Laravel and Sentinel. Concepts used in Sentinel?

Question

I need a role based access for my project and I have received reccomandations not to reinvent the wheel and use Sentinel. I've checked it out but I am a bit confused on how it works. The documentation really only covers how to use it but not how it works.

So, I understand the registration, users, throttling, roles and permissions. However I don't understand what a persistance, activation, checkpoint is.

How do I create permissions and attach them to roles? Inside the application code? Can I have a prrmissions table from which I retrieve them?

How to link permissions to resources? Individually in every route add a middleware?

What if I need multiple middleware for different routes?

I know I have a bunch of questions but anything would help now. My problem here is that I don't want to stary using Sentinel and realize it won't work properly with what I need to do and then start all from scratch.

Thanks

Answer 1

In my opinion, sentinel is a better option.

For example, you can seed your database with Sentinel:

Create roles

Example EXA Role

    $role = \Sentinel::getRoleRepository()->createModel()->create([
        'name' => 'Example',
        'slug' => 'EXA',
    ]);
    $role->permissions = [
        'servicio_dash' => true,
        'servicio_widget' => true,
    ];
    $role->save();

User Role USR

    $role = \Sentinel::getRoleRepository()->createModel()->create([
        'name' => 'User',
        'slug' => 'USR',
    ]);
    $role->permissions = [
        'servicio_dash' => true,
        'servicio_widget' =>false,
    ];
    $role->save();

Create 50users and asignate EXA role(Using faker)

    $usr_role = \Sentinel::findRoleBySlug('EXA');

    factory(App\User::class, 50)->make()->each(function ($u) use ($usr_role) {
        \Sentinel::registerAndActivate($u['attributes']);
    });

Bonus Track: Factory example

$factory->define(App\User::class, function (Faker\Generator $faker) {
return [
    'email' => $faker->safeEmail,
    'password' => 'p4ssw0rd',
    'first_name' =>  $faker->firstName,
    'last_name' => $faker->lastName,
    'recycle' => false,
    'phone' => $faker->phoneNumber,
    'alt_email' => $faker->email
];

});

Only one user

$yo = factory(App\User::class)->make(['email' => 'jpaniorte@openmailbox.org']);
    \Sentinel::registerAndActivate($yo['attributes']);


    $jperez = User::where('email', 'jpaniorte@openmailbox.org')->firstOrFail();
    $epa_role->users()->attach($jperez);

Authenticate Controller for API REST

  public function authenticateCredentials(Request $request)
{
    $credentials = $request->only('email', 'password');

    $user = \Sentinel::authenticate($credentials);
    return response()->json($user);
}

Authenticate with token (use JWT) and sentinel

 public function authenticate(Request $request)
{

    // grab credentials from the request
    $credentials = $request->only('email', 'password');
    try {
        // attempt to verify the credentials and create a token for the user
        if (!$token = JWTAuth::attempt($credentials)) {
        return response()->json(['error' => 'invalid_credentials'], 401);
    }
    } catch (JWTException $e) {
        // something went wrong whilst attempting to encode the token
        return response()->json(['error' => 'could_not_create_token'], 500);
    }
    // all good so return the token
    return response()->json(compact('token'));
}

Note: For this, you need configure JWT options with custom Auth provider, you can find this here

In any controller

public function hasPermission($type)
{
    //$sentinel = \Sentinel::findById(\JWTAuth::parseToken()->authenticate()->id); //->this is for a token

    $sentinel = \Sentinel::findById(1); //if you now the id


    if($sentinel->hasAccess([$type]))
        return response()->json(true, 200);
    //yout custom handle for noAccess here
}