Wood for the Trees: Simple Access Control: First Release

Simple Access Control: First Release

Mathew Abonyi — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 13:29:00 -0500

In keeping with my promise from the previous post on acl_system2 and the new access control system I created, I’ve released it as a plugin:

script/plugin install http://mabs29.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/simple_access_control

It’s usage is very intuitive:

class ApplicationController
access_rule 'admin', :only => :create
access_rule 'moderator || admin', :only => :new

Treat it just like a before filter. Your rules are composed of titles, which require you to have a Role model with a has_and_belongs_to_many relationship with your user model (you may name your user model anything you like, but it is vital that you have an accessor called current_user). You also get a few freebies, like restrict_to(rule, &block), has_permission?(rule, user = current_user), and two backward compatible commands for acl_system2 users: access_control and permit?.

If you need more pointers, all of this is explained in the README.

"Simple Access Control: First Release" by Cham

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 09:07:29 -0600

Okay finally worked this out, I had a role which has a empty string for the title. Makes sense now looking at the error!!

"Simple Access Control: First Release" by Cham

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 08:13:12 -0500

I have been using your simple_access_control plugin successfully until I checked my code out on a different machine (same ruby version and rails is frozen to 1.2.3) now I get errors. I wonder if you could point me in the right direction as to what is wrong?

If you have time I would be very thankful.

CODE: <% restrict_to ‘admin || manager || report_viewer’ do %> <% end %>

ERROR: ./script/../config/../vendor/plugins/simple_access_control/lib/simple_access_control.rb:123:in `check’: You have a nil object when you didn’t expect it! The error occurred while evaluating nil.downcase

STACK: vendor/plugins/simple_access_control/lib/simple_access_control.rb:107:in `process’ vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/associations/association_proxy.rb:123:in `map’ vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/associations/association_proxy.rb:123:in `send’ vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/associations/association_proxy.rb:123:in `method_missing’ vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/associations/has_and_belongs_to_many_association.rb:91:in `method_missing’ vendor/plugins/simple_access_control/lib/simple_access_control.rb:123:in `check’ (eval):1:in `process’ (eval):2:in `send’ (eval):2:in `restrict_to’ #{RAILS_ROOT}/app/views/account/index.rhtml:19:in `_run_rhtml_47app47views47account47index46rhtml’ -e:4:in `load’ -e:4

——

CODE: access_rule ‘data_entry || manager || admin’

ERROR: vendor/plugins/simple_access_control/lib/simple_access_control.rb:123:in `check’: You have a nil object when you didn’t expect it! The error occurred while evaluating nil.downcase

"Simple Access Control: First Release" by Jenman

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:54:26 -0500

When I try to use this plugin, I get a:

uninitialized constant User::Role

error. There’s no Role model of course, so where is that supposed to come from?

This plugin needs a little setup how-to…not enough documentation.

"Simple Access Control: First Release" by Cal Atiyeh

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:01:25 -0500

This plugin is the most straight forward and effeicient (low weight) access control every made, I love it.