Question

I have used ACL in CakePHP 1.3 without a single issue, after 2 weeks of bitter frustrations it still does not work in CakePHP 2.0.

I have followed the Cake ACL tutorial EXACTLY, but nothing happens. All Aros are in correctly, same for ACOS and permissions.

After all this, I can enter all denied actions without a problem.

Hereby my AppController:

public $components = array('Acl','Auth'=> array(
                            'authenticate' => array(
                                'Actions',
                                'Form' => array(
                                    'fields' => array('username' => 'email')
                                    ),
                            )
), 'Session', 'MathCaptcha', 'RequestHandler');

In my BeforeFilter:

    $this->Auth->actionPath = 'controllers';
    $this->Auth->loginAction = array('controller' => 'users', 'action' => 'login');
    $this->Auth->logoutRedirect = array('controller' => 'pages', 'action' => 'home');
    $this->Auth->loginRedirect = array('controller' => 'users', 'action' => 'profile');
    $this->Auth->allow('display');

Does someone have an idea what goes wrong. Thanks!

Answer 1

In CakePHP 2.0 I’ve made this way:

app/Controller/AppController.php

class AppController extends Controller {

    public $components = array(
        // others components...
        'Session',
        'Acl',
        'Auth'=> array(
            // Setting AUTHORIZATION "What can you do?"
            'authorize' => array(
                'Actions' => array(
                    'actionPath' => 'controllers'
                 )
            ),

            // Setting AUTHENTICATION "Who are you?"
            'authenticate' => array(
                'Form' => array(
                    'fields' => array(
                        'username' => 'email', 'password' => 'password'
                    )
                )
            )
        )
    );

// other stuffs...

With this aproach, ACL will make all dirty job. Is not necessary to check permitions, as you probably know.

I believe you are Ok about AROs and ACOs, not big deal. Just in case:
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/tutorials-and-examples/simple-acl-controlled-application/simple-acl-controlled-application.html#simple-acl-controlled-application

The CakeBook for 2.0 shows a Console plugin called AclExtras that build your ACOs. Your AROs will be built as users and groups are added/deleted. I’ve used this plugin to generate AROs regarding my already filled tables: http://www.alaxos.ch/blaxos/pages/view/plugin_acl. This works fos 1.3, but there is a beta version for 2.0 that works ok.

After that, You must set up permitions. Manually (or from Console) as this links describes: http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/tutorials-and-examples/simple-acl-controlled-application/part-two.html#setting-up-permissions. Or visually with Alaxos’s Plugin.

I hope this help! It’s worked for me. I’m using CakePHP 2.0.2