Simple, secure token based authentication for Rails.

This gem provides the following features:

Seamless integration with both the the venerable ng-token-auth module for angular.js and the outstanding jToker plugin for jQuery.
Oauth2 authentication using OmniAuth.
Email authentication using Devise, including:
- User registration
- Password reset
- Account updates
- Account deletion
Support for multiple user models.
It is secure.

Live Demos

Here is a demo of this app running with the ng-token-auth module and AngularJS.

Here is a demo of this app using the jToker plugin and React.

The fully configured api used in these demos can be found here.

Troubleshooting

Please read the issue reporting guidelines before posting issues.

Dependencies

This project leverages the following gems:

Devise
OmniAuth

Installation

Add the following to your Gemfile:

gem 'devise_token_auth'

Then install the gem using bundle:

bundle install

Configuration TL;DR

You will need to create a user model, define routes, include concerns, and you may want to alter some of the default settings for this gem. Run the following command for an easy one-step installation:

rails g devise_token_auth:install [USER_CLASS] [MOUNT_PATH]

Example:

rails g devise_token_auth:install User auth

This generator accepts the following optional arguments:

Argument	Default	Description
USER_CLASS	`User`	The name of the class to use for user authentication.
MOUNT_PATH	`auth`	The path at which to mount the authentication routes. Read more.

The following events will take place when using the install generator:

An initializer will be created at config/initializers/devise_token_auth.rb. Read more.
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. Read more.
Routes will be appended to file at config/routes.rb. Read more.
A concern will be included by your application controller at app/controllers/application_controller.rb. Read more.
A migration file will be created in the db/migrate directory. Inspect the migrations file, add additional columns if necessary, and then run the migration:
```
rake db:migrate
```

You may also need to configure the following items:

OmniAuth providers when using 3rd party oauth2 authentication. Read more.
Cross Origin Request Settings when using cross-domain clients. Read more.
Email when using email registration. Read more.
Multiple model support may require additional steps. Read more.

Jump here for more configuration information.

Usage TL;DR

The following routes are available for use by your client. These routes live relative to the path at which this engine is mounted (auth by default). These routes correspond to the defaults used by the ng-token-auth module for AngularJS and the jToker plugin for jQuery.

path	method	purpose
/	POST	Email registration. Requires `email`, `password`, and `password_confirmation` params. A verification email will be sent to the email address provided. Accepted params can be customized using the `devise_parameter_sanitizer` system.
/	DELETE	Account deletion. This route will destroy users identified by their `uid` and `auth_token` headers.
/	PUT	Account updates. This route will update an existing user's account settings. The default accepted params are `password` and `password_confirmation`, but this can be customized using the `devise_parameter_sanitizer` system. If `config.check_current_password_before_update` is set to `:attributes` the `current_password` param is checked before any update, if it is set to `:password` the `current_password` param is checked only if the request updates user password.
/sign_in	POST	Email authentication. Requires `email` and `password` as params. This route will return a JSON representation of the `User` model on successful login along with the `access-token` and `client` in the header of the response.
/sign_out	DELETE	Use this route to end the user's current session. This route will invalidate the user's authentication token. You must pass in `uid`, `client`, and `access-token` in the request headers.
/:provider	GET	Set this route as the destination for client authentication. Ideally this will happen in an external window or popup. Read more.
/:provider/callback	GET/POST	Destination for the oauth2 provider's callback uri. `postMessage` events containing the authenticated user's data will be sent back to the main client window from this page. Read more.
/validate_token	GET	Use this route to validate tokens on return visits to the client. Requires `uid`, `client`, and `access-token` as params. These values should correspond to the columns in your `User` table of the same names.
/password	POST	Use this route to send a password reset confirmation email to users that registered by email. Accepts `email` and `redirect_url` as params. The user matching the `email` param will be sent instructions on how to reset their password. `redirect_url` is the url to which the user will be redirected after visiting the link contained in the email.
/password	PUT	Use this route to change users' passwords. Requires `password` and `password_confirmation` as params. This route is only valid for users that registered by email (OAuth2 users will receive an error). It also checks `current_password` if `config.check_current_password_before_update` is not set `false` (disabled by default).
/password/edit	GET	Verify user by password reset token. This route is the destination URL for password reset confirmation. This route must contain `reset_password_token` and `redirect_url` params. These values will be set automatically by the confirmation email that is generated by the password reset request.

