Flag of Ukraine
SymfonyCasts stands united with the people of Ukraine

Introducing CatGPT: get more from an underperforming resource: your cat! Read more on CatGPT

TRACK

Symfony 3 >

COURSE

The new Awesome of Symfony 3.0

Buy Access to Course

The new Voter Class

English Cat

Keep on Learning!

If you liked what you've learned so far, dive in!
Subscribe to get access to this tutorial plus
video, code and script downloads.

Start your All-Access Pass
Buy just this tutorial for $6.00
Previous Chapter

Next Course
Edit on GitHub

Create a new controller - viewUserAction - that will live at /users/{username} with a route named user_view:

73 lines src/AppBundle/Controller/DefaultController.php
... lines 1 - 10
class DefaultController extends Controller
{
... lines 13 - 60
/**
* @Route("/users/{username}", name="user_view")
*/
public function viewUserAction(User $user)
{
... lines 66 - 70
}
}

Here's the challenge: we need to restrict who is allowed to view this page based on some complex business logic. Maybe I can view only my page... unless I'm an admin... who can view anyone's page. This is a classic situation where security isn't global, it's dependent on the object being accessed. I can see my user page but not your user page.

This is the perfect case for voters. I've been talking about these for years... and they are still underused. Repeat after me, "I do not need ACL, I need voters". And good news, voters are even easier to use in Symfony 3... I mean 2.8.

Instead of passing $username to the action, type-hint the User object:

73 lines src/AppBundle/Controller/DefaultController.php
... lines 1 - 4
use AppBundle\Entity\User;
... lines 6 - 10
class DefaultController extends Controller
{
... lines 13 - 60
/**
* @Route("/users/{username}", name="user_view")
*/
public function viewUserAction(User $user)
{
... lines 66 - 70
}
}

Thanks to the FrameworkExtraBundle, Symfony will query for the User automatically based on the username property.

Using a Voter

Next, add if (!$this->isGranted('USER_VIEW', $user)){}. If this is not granted, throw $this->createAccessDeniedException('No!'). If access is granted just dump('Access granted', $user);die;:

73 lines src/AppBundle/Controller/DefaultController.php
... lines 1 - 63
public function viewUserAction(User $user)
{
if (!$this->isGranted('USER_VIEW', $user)) {
throw $this->createAccessDeniedException('NO!');
}
dump('Access granted!', $user);die;
}
... lines 72 - 73

The mysterious thing is USER_VIEW. We usually pass things like ROLE_USER or ROLE_ADMIN to isGranted(). But you can invent whatever string you want: I made up USER_VIEW.

The Voter System

Whenever you call isGranted(), Symfony asks a set of "voters" whether or not the current user should be granted access. One of the default voters handles anything that starts with ROLE_. And guess what! You can also pass an object as a second argument to isGranted(). That's also passed to the voters.

Here's the plan: create a new voter that decides access whenever we pass USER_VIEW to isGranted().

Create the Voter

In the Security directory, create a new class called UserVoter and make this extend Voter:

19 lines src/AppBundle/Security/UserVoter.php
... lines 1 - 2
namespace AppBundle\Security;
... lines 4 - 5
use Symfony\Component\Security\Core\Authorization\Voter\Voter;
class UserVoter extends Voter
{
... lines 10 - 18
}

This is a new class in Symfony 2.8 that's easier than the old AbstractVoter.

Use command+n to open the generate menu and select "Implement methods". The two methods you need are supports and voteOnAttribute:

19 lines src/AppBundle/Security/UserVoter.php
... lines 1 - 4
use Symfony\Component\Security\Core\Authentication\Token\TokenInterface;
... lines 6 - 7
class UserVoter extends Voter
{
protected function supports($attribute, $object)
{
}
protected function voteOnAttribute($attribute, $object, TokenInterface $token)
{
// TODO: Implement voteOnAttribute() method.
}
}

This is a little different than before.

Now stop! And go register this as a service. Call it user_voter and add its class: UserVoter. There aren't any arguments, but you do need a tag called security.voter:

16 lines app/config/services.yml
... lines 1 - 5
services:
... lines 7 - 11
user_voter:
class: AppBundle\Security\UserVoter
tags:
- { name: security.voter }

As soon as we give it this tag, the supports method will be called every time we call isGranted(), asking our voter "Yo! Do you support this attribute, like ROLE_USER or USER_VIEW?".

I'm already logged in - so I'll head to /users/weaverryan. Access denied! Right now, none of the voters are voting on this: they are all saying that they don't support the USER_VIEW attribute. If nobody votes, access is denied.

Adding Voter Logic

So let's code: In supports(), if (attribute != 'USER_VIEW'), then return false:

35 lines src/AppBundle/Security/UserVoter.php
... lines 1 - 8
class UserVoter extends Voter
{
... lines 11 - 17
protected function supports($attribute, $object)
{
if ($attribute != 'USER_VIEW') {
return false;
}
... lines 23 - 28
}
... lines 30 - 34
}

This says: "I don't know, go bother some other voter!".

