#{token.to_s.inspect}"] + options.map do |key, value|
    "#{key}=#{value.to_s.inspect}"
  end
  "Token #{values * ", "}"
end
params_array_from(raw_params) click to toggle source

Takes raw_params and turns it into an array of parameters

# File lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 472
def params_array_from(raw_params)
  raw_params.map { |param| param.split %r/=(.+)?/ }
end
raw_params(auth) click to toggle source

This method takes an authorization body and splits up the key-value pairs by the standardized :, ;, or \t delimiters defined in AUTHN_PAIR_DELIMITERS.

# File lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 484
def raw_params(auth)
  _raw_params = auth.sub(TOKEN_REGEX, "").split(AUTHN_PAIR_DELIMITERS).map(&:strip)
  _raw_params.reject!(&:empty?)

  if !_raw_params.first&.start_with?(TOKEN_KEY)
    _raw_params[0] = "#{TOKEN_KEY}#{_raw_params.first}"
  end

  _raw_params
end
rewrite_param_values(array_params) click to toggle source

This removes the " characters wrapping the value.

# File lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 477
def rewrite_param_values(array_params)
  array_params.each { |param| (param[1] || +"").gsub! %r/^"|"$/, "" }
end
token_and_options(request) click to toggle source

Parses the token and options out of the token Authorization header. The value for the Authorization header is expected to have the prefix "Token" or "Bearer". If the header looks like this:

Authorization: Token token="abc", nonce="def"

Then the returned token is "abc", and the options are {nonce: "def"}

request - ActionDispatch::Request instance with the current headers.

Returns an Array of [String, Hash] if a token is present. Returns nil if no token is found.

# File lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 459
def token_and_options(request)
  authorization_request = request.authorization.to_s
  if authorization_request[TOKEN_REGEX]
    params = token_params_from authorization_request
    [params.shift[1], Hash[params].with_indifferent_access]
  end
end
token_params_from(auth) click to toggle source
# File lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 467
def token_params_from(auth)
  rewrite_param_values params_array_from raw_params auth
end