Jump here for more usage information.

Configuration cont.

Initializer settings

The following settings are available for configuration in config/initializers/devise_token_auth.rb:

Name	Default	Description
`change_headers_on_each_request`	`true`	By default the access-token header will change after each request. The client is responsible for keeping track of the changing tokens. Both ng-token-auth and jToker do this out of the box. While this implementation is more secure, it can be difficult to manage. Set this to false to prevent the `access-token` header from changing after each request. Read more.
`token_lifespan`	`2.weeks`	Set the length of your tokens' lifespans. Users will need to re-authenticate after this duration of time has passed since their last login.
`batch_request_buffer_throttle`	`5.seconds`	Sometimes it's necessary to make several requests to the API at the same time. In this case, each request in the batch will need to share the same auth token. This setting determines how far apart the requests can be while still using the same auth token. Read more.
`omniauth_prefix`	`"/omniauth"`	This route will be the prefix for all oauth2 redirect callbacks. For example, using the default '/omniauth' setting, the github oauth2 provider will redirect successful authentications to '/omniauth/github/callback'. Read more.
`default_confirm_success_url`	`nil`	By default this value is expected to be sent by the client so that the API knows where to redirect users after successful email confirmation. If this param is set, the API will redirect to this value when no value is provided by the client.
`default_password_reset_url`	`nil`	By default this value is expected to be sent by the client so that the API knows where to redirect users after successful password resets. If this param is set, the API will redirect to this value when no value is provided by the client.
`redirect_whitelist`	`nil`	As an added security measure, you can limit the URLs to which the API will redirect after email token validation (password reset, email confirmation, etc.). This value should be an array containing exact matches to the client URLs to be visited after validation.
`enable_standard_devise_support`	`false`	By default, only Bearer Token authentication is implemented out of the box. If, however, you wish to integrate with legacy Devise authentication, you can do so by enabling this flag. NOTE: This feature is highly experimental!
`remove_tokens_after_password_reset`	`false`	By default, old tokens are not invalidated when password is changed. Enable this option if you want to make passwords updates to logout other devices.
`default_callbacks`	`true`	By default User model will include the `DeviseTokenAuth::Concerns::UserOmniauthCallbacks` concern, which has `email`, `uid` validations & `uid` synchronization callbacks.

Additionally, you can configure other aspects of devise by manually creating the traditional devise.rb file at config/initializers/devise.rb. Here are some examples of what you can do in this file:

Devise.setup do |config|
  # The e-mail address that mail will appear to be sent from
  # If absent, mail is sent from "please-change-me-at-config-initializers-devise@example.com"
  config.mailer_sender = "support@myapp.com"

  # If using rails-api, you may want to tell devise to not use ActionDispatch::Flash
  # middleware b/c rails-api does not include it.
  # See: http://stackoverflow.com/q/19600905/806956
  config.navigational_formats = [:json]
end

OmniAuth authentication

If you wish to use omniauth authentication, add all of your desired authentication provider gems to your Gemfile.

OmniAuth example using github, facebook, and google:

gem 'omniauth-github'
gem 'omniauth-facebook'
gem 'omniauth-google-oauth2'

Then run bundle install.

List of oauth2 providers

OmniAuth provider settings

In config/initializers/omniauth.rb, add the settings for each of your providers.

These settings must be obtained from the providers themselves.

Example using github, facebook, and google:

# config/initializers/omniauth.rb
Rails.application.config.middleware.use OmniAuth::Builder do
  provider :github,        ENV['GITHUB_KEY'],   ENV['GITHUB_SECRET'],   scope: 'email,profile'
  provider :facebook,      ENV['FACEBOOK_KEY'], ENV['FACEBOOK_SECRET']
  provider :google_oauth2, ENV['GOOGLE_KEY'],   ENV['GOOGLE_SECRET']
end

The above example assumes that your provider keys and secrets are stored in environmental variables. Use the figaro gem (or dotenv or secrets.yml or equivalent) to accomplish this.

OmniAuth callback settings

The "Callback URL" setting that you set with your provider must correspond to the omniauth prefix setting defined by this app. This will be different than the omniauth route that is used by your client application.

