Row-level multitenancy for Ruby on Rails apps.

This gem was born out of our own need for a fail-safe and out-of-the-way manner to add multi-tenancy to our Rails app through a shared database strategy, that integrates (near) seamless with Rails.

acts_as_tenant adds the ability to scope models to a tenant. Tenants are represented by a tenant model, such as Account. acts_as_tenant will help you set the current tenant on each request and ensures all 'tenant models' are always properly scoped to the current tenant: when viewing, searching and creating.

In addition, acts_as_tenant:

• sets the current tenant using the subdomain or allows you to pass in the current tenant yourself
• protects against various types of nastiness directed at circumventing the tenant scoping
• adds a method to validate uniqueness to a tenant, validates_uniqueness_to_tenant
• sets up a helper method containing the current tenant

Note: acts_as_tenant was introduced in this blog post.

Row-level vs schema multitenancy

What's the difference?

Row-level multitenancy each model must have a tenant ID column on it. This makes it easy to filter records for each tenant using your standard database columns and indexes. ActsAsTenant uses row-level multitenancy.

Schema multitenancy uses database schemas to handle multitenancy. For this approach, your database has multiple schemas and each schema contains your database tables. Schemas require migrations to be run against each tenant and generally makes it harder to scale as you add more tenants. The Apartment gem uses schema multitenancy.

Want to see how it works? Check out the ActsAsTenant walkthrough video:

To use it, add it to your Gemfile:

gem 'acts_as_tenant'

There are two steps in adding multi-tenancy to your app with acts_as_tenant:

1. setting the current tenant and
2. scoping your models.

There are three ways to set the current tenant:

1. by using the subdomain to lookup the current tenant,
2. by setting the current tenant in the controller, and
3. by setting the current tenant for a block.

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  set_current_tenant_by_subdomain(:account, :subdomain)
end

This tells acts_as_tenant to use the last subdomain to identify the current tenant. In addition, it tells acts_as_tenant that tenants are represented by the Account model and this model has a column named 'subdomain' which can be used to lookup the Account using the actual subdomain. If ommitted, the parameters will default to the values used above.

By default, the last subdomain will be used for lookup. Pass in subdomain_lookup: :first to use the first subdomain instead.

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  set_current_tenant_by_subdomain_or_domain(:account, :subdomain, :domain)
end

You can locate the tenant using set_current_tenant_by_subdomain_or_domain( :account, :subdomain, :domain ) which will check for a subdomain and fallback to domain.

By default, the last subdomain will be used for lookup. Pass in subdomain_lookup: :first to use the first subdomain instead.

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  set_current_tenant_through_filter
  before_action :your_method_that_finds_the_current_tenant

  def your_method_that_finds_the_current_tenant
    current_account = Account.find_it
    set_current_tenant(current_account)
  end
end

Setting the current_tenant yourself, requires you to declare set_current_tenant_through_filter at the top of your application_controller to tell acts_as_tenant that you are going to use a before_action to setup the current tenant. Next you should actually setup that before_action to fetch the current tenant and pass it to acts_as_tenant by using set_current_tenant(current_tenant) in the before_action.

If you are setting the tenant in a specific controller (except application_controller), it should to be included AT THE TOP of the file.

class MembersController < ActionController::Base
  set_current_tenant_through_filter
  before_action :set_tenant
  before_action :set_member, only: [:show, :edit, :update, :destroy]

  def set_tenant
    set_current_tenant(current_user.account)
  end
end

This allows the tenant to be set before any other code runs so everything is within the current tenant.

ActsAsTenant.with_tenant(current_account) do
  # Current tenant is set for all code in this block
end

This approach is useful when running background processes for a specified tenant. For example, by putting this in your worker's run method, any code in this block will be scoped to the current tenant. All methods that set the current tenant are thread safe.

Note: If the current tenant is not set by one of these methods, Acts_as_tenant will be unable to apply the proper scope to your models. So make sure you use one of the two methods to tell acts_as_tenant about the current tenant.

ActsAsTenant.without_tenant do
  # Tenant checking is disabled for all code in this block
end

This is useful in shared routes such as admin panels or internal dashboards when require_tenant option is enabled throughout the app.

ActsAsTenant.with_mutable_tenant do
  # Tenant updating is enabled for all code in this block
end

This will allow you to change the tenant of a model. This feature is useful for admin screens, where it is ok to allow certain users to change the tenant on existing models in specific cases.

If you want to require the tenant to be set at all times, you can configure acts_as_tenant to raise an error when a query is made without a tenant available. See below under configuration options.

class AddAccountToUsers < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def up
    add_column :users, :account_id, :integer
    add_index  :users, :account_id
  end
end

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_tenant(:account)
end

acts_as_tenant requires each scoped model to have a column in its schema linking it to a tenant. Adding acts_as_tenant to your model declaration will scope that model to the current tenant BUT ONLY if a current tenant has been set.

Some examples to illustrate this behavior:

# This manually sets the current tenant for testing purposes. In your app this is handled by the gem.
ActsAsTenant.current_tenant = Account.find(3)

# All searches are scoped by the tenant, the following searches will only return objects
# where account_id == 3
Project.all =>  # all projects with account_id => 3
Project.tasks.all #  => all tasks with account_id => 3

# New objects are scoped to the current tenant
@project = Project.new(:name => 'big project')    # => <#Project id: nil, name: 'big project', :account_id: 3>

# It will not allow the creation of objects outside the current_tenant scope
@project.account_id = 2
@project.save                                     # => false

# It will not allow association with objects outside the current tenant scope
# Assuming the Project with ID: 2 does not belong to Account with ID: 3
@task = Task.new  # => <#Task id: nil, name: nil, project_id: nil, :account_id: 3>

Acts_as_tenant uses Rails' default_scope method to scope models. Rails 3.1 changed the way default_scope works in a good way. A user defined default_scope should integrate seamlessly with the one added by acts_as_tenant.

