Question

I want to make first user became admin.

So I have string attribute admin and I need to make some before filter or override Devise registration controller. Something like:

if User.first?
  User.admin = "admin"
  User.save
end

Here is devise regitration action

 def new
  resource = build_resource({})
  respond_with resource
end

What would be the better way to do this ?

Answer 1

Assuming your code is not running very often (only when running your app in production for the first time) I would simply write a Rake task that does this for you once instead of cluttering your application code.

Put this in your Rakefile

task :promote_admin => :environment do
  User.first.update_attribute('admin', 'admin')
end

This way you keep your code clean while still having a very easy way to promote the first user during installation.

If you want to promote the first user you simply run rake promote_admin from the console and the first User will be promoted to admin.