Simple rails gem for basic role authorization with ruby on rails.

Install

  gem install gemcutter
  gem tumble
  gem install easy_roles

or it can be installed as a rails plugin.

  script/plugin install git://github.com/platform45/easy_roles.git

Basic Setup

Add the following to your enviroment.rb in the rails initializer block

  config.gem 'easy_roles', :source => 'http://gemcutter.org'

Add a "roles" column to your users model, and set the default value to "— []". Please note you can call this column anything you like, I like to use the name "roles".

  t.string :roles, :default => "--- []"

Then you need to add "easy_roles :column_name" to your model.

  class User < ActiveRecord::Base
    easy_roles :roles
  end

And thats it.

Usage

Easy roles extends your model, and adds a few methods needed for basic role authorization.

adding a role to a user

  add_role 'role'

removing a role from a user

  remove_role 'role'

check to see if a user has a certain role

  has_role? 'role'
  # or
  is_role? # role being anything you like, for example 'is_admin?' or 'is_awesome?'

Examples

  @user = User.first

  @user.add_role 'admin'

  @user.is_admin?
  => true

  @user.has_role? 'admin'
  => true

  @user.is_awesome?
  => false

  @user.add_role 'awesome'

  @user.is_awesome?
  => true

  @user.remove_role 'admin'

  @user.is_admin?
  => false

  etc etc

Protecting controllers

There are many ways to implement views for specific roles, so I did not specifically supply one. Here’s an example on what you could do:

  class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base

     def admin_required
       unless current_user && current_user.is_admin?
         flash[:error] = "Sorry, you don't have access to that."
         redirect_to root_url and return false
       end
     end

  end

Then in your AdminsController or any controller that you only want admins to view:

  class AdminsController < ApplicationController
     before_filter :admin_required
  end

  class MarksController < ApplicationController
     before_filter :admin_required, :only => :create, :update
  end

check out http://blog.platform45.com/2009/10/06/howto-basic-roles-for-users for implementation!

License

Copyright © 2009 Platform45

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.