If you need to validate for uniqueness, chances are that you want to scope this validation to a tenant. You can do so by using:

validates_uniqueness_to_tenant :name, :email

All options available to Rails' own validates_uniqueness_of are also available to this method.

You can explicitly specifiy a foreign_key for AaT to use should the key differ from the default:

acts_as_tenant(:account, :foreign_key => 'accountID') # by default AaT expects account_id

You can also explicitly specifiy a primary_key for AaT to use should the key differ from the default:

acts_as_tenant(:account, :primary_key => 'primaryID') # by default AaT expects id

You can scope a model that is part of a HABTM relationship by using the through option.

class Organisation < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :organisations_users
  has_many :users, through: :organisations_users
end

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :organisations_users
  acts_as_tenant :organisation, through: :organisations_users
end

class OrganisationsUser < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :user
  acts_as_tenant :organisation
end

An initializer can be created to control (currently one) option in ActsAsTenant. Defaults are shown below with sample overrides following. In config/initializers/acts_as_tenant.rb:

ActsAsTenant.configure do |config|
  config.require_tenant = false # true

  # Customize the query for loading the tenant in background jobs
  config.job_scope = ->{ all }
end

• config.require_tenant when set to true will raise an ActsAsTenant::NoTenant error whenever a query is made without a tenant set.

config.require_tenant can also be assigned a lambda that is evaluated at run time. For example:

ActsAsTenant.configure do |config|
  config.require_tenant = lambda do
    if $request_env.present?
      return false if $request_env["REQUEST_PATH"].start_with?("/admin/")
    end
  end
end

ActsAsTenant.should_require_tenant? is used to determine if a tenant is required in the current context, either by evaluating the lambda provided, or by returning the boolean value assigned to config.require_tenant.

When using config.require_tenant alongside the rails console, a nice quality of life tweak is to set the tenant in the console session in your initializer script. For example in config/initializers/acts_as_tenant.rb:

SET_TENANT_PROC = lambda do
  if defined?(Rails::Console)
    puts "> ActsAsTenant.current_tenant = Account.first"
    ActsAsTenant.current_tenant = Account.first
  end
end

Rails.application.configure do
  if Rails.env.development?
    # Set the tenant to the first account in development on load
    config.after_initialize do
      SET_TENANT_PROC.call
    end

    # Reset the tenant after calling 'reload!' in the console
    ActiveSupport::Reloader.to_complete do
      SET_TENANT_PROC.call
    end
  end
end

acts_as_tenant :account includes the belongs_to relationship. So when using acts_as_tenant on a model, do not add belongs_to :account alongside acts_as_tenant :account:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_tenant(:account) # YES
  belongs_to :account # REDUNDANT
end

You can add the following belongs_to options to acts_as_tenant: :foreign_key, :class_name, :inverse_of, :optional, :primary_key, :counter_cache, :polymorphic, :touch

Example: acts_as_tenant(:account, counter_cache: true)

ActsAsTenant supports

• ActiveJob - ActsAsTenant will automatically save the current tenant in ActiveJob arguments and set it when the job runs.

• Sidekiq Add the following code to config/initializers/acts_as_tenant.rb:

require 'acts_as_tenant/sidekiq'

• DelayedJob - acts_as_tenant-delayed_job

If you set the current_tenant in your tests, make sure to clean up the tenant after each test by calling ActsAsTenant.current_tenant = nil. Integration tests are more difficult: manually setting the current_tenant value will not survive across multiple requests, even if they take place within the same test. This can result in undesired boilerplate to set the desired tenant. Moreover, the efficacy of the test can be compromised because the set current_tenant value will carry over into the request-response cycle.

To address this issue, ActsAsTenant provides for a test_tenant value that can be set to allow for setup and post-request expectation testing. It should be used in conjunction with middleware that clears out this value while an integration test is processing. A typical Rails and RSpec setup might look like:

# test.rb
require_dependency 'acts_as_tenant/test_tenant_middleware'

Rails.application.configure do
  config.middleware.use ActsAsTenant::TestTenantMiddleware
end

# spec_helper.rb
config.before(:suite) do |example|
  # Make the default tenant globally available to the tests
  $default_account = Account.create!
end

config.before(:each) do |example|
  if example.metadata[:type] == :request
    # Set the `test_tenant` value for integration tests
    ActsAsTenant.test_tenant = $default_account
  else
    # Otherwise just use current_tenant
    ActsAsTenant.current_tenant = $default_account
  end
end

config.after(:each) do |example|
  # Clear any tenancy that might have been set
  ActsAsTenant.current_tenant = nil
  ActsAsTenant.test_tenant = nil
end

If you have found a bug or want to suggest an improvement, please use our issue tracked at:

github.com/ErwinM/acts_as_tenant/issues

If you want to contribute, fork the project, code your improvements and make a pull request on Github. When doing so, please don't forget to add tests. If your contribution is fixing a bug it would be perfect if you could also submit a failing test, illustrating the issue.

We use the Appraisal gem to run tests against supported versions of Rails to test for compatibility against them all. StandardRb also helps keep code formatted cleanly.

1. Fork the repo
2. Make changes
3. Run test suite with bundle exec appraisal
4. Run bundle exec standardrb to standardize code formatting
5. Submit a PR

acts_as_tenant is written by Erwin Matthijssen & Chris Oliver.

This gem was inspired by Ryan Sonnek's Multitenant gem and its use of default_scope.

Copyright (c) 2011 Erwin Matthijssen, released under the MIT license