Question

I have basic authentication set up in a simple CakePHP 2.0 application. I first set up the application to use regular form authentication, then I added the following line to the beforeFilter() of my AppController.php to enable basic http authentication:

$this->Auth->authenticate = array('Basic');

Here’s the full AppController:

<?php
class AppController extends Controller {

    public $components = array(
            "Session",
            "Auth" => array(
                'loginRedirect' => array('controller'=>'users','action'=>'index'),
                'logoutRedirect' => array('controller'=>'users','action'=>'index'),
                'authError' => "You are not authorized to view this page.",
                'authorize' => array('Controller'),
        )
    );

    public function isAuthorized($user) {
        return true;
    }

    public function beforeFilter() {
        parent::beforeFilter();
        $this->Auth->allow('index','view');
        $this->set('logged_in', $this->Auth->loggedIn());
        $this->set('current_user',$this->Auth->user());
        $this->Auth->authenticate = array('Basic');
    }
}
?>

Ideally I’d like one specific controller (a controller which will expose an API for use with a mobile device) out of the entire application to use only Basic HTTP authentication, and the rest of the controllers to behave like a normal web application.

Currently if I pass incorrect credentials to the controller I get an HTTP 302 response, when I’d really like a HTTP 401 to be passed back. How can I do this?

*edited for typo

Answer 1

public function beforeFilter() {
    parent::beforeFilter();
    $this->Auth->allow('index','view');
    $this->set('logged_in', $this->Auth->loggedIn());
    $this->set('current_user',$this->Auth->user());
    if($this->name == 'Specific') {
            // for the specific controller
            $this->Auth->authenticate = array('Basic');
    } else {
            // everything else
    }
}

checkout KVZ’s rest plugin it may be of interest
https://github.com/kvz/cakephp-rest-plugin