yamled acl

Simple authorization library for Ruby on Rails in which permissions are stored in YAML files. Provides porotection before unauthorized access to controller actions. Very simple to configure and use.

Installation

Using gemfile

gem "yamled_acl"

or using gem command

gem install "yamled_acl"

or as a plugin

rails plugin install git://github.com/pkubicki/yamled_acl.git

Configuration

YamledAcl provides following configuration options, you could set them through setup method:

files_with_permissions_path - path to files with permissions, (default: "config/acl")
reload_permissions_on_each_request - as name says, for Rails you may want to set Rails.env.development? (default: false)
groups - allows to specify groups names, it's empty by default
guest_group_name - allows to override default guest group name (default: "guest"), guest group name is added to groups table automatically

For Rails application the best place to store configuration is an initializer. An example:

# config/initialzers/yamled_acl.rb:

YamledAcl.setup do |config|
  config.files_with_permissions_path = 'config/acl'
  config.reload_permissions_on_each_request = Rails.env.development?
  config.groups = %w(admin member)
  config.guest_group_name = 'guest'
end

In the ApplicationController you should add

before_filter :authorize_action

It assumes that there is already defined current_user method which returns logged user object. User object should respond to group_name method which should return name of current user group. If you want to override method name returning group name it could be done by current_user_group_method of the controller. Here is an example:

# app/controllers/application_controller.rb

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  current_user_group_method: group
  before_filter :authorize_action
end

Setting up permissions

Permissions are stored in yaml files. Each action of controller should have defined which groups are allowed to access it. It could be done by using one of the following options: allow_all, deny_all, group name or array of group names. An example:

# config/acl/posts.yml

index: allow_all
show: allow_all
new: admin
create: admin
edit: [admin, member]
update: [admin, member]
destroy: deny_all

Helper methods

Following methods may be used in controllers and views:

allowed_to?(action_name, controller_name) - it takes two arguments action_name and controller_name but if the second one is not given currelntly processed controller name will be used
```
  <% if allowed_to?(:update) %>
    <%= link_to "Edit", edit_post_path(@post) %>
  <% end %>
```
logged_in? - returns true if there is a logged in user

ChangeLog

0.3.0 (March 24, 2013)

ruby 2.0 compatibility
authorize method name relpaced with less conflicting authorize_action

0.2.0 (November 9, 2010)

first official release

yamled_acl