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Installation

These instructions assume that you have already installed the CodeIgniter 4 app starter as the basis for your new project, set up your .env file, and created a database that you can access via the Spark CLI script.

Requirements

  • Composer
  • Codeigniter v4.2.3 or later
  • A created database that you can access via the Spark CLI script

Composer Installation

Installation is done through Composer. The example assumes you have it installed globally. If you have it installed as a phar, or otherwise you will need to adjust the way you call composer itself.

> composer require codeigniter4/shield

Troubleshooting

IMPORTANT: composer error

If you get the following error:

  Could not find a version of package codeigniter4/shield matching your minimum-stability (stable).
  Require it with an explicit version constraint allowing its desired stability.
  1. Add the following to change your minimum-stability in your project composer.json:

        "minimum-stability": "dev",
        "prefer-stable": true,
  2. Or specify an explicit version:

    > composer require codeigniter4/shield:dev-develop

    The above specifies develop branch. See https://getcomposer.org/doc/articles/versions.md#branches

    > composer require codeigniter4/shield:^1.0.0-beta

    The above specifies v1.0.0-beta or later and before v2.0.0. See https://getcomposer.org/doc/articles/versions.md#caret-version-range-

Initial Setup

Command Setup

  1. Run the following command. This command handles steps 1-5 of Manual Setup and runs the migrations.

    > php spark shield:setup

Manual Setup

There are a few setup items to do before you can start using Shield in your project.

  1. Copy the Auth.php and AuthGroups.php from vendor/codeigniter4/shield/src/Config/ into your project's config folder and update the namespace to Config. You will also need to have these classes extend the original classes. See the example below. These files contain all of the settings, group, and permission information for your application and will need to be modified to meet the needs of your site.

    // new file - app/Config/Auth.php
    <?php
    
    namespace Config;
    
    // ...
    use CodeIgniter\Shield\Config\Auth as ShieldAuth;
    
    class Auth extends ShieldAuth
    {
        // ...
    }
  2. Helper Setup The setting helper needs to be included in almost every page. The simplest way to do this is to add it to the BaseController::initController method:

    public function initController(RequestInterface $request, ResponseInterface $response, LoggerInterface $logger)
    {
        $this->helpers = array_merge($this->helpers, ['setting']);
    
        // Do Not Edit This Line
        parent::initController($request, $response, $logger);
    }

    This requires that all of your controllers extend the BaseController, but that's a good practice anyway.

  3. Routes Setup The default auth routes can be setup with a single call in app/Config/Routes.php:

    service('auth')->routes($routes);
  4. Security Setup Set Config\Security::$csrfProtection to 'session' (or set security.csrfProtection = session in your .env file) for security reasons, if you use Session Authenticator.

  5. Migration Run the migrations.

    > php spark migrate --all

    Note: migration error

    When you run spark migrate --all, if you get Class "SQLite3" not found error:

    1. Remove sample migration files in tests/_support/Database/Migrations/
    2. Or install sqlite3 php extension

    If you get Specified key was too long error:

    1. Use InnoDB, not MyISAM.

Controller Filters

Shield provides 4 Controller Filters you can use to protect your routes, session, tokens, and chained. The first two cover the Session and AccessTokens authenticators, respectively. The chained filter will check both authenticators in sequence to see if the user is logged in through either of authenticators, allowing a single API endpoint to work for both an SPA using session auth, and a mobile app using access tokens. The fourth, auth-rates, provides a good basis for rate limiting of auth-related routes. These can be used in any of the normal filter config settings, or within the routes file.

Protect All Pages

If you want to limit all routes (e.g. localhost:8080/admin, localhost:8080/panel and ...), you need to add the following code in the app/Config/Filters.php file.

public $globals = [
    'before' => [
        // ...
        'session' => ['except' => ['login*', 'register', 'auth/a/*']],
    ],
    // ...
];

Note These filters are already loaded for you by the registrar class located at src/Config/Registrar.php.

public $aliases = [
    // ...
    'session'    => \CodeIgniter\Shield\Filters\SessionAuth::class,
    'tokens'     => \CodeIgniter\Shield\Filters\TokenAuth::class,
    'chain'      => \CodeIgniter\Shield\Filters\ChainAuth::class,
    'auth-rates' => \CodeIgniter\Shield\Filters\AuthRates::class,
];

Rate Limiting

To help protect your authentication forms from being spammed by bots, it is recommended that you use the auth-rates filter on all of your authentication routes. This can be done with the following filter setup:

public $filters = [
    'auth-rates' => [
        'before' => [
            'login*', 'register', 'auth/*'
        ]
    ]
];