Simple Authentication Guide Create Authentication in Rails

We are going to create simple authentication in Rails. We want our users to add privilege to access certain web pages.

Authentication in Rails

Prerequisite:

• Ruby version — 3.0
• Rails version — 6.1.4
• Rails Packages
• Configuration of the rails app (to use rbenv — Rails virtual environment)
• Creating new Rails Web App

Ruby and Rails versions

Before we start our Rails project,we need to ensure that we tick the items on the prerequisite list .

# Ruby and Rails version
1: Ruby 3.0 
2: Rails 6.1.4

Ruby and Rails versions

Create our Simple Authentication web app

Ensure the project is in directory. To create new project in Rails type the command “rails new session_authentication”.

# Rails Simple  Authentication
$ cd session_authentication
1: rails new session_authentication

Install Rails Packages

# Install Rails packages and bundle install
$ cd session_authentication
1: gem install bcrypt
2: gem install bootstrap-sass
3: bundle install

Below is an image of GemFile currently using for project.

Gemfile

Below is GemFile file currently used for our project.

source 'https://rubygems.org'
git_source(:github) { |repo| "https://github.com/#{repo}.git" }
ruby '3.0.2'
# Bundle edge Rails instead: gem 'rails', github: 'rails/rails', branch: 'main'
gem 'rails', '~> 6.1.4', '>= 6.1.4.1'
# Use sqlite3 as the database for Active Record
gem 'sqlite3', '~> 1.4'
# Use Puma as the app server
gem 'puma', '~> 5.0'
# Use SCSS for stylesheets
gem 'sass-rails', '>= 6'
# Transpile app-like JavaScript. Read more: https://github.com/rails/webpacker
gem 'webpacker', '~> 5.0'
# Turbolinks makes navigating your web application faster. Read more: https://github.com/turbolinks/turbolinks
gem 'turbolinks', '~> 5'
# Build JSON APIs with ease. Read more: https://github.com/rails/jbuilder
gem 'jbuilder', '~> 2.7'
# Use Redis adapter to run Action Cable in production
# gem 'redis', '~> 4.0'
# Use Active Model has_secure_password
gem 'bcrypt', '~> 3.1.7'
# Use Active Storage variant
# gem 'image_processing', '~> 1.2'
# Reduces boot times through caching; required in config/boot.rb
gem 'bootsnap', '>= 1.4.4', require: false
group :development, :test do
  # Call 'byebug' anywhere in the code to stop execution and get a debugger console
  gem 'byebug', platforms: [:mri, :mingw, :x64_mingw]
end
group :development do
  # Access an interactive console on exception pages or by calling 'console' anywhere in the code.
  gem 'web-console', '>= 4.1.0'
  # Display performance information such as SQL time and flame graphs for each request in your browser.
  # Can be configured to work on production as well see: https://github.com/MiniProfiler/rack-mini-profiler/blob/master/README.md
  gem 'rack-mini-profiler', '~> 2.0'
  gem 'listen', '~> 3.3'
  # Spring speeds up development by keeping your application running in the background. Read more: https://github.com/rails/spring
  gem 'spring'
end
group :test do
  # Adds support for Capybara system testing and selenium driver
  gem 'capybara', '>= 3.26'
  gem 'selenium-webdriver'
  # Easy installation and use of web drivers to run system tests with browsers
  gem 'webdrivers'
end
# Windows does not include zoneinfo files, so bundle the tzinfo-data gem
gem 'tzinfo-data', platforms: [:mingw, :mswin, :x64_mingw, :jruby]
gem 'bootstrap-sass', '~> 3.4.1'

Model:

We going to create a model. The command will help us generate model for Authentication (users).

1: User Model

# Creating Models in rails
$ cd session_authentication
rails g model user username password_digest

1a: User Model

Add the information in our user model:

class User < ApplicationRecord     
   has_secure_password
end

2: Migrate database

# Migrate Database
$ cd session_authentication
rails db:migrate

3: Controllers

Create controller in the app. Controller is the logical center of your application. The command will generate controllers (users).

# Create controllers for our rails project
$ cd session_authentication
rails g controller sessions new create login welcome
rails g controller users new create

4: Migrate the database

# Migrate Database  for the models we have created.
$ cd session_authentication
1: rails db:migrate

5: Routes

The routing module provides URL rewriting in native Ruby. We have custom routes for the Authentication project. $ session_authentication/config/routes.rb

Rails.application.routes.draw do
    resources :users, only: [:new, :create]   
    get 'login', to: 'sessions#new'   
    post 'login', to: 'sessions#create'   
    get 'welcome', to: 'sessions#welcome'
    get 'authorized', to: 'sessions#page_requires_login'
end

6: Views

Views : Shares data with controllers and model. View is saved as an erb program. A views created inside app/views/sessions/welcome.index.erb.

6a: Welcome Page

<h1>Welcome</h1>welcome.index.erb
<%= button_to "Login", '/login', method: :get%>
<%= button_to "Sign Up", '/users/new', method: :get%>

6b: Sign up

Creating sign up page.

app/views/users/new.html.erb

<h1>Sign Up</h1><%= form_for @user do |f|%>  
<%= f.label :username%><br>  <%= f.text_field :username%>
<br>  <%= f.label :password%><br>  
<%= f.password_field :password%><br>  
<%= f.submit %>
<%end%>

6c: New User

Creating new user.

app/views/sessions/new.html.erb

<h1>Login</h1>
<%= form_tag '/login' do %>   <%= label_tag :username%>
<%= text_field_tag :username %>
<%= label_tag :password%>
<%= password_field_tag :password%>
<%= submit_tag "Login"%><%end%>

7: User Controller

7a: Users Controller is the logical of application.

app/controllers/users_controller.rb

class UsersController < ApplicationController
  skip_before_action :authorized, only: [:new, :create]
  def new   
    @user = User.new
  end
def create
    @user = User.find_by(username: params[:username])
    if @user && @user.authenticate(params[:password])
sessions[:user_id] = @user.id      
      redirect_to '/welcome'   
    else      
      redirect_to '/login'  
    end
  
  end
end

7b: Application Controller

Application Controller is the logical of application.

app/controllers/application_controller.rb

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
 
 before_action :authorized
 helper_method :current_user
 helper_method :logged_in?
def current_user        
  User.find_by(id: session[:user_id])  
 end
def logged_in?   
     !current_user.nil?  
 end
def authorized   
  redirect_to '/welcome' unless logged_in?
 end
end

7c: Sessions Controller

Sessions Controller is the logical of application.

app/controllers/sessions_controller.rb

class SessionsController < ApplicationController
skip_before_action :authorized, only: [:new, :create, :welcome]
  
  def new
  end
def create
    user = User.find_by(username: params[:username])
    if user && user.authenticate(params[:password])
        sessions[:user_id] = user.id 
        redirect_to '/welcome'
    end
  end
def welcome
    
  end
def login
  end
def page_requires_login
  end
  
end

You clone the repo github and modify the code

The End. Happy coding :)