Zend framework Plugin Authenticate

Question

I'm trying to create a ZF1 plugin to centralize my Authentication system. So far here is what I did :

class Application_Plugin_Auth extends Zend_Controller_Plugin_Abstract {

    private $_whitelist;
    protected $_request;

    public function __construct() {
        $this->_whitelist = array(
            'default'
        );
    }

    public function preDispatch(Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract $request) {
        $this->_request = $request;
        $module = strtolower($this->_request->getModuleName());

        if (in_array($module, $this->_whitelist)) {
            return;
        }

        $auth = Zend_Auth::getInstance();
        if (!$auth->hasIdentity()) {
            $this->_request->setModuleName('admin'); 
            $this->_request->setControllerName('auth');
            $this->_request->setActionName('login');
            return;
        }
    }
}

It works perfectly to avoid people to access the backend if there are not logged. Now, I would like to implement a login function with no parameters which will grab the current request, check the param (getPost) and then do the login job :

public function login(){
    // Here will check the request data and then try to login
}

My question is how can I get the current request object in this function? Also, how to use this login function in my controller?

Thanks a lot

While an authentication check works well in a plugin, I'm not a big fan of handling login in a plugin. After all, only a single request of a user's visit will have to deal with login. Why incur the overhead of dealing with it on every request. I'd simply implement login and logout as distinct controller actions. — David Weinraub
Hey David, thanks for your answer. My point was (and I think that's the point of a plugin) to make something reusable that I don't even need to touch later on. Also, it will be a good way to lighten my controller. That's why, but yeah I understand and agree with your point of view. Thanks — lkartono

user228395 user228395 · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-15T14:52:08

This is what you want when you don't want to pass the request as argument to your function:

$request = Zend_Controller_FrontController::getInstance()->getRequest();
$postData = $request->getPost();

However, usually you do want to pass arguments to your function. Mostly because you want your object that operates with the login functionality to be independent from the rest of your system. There are only few cases I can think of that disagree from this methodology.

When you like to get the Request from your front controller, you can just issue:

$request = $this->getRequest();

Zend framework Plugin Authenticate

1 Answers