For example, the demo app uses the default omniauth_prefix setting /omniauth, so the "Authorization callback URL" for github must be set to "http://devise-token-auth-demo.herokuapp.com**/omniauth**/github/callback".

Github example for the demo site:

The url for github authentication will be different for the client. The client should visit the API at /[MOUNT_PATH]/:provider for omniauth authentication.

For example, given that the app is mounted using the following settings:

# config/routes.rb
mount_devise_token_auth_for 'User', at: 'auth'

The client configuration for github should look like this:

Angular.js setting for authenticating using github:

angular.module('myApp', ['ng-token-auth'])
  .config(function($authProvider) {
    $authProvider.configure({
      apiUrl: 'http://api.example.com'
      authProviderPaths: {
        github: '/auth/github' // <-- note that this is different than what was set with github
      }
    });
  });

**jToker settings for github should look like this:

$.auth.configure({
  apiUrl: 'http://api.example.com',
  authProviderPaths: {
    github: '/auth/github' // <-- note that this is different than what was set with github
  }
});

This incongruence is necessary to support multiple user classes and mounting points.

Note for pow and xip.io users

If you receive redirect-uri-mismatch errors from your provider when using pow or xip.io urls, set the following in your development config:

# config/environments/development.rb

# when using pow
OmniAuth.config.full_host = "http://app-name.dev"

# when using xip.io
OmniAuth.config.full_host = "http://xxx.xxx.xxx.app-name.xip.io"

Email authentication

If you wish to use email authentication, you must configure your Rails application to send email. Read here for more information.

I recommend using mailcatcher for development.

mailcatcher development example configuration:

# config/environments/development.rb
Rails.application.configure do
  config.action_mailer.default_url_options = { :host => 'your-dev-host.dev' }
  config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :smtp
  config.action_mailer.smtp_settings = { :address => 'your-dev-host.dev', :port => 1025 }
end

If you wish to send custom e-mails instead of using the default devise templates, you can do that too.

Customizing Devise Verbiage

Devise Token Auth ships with intelligent default wording for everything you need. But that doesn't mean you can't make it more awesome. You can override the devise defaults by creating a YAML file at config/locales/devise.en.yml and assigning whatever custom values you want. For example, to customize the subject line of your devise e-mails, you could do this:

en:
  devise:
    mailer:
      confirmation_instructions:
        subject: "Please confirm your e-mail address"
      reset_password_instructions:
        subject: "Reset password request"

CORS

If your API and client live on different domains, you will need to configure your Rails API to allow cross origin requests. The rack-cors gem can be used to accomplish this.

The following dangerous example will allow cross domain requests from any domain. Make sure to whitelist only the needed domains.

Example rack-cors configuration:

# gemfile
gem 'rack-cors', :require => 'rack/cors'

# config/application.rb
module YourApp
  class Application < Rails::Application
    config.middleware.use Rack::Cors do
      allow do
        origins '*'
        resource '*',
          :headers => :any,
          :expose  => ['access-token', 'expiry', 'token-type', 'uid', 'client'],
          :methods => [:get, :post, :options, :delete, :put]
      end
    end
  end
end

Make extra sure that the Access-Control-Expose-Headers includes access-token, expiry, token-type, uid, and client (as is set in the example above by the:expose param). If your client experiences erroneous 401 responses, this is likely the cause.

CORS may not be possible with older browsers (IE8, IE9). I usually set up a proxy for those browsers. See the ng-token-auth readme or the jToker readme for more information.

Usage cont.

Mounting Routes

The authentication routes must be mounted to your project. This gem includes a route helper for this purpose:

mount_devise_token_auth_for - similar to devise_for, this method is used to append the routes necessary for user authentication. This method accepts the following arguments:

Argument	Type	Default	Description
`class_name`	string	'User'	The name of the class to use for authentication. This class must include the model concern described here.
`options`	object	{at: 'auth'}	The routes to be used for authentication will be prefixed by the path specified in the `at` param of this object.

Example:

# config/routes.rb
mount_devise_token_auth_for 'User', at: 'auth'

Any model class can be used, but the class will need to include DeviseTokenAuth::Concerns::User for authentication to work properly.

You can mount this engine to any route that you like. /auth is used by default to conform with the defaults of the ng-token-auth module and the jToker plugin.

