There are two main entry points you need to be aware of when writing a store
or credential module. The first is initialization and the second is during the
-actual call to the Catalyst application's authenticate method.
+actual call to the Catalyst application's authenticate method.
+
+A simplified description of the authentication process follows:
+
+
+
+B<Initialization>
+
+=over 4
+
+B<Realm Setup> - for each realm:
+
+=over 4
+
+1) The Realm is instantiated using new() method
+
+2) The Store is instantiated using new() method
+
+3) The Credential Instantiated using new() method
+
+4) Credential and Store objects tied to realm for use during requests
+
+=back
+
+=back
+
+B<Authentication>
+
+=over 4
+
+C<< $c->authenticate( $userinfo, $realm ) >> called
+
+=over 4
+
+1) Credential object retrieved for realm provided
+
+2) Credential's authenticate() method called with authinfo and realm object for current realm
+
+=over 4
+
+The realm object and the authinfo hash are provided to the credential object's
+authenticate call. In most cases the credential object will attempt to
+retrieve a user using the realm's find_user() method, which by default relays
+the call directly to the Store's find_user() method. It will then usually
+compare the retrieved user's information with the information provided in the
+$authinfo hash. This is how the default 'Password' credential functions. If
+the credentials match, the authenticate() method should return a user object.
+
+=back
+
+3) User object stored in session
+
+=over 4
+
+If the user object supports session storage, the successfully authenticated
+user will be placed in session storage. This is done by calling the realm
+object's persist_user() method. The persist_user() routine by
+default calls the Store's for_session() method, which should return serialized
+data (IE a scalar). This serialized data is passed back to the store via the
+from_session() method, so the data should contain enough information for the
+store to recreate / reload the user.
+
+=back
+
+=back
+
+=back
+
+B<Sessions> - Per-Request operations
+
+=over 4
+
+When any user-related activity occurs, and $c->authenticate has not
+yet been called, the Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication module will
+attempt to restore the persisted user (normally from the session if one is available).
+There is only one step in this process:
+
+=over 4
+
+1) Store object's from_session() is called
+
+=back
+
+The serialized data previously returned by the store's for_session()
+method is provided to the from_session() method. The from_session()
+method should return a valid user object.
+
+Note that the for_session() is only called during the original
+$c->authenticate() call, so if changes are made to the user that need
+to be reflected in your session data, you will want to call the
+$c->persist_user() method - which will perform the session
+storage process again (complete with call to for_session()).
+
+=back
+
+More detailed information about these processes is below.
=head2 INITIALIZATION
instantiates both a new credential object and a new store object. See below
for the details of how credentials and stores are instantiated.
- NOTE: The instances created will remain active throughout the entire
- lifetime of the application, and so should be relatively lightweight.
- Care should be taken to ensure that they do not grow, or retain
- information per request, because they will be involved in each
- authentication request and could therefore substantially
- hurt memory consumption over time.
+B<NOTE>: The instances created will remain active throughout the entire
+lifetime of the application, and so should be relatively lightweight.
+Care should be taken to ensure that they do not grow, or retain
+information per request, because they will be involved in each
+authentication request and could therefore substantially
+hurt memory consumption over time.
=head2 AUTHENTICATION
=over 4
-=item new( $config, $app )
+=item new( $config, $app, $realm )
The C<new()> method is called only once, during the setup process of
L<Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication|Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication>. The
information for the store module. The second argument is a reference to the
Catalyst application.
- Note that when new() is called, Catalyst has not yet loaded
- the various controller and model classes, nor is it definite
- that other plugins have been loaded, so your new() method
- must not rely on any of those being present. If any of
- this is required for your store to function, you should
- defer that part of initialization until the first method call.
+Note that when new() is called, Catalyst has not yet loaded
+the various controller and model classes, nor is it definite
+that other plugins have been loaded, so your new() method
+must not rely on any of those being present. If any of
+this is required for your store to function, you should
+defer that part of initialization until the first method call.
The C<new()> method should return a blessed reference to your store object.
underlying user object can do certain things. In most cases you will want to
pass this directly to the underlying user class' C<supports> method. Note that
this is used as a B<class> method against the user class and therefore must
-be able to function without an instantiated user object.
+be able to function without an instantiated user object.
=back
+=head3 OPTIONAL STORE METHODS
+
+If you want your store to be able to auto- create users, then you can
+implement these methods:
+
+=head24 auto_update_user( $authinfo, $c, $res )
+
+This method is called if the realm's auto_update_user setting is true.
+
+=head2 auto_create_user( $authinfo, $c )
+
+This method is called if the realm's auto_create_user setting is true.
+
=head2 USER OBJECT
The user object is an important piece of your store module. It will be the
part of the system that the application developer will interact with most. As
such, the API for the user object is very rigid. All user objects B<MUST>
inherit from
-L<Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication::User|Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication::User>.
+L<Catalyst::Authentication::User|Catalyst::Authentication::User>.
