Rails Authentication Tutorial

Rails
1

Does anyone know a good authentication tutorial they can suggest? I’ve
tried several restful authentication ones and an authlogic one on
RailsCast. But with each one I try, something seems to be missing in
the tutorial and I can’t get it to work. I’m new to Rails so it’s
possible user error on my part.

I’m on Mac OS X 10.5 and I generate all my apps in the Sites
directory. Is there a better place to create these applications?

thanks for any response.

2

Kevin M wrote:

Does anyone know a good authentication tutorial they can suggest? I’ve
tried several restful authentication ones and an authlogic one on
RailsCast. But with each one I try, something seems to be missing in
the tutorial and I can’t get it to work. I’m new to Rails so it’s
possible user error on my part.

And the problems you’re having are…?

I’m on Mac OS X 10.5 and I generate all my apps in the Sites
directory. Is there a better place to create these applications?

Yes – almost anywhere else, unless you’re using Passenger.

thanks for any response.

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

3

Hi, why don’t you simply post a detail description of the issue(s)
that you’re having with the gem/plugin?

-Conrad

Sent from my iPhone

4

Hello Kevin

For a simple authentication you can try nifty_authentication from gem
nifty_generators.
Just install it, generate a nifty_layout and after that a
nifty_authentication.
It will create two controllers, one named users which will be for
creating users and the other named sessions which will control login
and logout.
Also be sure to create a map.root in the routes.rb and it will be
fully functional.
It hasn’t got roles etc. though, if you need many roles then maybe it
is better to use something else.
But for most applications which you might need only an admin area it
is ok.

5

Authlogic has a tutorial project on github (authlogic_example). Download
and
run that, and then compare that to what you are doing. There is a good
tutorial on the authlogic site, but it can still help to look at and
test a
working example.
The things that stich everything together are the require_user method in
the
application controller and the “before_filter :require_user” filters in
the
controllers you want to control access to. Also make sure your user
table
has the necessary fields.

If you do the tutorial, and double check against the example project,
you
should be fine.

6

I started fresh and did the Restful_authentication with all the bells
tutorial, (link to tutorial:
http://railsforum.com/viewtopic.php?id=14216).

Below is the error I get when I create the database, I did a trace.

iMac:restful_authentication_tutorial Meyer$ rake db:create --trace
(in /Users/Meyer/Rails/restful_authentication_tutorial)
** Invoke db:create (first_time)
** Invoke db:load_config (first_time)
** Invoke rails_env (first_time)
** Execute rails_env
** Execute db:load_config
** Execute db:create
Couldn’t create database for {“socket”=>“/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock”,
“reconnect”=>true, “encoding”=>“utf8”, “username”=>“root”,
“adapter”=>“mysql”, “password”=>“root”, “database”=>“RATdev”,
“pool”=>5}, charset: utf8, collation: utf8_general_ci (if you set the
charset manually, make sure you have a matching collation)

I kept the default socket the example had: socket: /var/run/mysqld/
mysqld.sock

Thanks for everyone’s suggestions.

Kevin

On Sep 23, 11:40 pm, Marnen Laibow-Koser <rails-mailing-l…@andreas-

7

Thanks John,

I’m needing something more thanks for the advice, I will try that on a
future project.

Kevin

8

I have Mamp installed so I tried setting the socket that location,
Socket: /Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock

The rake seemed to go through without problems. However, when I run
the server I get this message about a field missing from the database.

Message from browser-------------------------------------

ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid in Root#index

Showing app/views/root/index.html.erb where line #5 raised:

Mysql::Error: Table ‘RATdev.invitations’ doesn’t exist: SHOW FIELDS
FROM invitations
Extracted source (around line #5):

2: <% unless logged_in? -%><% if_in_beta? do -%>
3: <%= error_messages_for :invitation %>
4:

We are currently in private beta. Please enter your email
address below and we will let know when an invitation becomes
available.


5: <% uberform_for [:user, Invitation.new] do |f| -%>
6: <%= f.text_field :email, :label => “Your Email:” %>
7: <%= f.submit ‘Submit’ %>
8: <% end -%>

I ran the mysql install like it said in database.yml: sudo env
ARCHFLAGS=“-arch i386” gem install mysql – --with-mysql-config=/usr/
local/mysql/bin/mysql_config

I’ve already tried this example for fixing mysql:
http://wonko.com/post/how-to-install-the-mysqlruby-gem-on-mac-os-x-leopard

Thanks, Kevin

On Sep 23, 11:40 pm, Marnen Laibow-Koser <rails-mailing-l…@andreas-

9

Hey Kevin

use this restful authentication
i have used it in my many projects and its working fine.

http://railsforum.com/viewtopic.php?pid=74245#p74245

10

Hello–

On Sep 24, 2009, at 7:56 PM, Kevin M wrote:

** Invoke db:create (first_time)

I kept the default socket the example had: socket: /var/run/mysqld/
mysqld.sock

Thanks for everyone’s suggestions.

Kevin

Let’s take a step back. You have both the Apple version of MySQL and
MAMP installed? Are you actually using this successfully or could
there be a database connection problem? To factor this out, I
recommend you change your adapter to “sqlite3” (and install the Ruby
sqlite3 gem). Then change database.yml as:

development:
adapter: sqlite3
database: db/RATdev.sqlite3

test:
adapter: sqlite3
database: db/RATtest.sqlite3

Next, create the whole thing using Rake:

rake db:create

See if your problem persists.

In my experience, it is possible to run more than one version of MySQL
on one machine, but you have to take pains to separate the sockets and
ports between the instances. In other words, you will be working with
something other than an “out of the box” installation. That could
account for your difficulty.

11

@ruchika I’m trying the one you suggested, but I have problem when I
get to the end where it says to create the database. I enter the
follow in the terminal:

$ mysql -u

But I get this error

-bash: mysql: command not found

What am I doing wrong?

12

I tried this next based on a Google search:

sudo /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql -u root

I get this error:

ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket
‘/tmp/mysql.sock’ (2)

My searching has not produced an answer.

Anyone with ideas?

Thanks, Kevin

13

Kevin M wrote:

@ruchika I’m trying the one you suggested,

Just so you know, most people these days seem to consider
restful_authentication inferior to Authlogic. Restful_authentication’s
excessive reliance on generator scripts makes it hard to maintain your
authentication if anything changes.

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

14

On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Kevin M [email protected] wrote:

sudo /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql -u root

I get this error:

ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket
‘/tmp/mysql.sock’ (2)

My searching has not produced an answer.

?? Either that’s not the location of the socket or your MySQL server
isn’t running.

–
Hassan S. ------------------------ [email protected]
twitter: @hassan