Controller Methods

Concerns

This gem includes a Rails concern called DeviseTokenAuth::Concerns::SetUserByToken. Include this concern to provide access to controller methods such as authenticate_user!, user_signed_in?, etc.

The concern also runs an after_action that changes the auth token after each request.

It is recommended to include the concern in your base ApplicationController so that all children of that controller include the concern as well.

Concern example:

# app/controllers/application_controller.rb
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  include DeviseTokenAuth::Concerns::SetUserByToken
end

Methods

This gem provides access to all of the following devise helpers:

Method	Description
`before_action :authenticate_user!`	Returns a 401 error unless a `User` is signed-in.
`current_user`	Returns the currently signed-in `User`, or `nil` if unavailable.
`user_signed_in?`	Returns `true` if a `User` is signed in, otherwise `false`.
`devise_token_auth_group`	Operate on multiple user classes as a group. Read more

Note that if the model that you're trying to access isn't called User, the helper method names will change. For example, if the user model is called Admin, the methods would look like this:

before_action :authenticate_admin!
admin_signed_in?
current_admin

Example: limit access to authenticated users

# app/controllers/test_controller.rb
class TestController < ApplicationController
  before_action :authenticate_user!

  def members_only
    render json: {
      data: {
        message: "Welcome #{current_user.name}",
        user: current_user
      }
    }, status: 200
  end
end

Token Header Format

The authentication information should be included by the client in the headers of each request. The headers follow the RFC 6750 Bearer Token format:

Authentication headers example:

"access-token": "wwwww",
"token-type":   "Bearer",
"client":       "xxxxx",
"expiry":       "yyyyy",
"uid":          "zzzzz"

The authentication headers consists of the following params:

param	description
`access-token`	This serves as the user's password for each request. A hashed version of this value is stored in the database for later comparison. This value should be changed on each request.
`client`	This enables the use of multiple simultaneous sessions on different clients. (For example, a user may want to be authenticated on both their phone and their laptop at the same time.)
`expiry`	The date at which the current session will expire. This can be used by clients to invalidate expired tokens without the need for an API request.
`uid`	A unique value that is used to identify the user. This is necessary because searching the DB for users by their access token will make the API susceptible to timing attacks.

The authentication headers required for each request will be available in the response from the previous request. If you are using the ng-token-auth AngularJS module or the jToker jQuery plugin, this functionality is already provided.

Model Concerns

DeviseTokenAuth::Concerns::User

Typical use of this gem will not require the use of any of the following model methods. All authentication should be handled invisibly by the controller concerns described above.

Models that include the DeviseTokenAuth::Concerns::User concern will have access to the following public methods (read the above section for context on token and client):

valid_token?: check if an authentication token is valid. Accepts a token and client as arguments. Returns a boolean.

Example:

# extract token + client_id from auth header
client_id = request.headers['client']
token = request.headers['access-token']

@resource.valid_token?(token, client_id)

create_new_auth_token: creates a new auth token with all of the necessary metadata. Accepts client as an optional argument. Will generate a new client if none is provided. Returns the authentication headers that should be sent by the client as an object.

Example:

# extract client_id from auth header
client_id = request.headers['client']

# update token, generate updated auth headers for response
new_auth_header = @resource.create_new_auth_token(client_id)

# update response with the header that will be required by the next request
response.headers.merge!(new_auth_header)

build_auth_header: generates the auth header that should be sent to the client with the next request. Accepts token and client as arguments. Returns a string.

Example:

# create client id and token
client_id = SecureRandom.urlsafe_base64(nil, false)
token     = SecureRandom.urlsafe_base64(nil, false)

# store client + token in user's token hash
@resource.tokens[client_id] = {
  token: BCrypt::Password.create(token),
  expiry: (Time.now + DeviseTokenAuth.token_lifespan).to_i
}

# generate auth headers for response
new_auth_header = @resource.build_auth_header(token, client_id)

# update response with the header that will be required by the next request
response.headers.merge!(new_auth_header)

Using multiple models

View Live Multi-User Demos

AngularJS
React + jToker

This gem supports the use of multiple user models. One possible use case is to authenticate visitors using a model called User, and to authenticate administrators with a model called Admin. Take the following steps to add another authentication model to your app:

Run the install generator for the new model.

rails g devise_token_auth:install Admin admin_auth

This will create the Admin model and define the model's authentication routes with the base path /admin_auth.