=head3 USER METHODS
The routines required by the
L<Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication|Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication> plugin
are below. Note that of these, only get_object is strictly required, as the
-L<Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication::User|Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication::User>
+L<Catalyst::Authentication::User|Catalyst::Authentication::User>
base class contains reasonable implementations of the rest. If you do choose
to implement only the C<get_object()> routine, please read the base class code
and documentation so that you fully understand how the other routines will be
C<find_user()> routine as C<id =E<gt> $user-E<gt>id> so you should ensure that your
store's C<find_user()> can cope with that.
-=item supports_features( )
+=item supports( $feature, $subfeature ... )
+
+This method checks to see if the user class supports a particular feature. It
+is implemented such that each argument provides a subfeature of the previous
+argument. In other words, passing 'foo', 'bar' would return true if the user
+supported the 'foo' feature, and the 'bar' feature of 'foo'. This is implemented
+in Catalyst::Authentication::User, so if your class inherits from that, you
+do not need to implement this and can instead implement supported_features().
+
+B<Note:> If you want the authentication module to be able to save your user in
+the session you must return true when presented with the feature 'session'.
+
+=item supported_features( )
-This method should return a hashref of 'extra' features supported. This is for
-more flexible integration with some Credentials / applications. It is not
-required that you support anything, and returning C<undef> is perfectly
+This method should return a hashref of features supported by the user class.
+This is for more flexible integration with some Credentials / applications. It
+is not required that you support anything, and returning C<undef> is perfectly
acceptable and in most cases what you will do.
=item get( $fieldname )
information. This is used as a standard method of accessing an authenticated
user's data, and MUST be implemented by all user objects.
- Note: There is no equivalent 'set' method. Each user class is
- likely to vary greatly in how data must be saved and it is
- therefore impractical to try to provide a standard way of
- accomplishing it. When an application developer needs to save
- data, they should obtain the underlying object / data by
- calling get_object, and work with it directly.
+B<Note>: There is no equivalent 'set' method. Each user class is
+likely to vary greatly in how data must be saved and it is
+therefore impractical to try to provide a standard way of
+accomplishing it. When an application developer needs to save
+data, they should obtain the underlying object / data by
+calling get_object, and work with it directly.
=item get_object( )
=over 4
-=item new( $config, $app )
+=item new( $config, $app, $realm )
Like the Store method of the same name, the C<new()> method is called only
once, during the setup process of
L<Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication|Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication>. The
first argument, C<$config>, is a hash reference containing the configuration
information for the credential module. The second argument is a reference
-to the Catalyst application.
+to the Catalyst application. $realm is the instantiated Realm object, which
+you may use to access realm routines - such as find_user.
- Again, when the credential's new() method is called, Catalyst
- has not yet loaded the various controller and model classes.
+Again, when the credential's new() method is called, Catalyst
+has not yet loaded the various controller and model classes.
The new method should perform any necessary setup required and instantiate
your credential object. It should return your instantiated credential.
-=item authenticate( $c, $authstore, $authinfo )
+=item authenticate( $c, $realm, $authinfo )
This is the workhorse of your credential. When $c->authenticate() is called
the L<Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication|Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication> module retrieves the
-store object from the realm and passes it, along with the $authinfo hash
+realm object and passes it, along with the $authinfo hash
to your credential's authenticate method. Your module should use the
-$authinfo hash to obtain the user from the store passed, and then perform
+$authinfo hash to obtain the user from the realm passed, and then perform
any credential verification steps necessary to authenticate the user. This
method should return the user object returned by the authentication store if
credential verification succeeded. It should return undef on failure.
attempting to retrieve the user from the store. It may also make sense for
your credential to perform activities which help to locate the user in
question, for example, finding a user id based on an encrypted token.
-In these scenarios, the $authinfo hash passed to the store's find_user()
+In these scenarios, the $authinfo hash passed to find_user()
can be different than that which is passed in to $c->authenticate(). Once
again this is perfectly acceptable if it makes sense for your credential,
though you are strongly advised to note this behavior clearly in your
certainly expecting the user to be found using the information provided
to $c->authenticate().
-Look at the L<Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication::Credential::Password|Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication::Credential::Password>
+Look at the L<Catalyst::Authentication::Credential::Password|Catalyst::Authentication::Credential::Password>
module source to see this in action. In order to avoid possible
mismatches between the encrypted and unencrypted passwords, the password
credential actually removes the provided password from the authinfo
place those arguments that are specific to your credential
within their own subhash named after your module.
-The L<Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication::Store::DBIx::Class|Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication::Store::DBIx::Class> module does this
+The L<Catalyst::Authentication::Store::DBIx::Class|Catalyst::Authentication::Store::DBIx::Class> module does this
in order to encapsulate arguments intended specifically for
-that module. See the L<Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication::Store::DBIx::Class::User|Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication::Store::DBIx::Class::User>
+that module. See the L<Catalyst::Authentication::Store::DBIx::Class::User|Catalyst::Authentication::Store::DBIx::Class::User>
source for details.
=back
=head1 COPYRIGHT & LICENSE
- Copyright (c) 2005 the aforementioned authors. All rights
- reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute
- it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
+Copyright (c) 2005 the aforementioned authors. All rights
+reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute
+it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
=cut
-
\ No newline at end of file
projects / catagits/Catalyst-Plugin-Authentication.git / blobdiff