Skip to content

Authorization

Authorization happens once a user has been identified through authentication. It is the process of determining what actions a user is allowed to do within your site.

Shield provides a flexible role-based access control (RBAC) that allows users to belong to multiple groups at once. Groups can be thought of as traditional roles (admin, moderator, user, etc), but can also group people together around features, like Beta feature access, or used to provide discrete groups of users within a forum, etc.

Defining Available Groups

Groups are defined within the Shield\Config\AuthGroups config class.


public $groups = [
    'superadmin' => [
        'title'       => 'Super Admin',
        'description' => 'Optional description of the group.',
    ],
];

The key of the $groups array is the common term of the group. This is what you would call when referencing the group elsewhere, like checking if $user->inGroup('superadmin'). By default, the following groups are available: superadmin, admin, developer, user, and beta.

Default User Group

When a user is first registered on the site, they are assigned to a default user group. This group is defined in app/config/AuthGroups::defaultGroup, and must match the name of one of the defined groups.

public $defaultGroup = 'users';

Defining Available Permissions

All permissions must be added to the AuthGroups config file, also. A permission is simply a string consisting of a scope and action, like users.create. The scope would be users and the action would be create. Each permission can have a description for display within UIs if needed.

public $permissions = [
    'admin.access'        => 'Can access the sites admin area',
    'admin.settings'      => 'Can access the main site settings',
    'users.manage-admins' => 'Can manage other admins',
    'users.create'        => 'Can create new non-admin users',
    'users.edit'          => 'Can edit existing non-admin users',
    'users.delete'        => 'Can delete existing non-admin users',
    'beta.access'         => 'Can access beta-level features'
];

Assigning Permissions to Groups

In order to grant any permissions to a group, they must have the permission assigned to the group, within the AuthGroups config file, under the $matrix property. The matrix is an associative array with the group name as the key, and an array of permissions that should be applied to that group.

public $matrix = [
    'admin' => ['admin.access', 'users.create', 'users.edit', 'users.delete', 'beta.access'],
];

You can use a wildcard within a scope to allow all actions within that scope, by using a * in place of the action.

public $matrix = [
    'superadmin' => ['admin.*', 'users.*', 'beta.*'],
];

Authorizing Users

The Authorizable trait on the User entity provides the following methods to authorize your users.

can()

Allows you to check if a user is permitted to do a specific action. The only argument is the permission string. Returns boolean true/false. Will check the user's direct permissions first, and then check against all of the user's groups permissions to determine if they are allowed.

if ($user->can('users.create')) {
    //
}

inGroup()

Checks if the user is in one of the groups passed in. Returns boolean true/false.

if (! $user->inGroup('superadmin', 'admin')) {
    //
}

hasPermission()

Checks to see if the user has the permission set directly on themselves. This disregards any groups they are part of.

if (! $user->hasPermission('users.create')) {
    //
}

Managing User Permissions

Permissions can be granted on a user level as well as on a group level. Any user-level permissions granted will override the group, so it's possible that a user can perform an action that their groups cannot.

addPermission()

Adds one or more permissions to the user. If a permission doesn't exist, a CodeIgniter\Shield\Authorization\AuthorizationException is thrown.

$user->addPermission('users.create', 'users.edit');

removePermission()

Removes one or more permissions from a user. If a permission doesn't exist, a CodeIgniter\Shield\Authorization\AuthorizationException is thrown.

$user->removePermission('users.delete');

syncPermissions()

Updates the user's permissions to only include the permissions in the given list. Any existing permissions on that user not in this list will be removed.

$user->syncPermissions('admin.access', 'beta.access');

getPermissions()

Returns all permissions this user has assigned directly to them.

$user->getPermissions();

Managing User Groups

addGroup()

Adds one or more groups to a user. If a group doesn't exist, a CodeIgniter\Shield\Authorization\AuthorizationException is thrown.

$user->addGroup('admin', 'beta');

removeGroup()

Removes one or more groups from a user. If a group doesn't exist, a CodeIgniter\Shield\Authorization\AuthorizationException is thrown.

$user->removeGroup('admin', 'beta');

syncGroups()

Updates the user's groups to only include the groups in the given list. Any existing groups on that user not in this list will be removed.

$user->syncGroups('admin', 'beta');

getGroups()

Returns all groups this user is a part of. 

$user->getGroups();