Define the routes to be used by the Admin user within a devise_scope.

Example:

Rails.application.routes.draw do
  # when using multiple models, controllers will default to the first available
  # devise mapping. routes for subsequent devise mappings will need to defined
  # within a `devise_scope` block

  # define :users as the first devise mapping:
  mount_devise_token_auth_for 'User', at: 'auth'

  # define :admins as the second devise mapping. routes using this class will
  # need to be defined within a devise_scope as shown below
  mount_devise_token_auth_for "Admin", at: 'admin_auth'

  # this route will authorize requests using the User class
  get 'demo/members_only', to: 'demo#members_only'

  # routes within this block will authorize requests using the Admin class
  devise_scope :admin do
    get 'demo/admins_only', to: 'demo#admins_only'
  end
end

Configure any Admin restricted controllers. Controllers will now have access to the methods described here:

before_action :authenticate_admin!
current_admin
admin_signed_in?

Group access

It is also possible to control access to multiple user types at the same time using groups. The following example shows how to limit controller access to both User and Admin users.

Example: group authentication

class DemoGroupController < ApplicationController
  devise_token_auth_group :member, contains: [:user, :admin]
  before_action :authenticate_member!

  def members_only
    render json: {
      data: {
        message: "Welcome #{current_member.name}",
        user: current_member
      }
    }, status: 200
  end
end

In the above example, the following methods will be available (in addition to current_user, current_admin, etc.):

before_action: :authenticate_member!
current_member
member_signed_in?

Excluding Modules

By default, almost all of the Devise modules are included:

database_authenticatable
registerable
recoverable
trackable
validatable
confirmable
omniauthable

You may not want all of these features enabled in your app. That's OK! You can mix and match to suit your own unique style.

The following example shows how to disable email confirmation.

Example: disable email confirmation

Just list the devise modules that you want to include before including the DeviseTokenAuth::Concerns::User model concern.

# app/models/user.rb
class User < ActiveRecord::Base

  # notice this comes BEFORE the include statement below
  # also notice that :confirmable is not included in this block
  devise :database_authenticatable, :recoverable,
         :trackable, :validatable, :registerable,
         :omniauthable

  # note that this include statement comes AFTER the devise block above
  include DeviseTokenAuth::Concerns::User
end

Some features include routes that you may not want mounted to your app. The following example shows how to disable OAuth and its routes.

Example: disable OAuth authentication

First instruct the model not to include the omniauthable module.

# app/models/user.rb
class User < ActiveRecord::Base

  # notice that :omniauthable is not included in this block
  devise :database_authenticatable, :confirmable,
         :recoverable, :trackable, :validatable,
         :registerable

  include DeviseTokenAuth::Concerns::User
end

Now tell the route helper to skip mounting the omniauth_callbacks controller:

Rails.application.routes.draw do
  # config/routes.rb
  mount_devise_token_auth_for 'User', at: 'auth', skip: [:omniauth_callbacks]
end

Custom Controller Overrides

The built-in controllers can be overridden with your own custom controllers.

For example, the default behavior of the validate_token method of the TokenValidationController is to return the User object as json (sans password and token data). The following example shows how to override the validate_token action to include a model method as well.

Example: controller overrides

# config/routes.rb
Rails.application.routes.draw do
  ...
  mount_devise_token_auth_for 'User', at: 'auth', controllers: {
    token_validations:  'overrides/token_validations'
  }
end

# app/controllers/overrides/token_validations_controller.rb
module Overrides
  class TokenValidationsController < DeviseTokenAuth::TokenValidationsController

    def validate_token
      # @resource will have been set by set_user_by_token concern
      if @resource
        render json: {
          data: @resource.as_json(methods: :calculate_operating_thetan)
        }
      else
        render json: {
          success: false,
          errors: ["Invalid login credentials"]
        }, status: 401
      end
    end
  end
end

Overriding rendering methods

To customize json rendering, implement the following protected controller methods, for success methods, assume that the @resource object is available:

Registrations Controller

render_create_error_missing_confirm_success_url
render_create_error_redirect_url_not_allowed
render_create_success
render_create_error
render_create_error_email_already_exists
render_update_success
render_update_error
render_update_error_user_not_found

Sessions Controller

render_new_error
render_create_success
render_create_error_not_confirmed
render_create_error_bad_credentials
render_destroy_success
render_destroy_error

