# Authentication from scratch **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [April 3, 2009, 6:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/authentication-from-scratch/164660 "2009-04-03T18:37:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sprsquish](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@sprsquish](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sprsquish)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 6:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/authentication-from-scratch/164660/1 "2009-04-03T18:37:36Z")
Could you please recommend tutorials on developing one’s own authentication mechanisms, without the use of industrial-strength plugins? Is this tutorial from 2006 obsolete? [http://www.aidanf.net/rails\_user\_authentication\_tutorial](http://www.aidanf.net/rails_user_authentication_tutorial) I spent several person-days trying to install and use restful\_authentication, but it was mostly a frustrating, labor-intensive exercise in futility. [1, 2] I then found this prescient article by David Heinemeier H. from 2005: > **[Why engines and components are not evil but distracting](https://rubyonrails.org/2005/11/11/why-engines-and-components-are-not-evil-but-distracting)** > > I’ve been following the enthusiasm for engines, components, and bigger plugins from the sidelines for a while now. It’s a subject of very mixed emotions. On the one hand, I’m really glad to see that people get so excited and start dreaming of bigger... I don’t share his philosophical issues with pluggable engines, but in practice, he seems to have been spot on. Impressive! [1] The current issues are FixtureClassNotFound errors in the out-of-the-box unit tests on Debian; I’ve tried Ruby 1.87 and 1.9.1, each with two variations of restful-authentication: [http://svn.techno-weenie.net/projects/plugins/restful\_authentication/](http://svn.techno-weenie.net/projects/plugins/restful_authentication/) [GitHub - technoweenie/restful-authentication: inactive project](http://github.com/technoweenie/restful-authentication/tree/master) (Why are those different, anyway?) FWIW, after some minor bug-fixing, the plugin works fine on Mac OS X. [2] I’ve also had headaches with git, which has a steep learning curve, no matter how vehemently Linus decrees otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![sprsquish](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@sprsquish](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sprsquish)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 7:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/authentication-from-scratch/164660/2 "2009-04-03T19:10:25Z")
Just for the record I installed and setup restful\_authentication with no problems. Persevere with git. It seems strange at first if you have been used to svn but after a while you will wonder how you managed without it. Particularly if you use it on your own projects. Colin 2009/4/3 Jeff S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ---
**Author:** ![sprsquish](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@sprsquish](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sprsquish)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 11:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/authentication-from-scratch/164660/3 "2009-04-03T23:35:44Z")
On Apr 3, 9:36 am, Jeff S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Could you please recommend tutorials on developing one’s own > authentication mechanisms, without the use of industrial-strength plugins? Sure thing: > **[\#21 Super Simple Authentication - RailsCasts](http://railscasts.com/episodes/21-super-simple-authentication)** > > Short Ruby on Rails screencasts containing tips, tricks and tutorials. Great for both novice and experienced web developers. Cheers, Mark T. ---
**Author:** ![sprsquish](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@sprsquish](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sprsquish)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/authentication-from-scratch/164660/4 "2009-05-10T16:26:15Z")
On Apr 3, 12:36 pm, Jeff S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I spent several person-days trying to install and use > restful\_authentication, but it was mostly a frustrating, labor-intensive > exercise in futility > The current issues areFixtureClassNotFounderrors in the > out-of-the-box unit tests This issue went away when I tried script/generate authenticated user sessions rather than script/generate authenticated users sessions The plugin itself does not seem to have any problem with the plural “users”, but the tests die (error, not failure) with unintuitive output.