# Using Devise as an authentication solution for end users with Radiant

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-devise-as-an-authentication-solution-for-end-users-with-radiant/197599>\
**Category:** Radiant CMS\
**Created:** [October 17, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-devise-as-an-authentication-solution-for-end-users-with-radiant/197599 "2010-10-17T01:04:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dobai-Pataky\_BSSSSl](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/77aa72/32.png) [@Dobai-Pataky\_BSSSSl](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Dobai-Pataky_BSSSSl)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-devise-as-an-authentication-solution-for-end-users-with-radiant/197599/1 "2010-10-17T01:04:16Z")

</div>

All,

I’ve spent some time getting Devise working as an authentication system  
for my end users, and thought I would share how I got it to work.

1. Because Radiant already has a User model, you have to set up Devise  
to use a different model for authentication. So, you should choose a  
model name, and use that when you install Devise per the directions.  
For the purposes of the rest of this explanation, let’s assume that the  
model name is CustomUser.

2. Do all of your setup for Devise for CustomUser, including setting up  
the “devise\_for” route (devise\_for :custom\_user, etc.). I set up my  
Devise route in my custom extension’s routes.rb file.

3. To protect all of the end-user content, you need to call the Devise  
authenticate method somewhere as a before\_filter on the SiteController  
(I’m executing the line below in my custom application extension):

redirects  
def devise\_authentication  
authenticate\_custom\_user! unless params[:url] &&  
params[:url].is\_a?(Array) && (params[:url].include?(‘css’) ||  
params[:url].include?(‘js’))  
end

```
   prepend_before_filter :devise_authentication
 end

```

1. Once you do this, Devise will be set up to be used to authenticate  
against your end-user content. But it won’t work, because both Devise  
and Radiant inject a method named “authenticate” directly into the  
ApplicationController via module inclusion (luckily, they have different  
method signatures, or I would have had a tough time figuring that out).

I attempted to force the segregation of these two authenticate methods  
using nothing but fancy metaprogramming to try and change inheritance  
hierarchies and what-have-you. Ultimately, I decided that the solution  
with the least customization (and thus, easiest to manage over time),  
would be to statically bypass the ApplicationController provided by  
Radiant in Devise. So…

1. Create a new controller named DeviseController that looks like:

class DeviseController \< ActionController::Base  
layout ‘devise’  
end

I put mine in my custom extension’s app/controllers directory, but you  
can put it anywhere as long as it is loaded before any of the Devise  
stuff.

Also, notice that I built a custom layout for Devise (devise.html.haml)  
that looks like my Radiant-managed layout for end-user content.

Yes, that means that changes to the layout within Radiant must be  
repeated in this layout file. However, I couldn’t figure out a good way  
to share the layouts (even using file\_based\_layout, I would have had  
significant duplication to deal with - I decided to go the simplest  
route).

1. Put a copy of the Devise gem into RAILS\_ROOT (or  
RADIANT\_ROOT)/vendor/gems

2. In vendor/gems/devise/app/controllers, change each of the five 5  
Devise controller’s class definitions so that they descend from  
DeviseController, instead of ApplicationController, like so:

class ConfirmationsController \< DeviseController

Note that each of the 5 controllers does:

include Devise::Controllers::InternalHelpers

and this is where the conflicting “authenticate” method comes from. But  
now, because there’s no more ApplicationController in the hierarchy,  
there is no conflict.

1. Unfortunately, the redirect on a sign\_out does not redirect back to  
the log in page by default (I need to resolve this), so I had to do the  
following in my DeviseController:

def after\_sign\_out\_path\_for(resource\_or\_scope)  
new\_custom\_user\_session\_path  
end

CAVEATS:

It is very important that the route file that pulls in the Devise route  
executes before you attempt to use any of the Devise custom user  
specific helpers. The route configuration is what creates all of the  
Devise helpers that are then included in various places. If you cause  
any helper files to be included before the Devise route is processed,  
none of the custom helper methods will be available.

Wes

P. S. It would be interesting to see if it made sense to use Devise for  
all Radiant authentication (e.g. both end users and Radiant users), as  
Devise has authentication for different scopes baked in from the start.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 7:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-devise-as-an-authentication-solution-for-end-users-with-radiant/197599/2 "2010-10-17T19:06:25Z")

</div>

Hey Wes,

Glad you got it working.  
I shall be attempting to re-integrate devise into an ongoing project  
as I’ve attempted earlier.

Just a few comments:  
Step4: It now makes sense. I was not careful at looking at what gets  
called and from where. This is where I gave up on my early attempt.  
Thank you!

Step5: You can use radiant\_layout to use one of the layouts defined in  
radiant cms for your extension. For that you need shared\_layouts  
extension. This cuts down on the having duplicated code for layout,  
which, in my case, remains the same as the main site.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 10:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-devise-as-an-authentication-solution-for-end-users-with-radiant/197599/3 "2010-10-17T22:45:35Z")

</div>

Thx for the radiant\_layout tip!

Sent from my iPhone