Passwords Controller

render_create_error_missing_email
render_create_error_missing_redirect_url
render_create_error_not_allowed_redirect_url
render_create_success
render_create_error
render_update_error_unauthorized
render_update_error_password_not_required
render_update_error_missing_password
render_update_success
render_update_error

Token Validations Controller

render_validate_token_success
render_validate_token_error

Example: all :controller options with default settings:

mount_devise_token_auth_for 'User', at: 'auth', controllers: {
  confirmations:      'devise_token_auth/confirmations',
  passwords:          'devise_token_auth/passwords',
  omniauth_callbacks: 'devise_token_auth/omniauth_callbacks',
  registrations:      'devise_token_auth/registrations',
  sessions:           'devise_token_auth/sessions',
  token_validations:  'devise_token_auth/token_validations'
}

Note: Controller overrides must implement the expected actions of the controllers that they replace.

Passing blocks to Controllers

It may be that you simply want to add behavior to existing controllers without having to re-implement their behavior completely. In this case, you can do so by creating a new controller that inherits from any of DeviseTokenAuth's controllers, overriding whichever methods you'd like to add behavior to by passing a block to super:

class Custom::RegistrationsController < DeviseTokenAuth::RegistrationsController

  def create
    super do |resource|
      resource.do_something(extra)
    end
  end

end

Your block will be performed just before the controller would usually render a successful response.

Email Template Overrides

You will probably want to override the default email templates for email sign-up and password-reset confirmation. Run the following command to copy the email templates into your app:

rails generate devise_token_auth:install_views

This will create two new files:

app/views/devise/mailer/reset_password_instructions.html.erb
app/views/devise/mailer/confirmation_instructions.html.erb

These files may be edited to suit your taste. You can customize the e-mail subjects like this.

Note: if you choose to modify these templates, do not modify the link_to blocks unless you absolutely know what you are doing.

Issue Reporting

When posting issues, please include the following information to speed up the troubleshooting process:

Version: which version of this gem (and ng-token-auth / jToker if applicable) are you using?
Request and response headers: these can be found in the "Network" tab of your browser's web inspector.
Rails Stacktrace: this can be found in the log/development.log of your API.
Environmental Info: How is your application different from the reference implementation? This may include (but is not limited to) the following details:
- Routes: are you using some crazy namespace, scope, or constraint?
- Gems: are you using MongoDB, Grape, RailsApi, ActiveAdmin, etc.?
- Custom Overrides: what have you done in terms of custom controller overrides?
- Custom Frontend: are you using ng-token-auth, jToker, or something else?

FAQ

Can I use this gem alongside standard Devise?

Yes! But you will need to enable the support use separate routes for standard Devise. So do something like this:

config/initializers/devise_token_auth.rb

DeviseTokenAuth.setup do |config|
  # config.enable_standard_devise_support = false
end

config/routes.rb

Rails.application.routes.draw do

  # standard devise routes available at /users
  # NOTE: make sure this comes first!!!
  devise_for :users

  # token auth routes available at /api/v1/auth
  namespace :api do
    scope :v1 do
      mount_devise_token_auth_for 'User', at: 'auth'
    end
  end

end

Why are the `new` routes included if this gem doesn't use them?

Removing the new routes will require significant modifications to devise. If the inclusion of the new routes is causing your app any problems, post an issue in the issue tracker and it will be addressed ASAP.

I'm having trouble using this gem alongside ActiveAdmin...

For some odd reason, ActiveAdmin extends from your own app's ApplicationController. This becomes a problem if you include the DeviseTokenAuth::Concerns::SetUserByToken concern in your app's ApplicationController.

The solution is to use two separate ApplicationController classes - one for your API, and one for ActiveAdmin. Something like this:

# app/controllers/api_controller.rb
# API routes extend from this controller
class ApiController < ActionController::Base
  include DeviseTokenAuth::Concerns::SetUserByToken
end

# app/controllers/application_controller.rb
# leave this for ActiveAdmin, and any other non-api routes
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
end

Conceptual

None of the following information is required to use this gem, but read on if you're curious.

About token management

Tokens should be invalidated after each request to the API. The following diagram illustrates this concept:

During each request, a new token is generated. The access-token header that should be used in the next request is returned in the access-token header of the response to the previous request. The last request in the diagram fails because it tries to use a token that was invalidated by the previous request.

