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
are 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]
- A
- E
- P
- R
- T
Constants
AUTHN_PAIR_DELIMITERS | = | /(?:,|;|\t)/ |
TOKEN_KEY | = | "token=" |
TOKEN_REGEX | = | /^(Token|Bearer)\s+/ |
Instance Public methods
authenticate(controller, &login_procedure) Link
If token Authorization header is present, call the login procedure with the present token and options.
Returns the return value of login_procedure
if a token is found. Returns nil
if no token is found.
Parameters
-
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| ... }
authentication_request(controller, realm, message = nil) Link
Sets a WWW-Authenticate header to let the client know a token is desired.
Returns nothing.
Parameters
-
controller
-ActionController::Base
instance for the outgoing response. -
realm
-String
realm to use in the header.
# File actionpack/lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 550 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 = {}) Link
params_array_from(raw_params) Link
Takes raw_params
and turns it into an array of parameters.
raw_params(auth) Link
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 actionpack/lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 516 def raw_params(auth) _raw_params = auth.sub(TOKEN_REGEX, "").split(WHITESPACED_AUTHN_PAIR_DELIMITERS) _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) Link
This removes the "
characters wrapping the value.
token_and_options(request) Link
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"}
.
Returns an Array
of [String, Hash]
if a token is present. Returns nil
if no token is found.
Parameters
-
request
-ActionDispatch::Request
instance with the current headers.
# File actionpack/lib/action_controller/metal/http_authentication.rb, line 488 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