Rails authentication with email & password.

We have clearance, Clarence.

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Fork away and create a Github Issue.

Clearance is a Rails engine for Rails 2.3+ and 3.

For Rails 3:

Include the gem in your Gemfile:

gem "clearance"

Make sure the development database exists, then run the generator:

script/rails generate clearance

For Rails 2:

config.gem "clearance"

Make sure the development database exists, then run the generator:

script/generate clearance

This:

• inserts Clearance::User into your User model
• inserts Clearance::Authentication into your ApplicationController
• created a migration that either creates a users table or adds only missing columns

If you want to authenticate users for a controller action, use the authenticate method in a before_filter.

class WidgetsController < ApplicationController
  before_filter :authenticate
  def index
    @widgets = Widget.all
  end
end

To change any of provided actions, subclass a Clearance controller...

class SessionsController < Clearance::SessionsController
  def new
    # my special new action
  end
  def url_after_create
    my_special_path
  end
end

and add your route in config/routes.rb:

resource :session, :controller => 'sessions'

See config/routes.rb for all the routes Clearance provides.

Actions that redirect (create, update, and destroy) in Clearance controllers can be overridden by re-defining url_after_(action) methods as seen above.

As your app evolves, you want to know that authentication still works. Our opinion is that you should test its integration with your app using Cucumber.

Run the Cucumber generator and Clearance feature generator:

script/rails generate cucumber
script/rails generate clearance_features

Edit your Gemfile to include:

gem 'factory_girl_rails'

Edit your config/enviroments/cucumber.rb to include the following:

config.action_mailer.default_url_options = { :host => 'localhost:3000' }

Then run rake!

We use & recommend Formtastic.

Clearance has another generator to generate Formastic views:

script/rails generate clearance_views

Its implementation is designed so other view styles (Haml?) can be generated.

Clearance is intended to be small, simple, well-tested, and easy to extend. Check out some of the ways people have extended Clearance:

• Clearance HTTP Auth
• Clearance Twitter
• Clearance Admin

Clearance was extracted out of Hoptoad. We merged the authentication code from two of thoughtbot's client Rails apps and have since used it each time we needed authentication.

Thank you to all the contributors!