# \[ANN\] Resurrection of the Login Engine

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ann-resurrection-of-the-login-engine/125542>\
**Category:** Engines\
**Created:** [January 10, 2008, 1:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ann-resurrection-of-the-login-engine/125542 "2008-01-10T01:15:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![xmg-eric](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/x/f04885/32.png) [@xmg-eric](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/xmg-eric)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 1:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ann-resurrection-of-the-login-engine/125542/1 "2008-01-10T01:15:49Z")

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I have posted some code that is an attempt to resurrect the Login Engine  
after it’s death about a year ago[1]. You can find it in the following  
two plugins:

[http://loginui.rubyforge.org/](http://loginui.rubyforge.org/)  
[http://authentication.rubyforge.org/](http://authentication.rubyforge.org/)

The two related plugins are the Login Plugin (which is the frontend  
engine code) and authentication (which is the backend pluggable  
authentication code). This code is entirely new that has come out of my  
own development needs for my work. It does borrow ideas from the old  
Login engine (same feature set, same basic hashing method) but I have  
made the following enhancements in my version:

- Follows a more RESTful design to be more in-line with the current  
methods of development.
- Moved the actual authentication process into a separate plugin  
(authentication) that has a pluggable architecture to allow different  
authentication processes (perhaps you want to auth against a LDAP server  
or a POP3 server instead of a salted hash in the database).
- _Tries_ to be more overrideable based on my own frustration with the  
old Login Engine.

I realize that not everybody likes the idea of a generic login engine.  
Some people prefer the generator approach that Restful Authentication  
plugin[2] provides. For highly custom apps I agree 100%! But for my  
bread and butter (quick internal custom apps) the ability slap on a good  
login process exactly what I need.

I hope it is useful to others and I welcome patches.

1. [http://rails-engines.org/news/2007/01/23/farewell-login\_engine-/](http://rails-engines.org/news/2007/01/23/farewell-login_engine-/)
2. [http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/restful\_authentication](http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/restful_authentication)