devise-token-auth.md

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Devise

###What is Devise?

• Pros

  • A flexible authentication solution for Rails
  • Offers a complete MVC solution
  • Allows you to have multiple models (eg. user, admin...etc) signed in at the same time

• Cons

  • By default Devise uses redirection and not JSON. Hence, when ajax request are sent to Devise, your reply would be an HTML render instead of JSON.
  • You can customize Devise to make it work, but this takes too much time and effort

For more read here

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###What is Devise-Token-Auth?

Devise-Token-Auth is a sibling to Devise where Devise renders HTML, Devise-Token-Auth renders JSON. Therefore, it completely eliminates the cons of Devise mentioned above.

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###Installing Devise-Token-Auth

Steps:

1. In the gemfile add gem 'devise_token_auth' and add gem 'omniauth'
2. run bundle install

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###Using Devise-Token-Auth

####Step 1) Generating The Necessary Files

Whenever you want a MVC dealing with authentication, you would need to edit/create routes, controller, model, migration. Devise-Token-Auth does this for you in 1 command

rails g devise_token_auth:install [USER_CLASS] [MOUNT_PATH]

There are two variables to input [USER_CLASS] and [MOUNT_PATH]

[USER_CLASS] is that name of the model you want (eg. User and Admin)

[MOUNT_PATH] is what the route's path will be based on. Below are some examples when [MOUNT_PATH] is set to auth

            user_session POST   /auth/sign_in(.:format)                devise_token_auth/sessions#create
    destroy_user_session DELETE /auth/sign_out(.:format)               devise_token_auth/sessions#destroy

Tip If you only have 1 model that needs authentication, then use auth as [MOUNT_PATH]

Following are the files that will be created/edited

• An initializer will be created at config/initializers/devise_token_auth.rb
• A model will be created in the app/models directory. If the model already exists, a concern will be included at the top of the file
• Routes will be appended to file at config/routes.rb
• A concern will be included by your application controller at app/controllers/application_controller.rb
• A migration file will be created in the db/migrate directory.

####Step 2) Configuring The Model Base On Needs

In app/models/USER_CLASS.rb you will see

 devise :database_authenticatable, :registerable,
          :recoverable, :rememberable, :trackable, :validatable,
          :confirmable, :omniauthable

For our purposes, please remove :confirmable

To know more about individual modules, read here

####Step 3) Configuring The Migration Base On Needs

In db/migrate find the migration generated

For our purpose remove/comment out the Confirmable columns

class DeviseTokenAuthCreateUsers < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    create_table(:users) do |t|
      ## Required
      t.string :provider, :null => false, :default => "email"
      t.string :uid, :null => false, :default => ""

      ## Database authenticatable
      t.string :encrypted_password, :null => false, :default => ""

      ## Recoverable
      t.string   :reset_password_token
      t.datetime :reset_password_sent_at

      ## Rememberable
      t.datetime :remember_created_at

      ## Trackable
      t.integer  :sign_in_count, :default => 0, :null => false
      t.datetime :current_sign_in_at
      t.datetime :last_sign_in_at
      t.string   :current_sign_in_ip
      t.string   :last_sign_in_ip

      ## Confirmable
      # t.string   :confirmation_token
      # t.datetime :confirmed_at
      # t.datetime :confirmation_sent_at
      # t.string   :unconfirmed_email # Only if using reconfirmable

      ## Lockable
      # t.integer  :failed_attempts, :default => 0, :null => false # Only if lock strategy is :failed_attempts
      # t.string   :unlock_token # Only if unlock strategy is :email or :both
      # t.datetime :locked_at

      ## User Info
      t.string :name
      t.string :nickname
      t.string :image
      t.string :email

      ## Tokens
      t.json :tokens

      t.timestamps
    end

    add_index :users, :email
    add_index :users, [:uid, :provider],     :unique => true
    add_index :users, :reset_password_token, :unique => true
    # add_index :users, :confirmation_token,   :unique => true
    # add_index :users, :unlock_token,         :unique => true
  end
end

####Step 4) Running The Migrations

Run rake db:migrate

The back-end is now ready for use!