The only case where an expired token is allowed is during batch requests.

These measures are taken by default when using this gem.

About batch requests

By default, the API should update the auth token for each request (read more). But sometimes it's necessary to make several concurrent requests to the API, for example:

#####Batch request example

$scope.getResourceData = function() {

  $http.get('/api/restricted_resource_1').success(function(resp) {
    // handle response
    $scope.resource1 = resp.data;
  });

  $http.get('/api/restricted_resource_2').success(function(resp) {
    // handle response
    $scope.resource2 = resp.data;
  });
};

In this case, it's impossible to update the access-token header for the second request with the access-token header of the first response because the second request will begin before the first one is complete. The server must allow these batches of concurrent requests to share the same auth token. This diagram illustrates how batch requests are identified by the server:

The "5 second" buffer in the diagram is the default used this gem.

The following diagram details the relationship between the client, server, and access tokens used over time when dealing with batch requests:

Note that when the server identifies that a request is part of a batch request, the user's auth token is not updated. The auth token will be updated for the first request in the batch, and then that same token will be returned in the responses for each subsequent request in the batch (as shown in the diagram).

This gem automatically manages batch requests. You can change the time buffer for what is considered a batch request using the batch_request_buffer_throttle parameter in config/initializers/devise_token_auth.rb.

Security

This gem takes the following steps to ensure security.

This gem uses auth tokens that are:

changed after every request (can be turned off),
of cryptographic strength,
hashed using BCrypt (not stored in plain-text),
securely compared (to protect against timing attacks),
invalidated after 2 weeks (thus requiring users to login again)

These measures were inspired by this stackoverflow post.

This gem further mitigates timing attacks by using this technique.

But the most important step is to use HTTPS. You are on the hook for that.

Callouts

Thanks to the following contributors:

@booleanbetrayal
@guilhermesimoes
@jasonswett
@m2omou
@smarquez1
@jartek
@nicolas-besnard
@tbloncar
@nickL
@mchavarriagam

Contributing

Create a feature branch with your changes.
Write some test cases.
Make all the tests pass.
Issue a pull request.

I will grant you commit access if you send quality pull requests.

To run the test suite do the following:

Clone this repo
Run bundle install
Run rake db:migrate
Run RAILS_ENV=test rake db:migrate
Run guard

The last command will open the guard test-runner. Guard will re-run each test suite when changes are made to its corresponding files.

To run just one test:

Clone this repo
Run bundle install
Run rake db:migrate
Run RAILS_ENV=test rake db:migrate
See this link for various ways to run a single file or a single test: http://flavio.castelli.name/2010/05/28/rails_execute_single_test/

License

This project uses the WTFPL

Files

README.md

Latest commit

History

README.md

File metadata and controls

Simple, secure token based authentication for Rails.

Live Demos

Troubleshooting

Table of Contents

Dependencies

Installation

Configuration TL;DR

Usage TL;DR

Configuration cont.

Initializer settings

OmniAuth authentication

OmniAuth provider settings

OmniAuth callback settings

Note for pow and xip.io users

Email authentication

mailcatcher development example configuration:

Customizing Devise Verbiage

CORS

Example rack-cors configuration:

Usage cont.

Mounting Routes

Controller Methods

Concerns

Concern example:

Methods

Example: limit access to authenticated users

Token Header Format

Authentication headers example:

Model Concerns

DeviseTokenAuth::Concerns::User

Using multiple models

View Live Multi-User Demos

Group access

Example: group authentication

Excluding Modules

Example: disable email confirmation

Example: disable OAuth authentication

Custom Controller Overrides

Example: controller overrides

Overriding rendering methods

Registrations Controller

Sessions Controller

Passwords Controller

Token Validations Controller

Example: all :controller options with default settings:

Passing blocks to Controllers

Email Template Overrides

Issue Reporting

FAQ

Can I use this gem alongside standard Devise?

config/initializers/devise_token_auth.rb

config/routes.rb

Why are the new routes included if this gem doesn't use them?

I'm having trouble using this gem alongside ActiveAdmin...

Conceptual

About token management

About batch requests

Security

Callouts

Contributing

License

Why are the `new` routes included if this gem doesn't use them?