Add another if statement. Wait! Change the argument to $object - this is the object - if any - that's passed to isGranted(). Some now-fixed bad PHP-Doc in Symfony caused that issue.

Anyways, if (!$object instanceof User), then also return false: we only vote on User objects. Finally, at the bottom, return true:

35 lines src/AppBundle/Security/UserVoter.php
... lines 1 - 17
protected function supports($attribute, $object)
{
if ($attribute != 'USER_VIEW') {
return false;
}
if (!$object instanceof User) {
return false;
}
return true;
}
... lines 30 - 35

You can of course make your voter support multiple attributes like USER_EDIT or even multiple objects. I usually have one voter per object.

If you return true from supports(), then voteOnAttribute() is called:

35 lines src/AppBundle/Security/UserVoter.php
... lines 1 - 8
class UserVoter extends Voter
{
... lines 11 - 30
protected function voteOnAttribute($attribute, $object, TokenInterface $token)
{
... line 33
}
}

This is where you shine: do whatever crazy business logic you need to and ultimately return true for access or false to deny access. The $attribute and $object are the same as before and $token gives you access to the currently-logged-in user.

Instead of adding real logic, let's let EvilSecurityRobot decide our fate. Add a __construct() method with EvilSecurityRobot as the only argument. Create a property and set it:

35 lines src/AppBundle/Security/UserVoter.php
... lines 1 - 8
class UserVoter extends Voter
{
private $robot;
public function __construct(EvilSecurityRobot $robot)
{
$this->robot = $robot;
}
... lines 17 - 34
}

In voteOnAttribute(), return $this->robot->doesRobotAllowAccess();:

35 lines src/AppBundle/Security/UserVoter.php
... lines 1 - 30
protected function voteOnAttribute($attribute, $object, TokenInterface $token)
{
return $this->robot->doesRobotAllowAccess();
}

Finally, update the service in services.yml for the new argument. But take the lazy way out: set autowire: true:

17 lines app/config/services.yml
... lines 1 - 5
services:
... lines 7 - 11
user_voter:
class: AppBundle\Security\UserVoter
autowire: true
tags:
- { name: security.voter }

Head to the brower and try it!

Hey, access granted! Refresh again, access not granted! Again! Not granted, again, granted! The EvilSecurityRobot is hard at work causing us problems with its evil access rules.

Ok, tl;dr: use voters, they're easier than ever and you can do whatever crazy business logic you need.

Leave a comment!

Most Useful Newest Oldest
10
Login or Register to join the conversation
Default user avatar
Default user avatar Mattia Mariselli | posted 4 years ago

Could have sense to put role name in a const inside UserVoter?
So in controller we can write $this->isGranted(UserVoter::USER_VIEW, $user);

2 Reply
weaverryan Avatar

Yea, I think this is a great idea actually! You won't be able to use the constant in Twig, but you can use it everywhere else, and it's also documented (via being present as a constant).

1 Reply
Default user avatar
Default user avatar Mattia Mariselli | weaverryan | posted 4 years ago

Thanks for the feedback :)

Reply
Mike P. Avatar
Mike P. Avatar Mike P. | posted 4 years ago | edited

Thanks again for that awesome tutorial! One question:

I want to have the profile url directly after the main url of the site: site.com/publicUsername

The solution I came up with is:

MainController.php



    /**

     * @Route("/{user}", name="user_profile")

     */

    public function profileAction(Request $request, User $user)

    {
...

But... EXPLOSION!
Now if I try to access site.com/register of course it says that AppBundle\Entity\User object not found instead of using the route for user_register.
I can't find any way to "prioritize" the routes, what would you suggest?
How can I have the profiles directly accessible after the site url? www.site.com/publicUsername

Reply
MolloKhan Avatar

Hey Mike P.!

The only way I know to prioritize urls is to define them first, you would have to put all your routes before


/**
  * @Route("/{user}", name="user_profile")
 */

If you are going that way, would be better to use a YML format, so you can prioritize them easier.

UPDATE

I just found the "ChainRouter", I've never used it, but look's like it might help you achieving your goal
https://symfony.com/doc/current/cmf/components/routing/chain.html

Cheers!

1 Reply
Mike P. Avatar

Thanks Diego, I want to share the solution:

Tt seems that "define them first" was the right track, but instead of changing the order of the controller action, I defined it as last entry in the routing.yml like proposed here: https://stackoverflow.com/q...

1 Reply
Default user avatar
Default user avatar Geoff Maddock | posted 4 years ago

Is there a way to do a "allowUnlessDenied" test rather than isGranted?

I have a case where I'd like to allow users access unless they are specifically denied by a voter.

Reply
MolloKhan Avatar

Hey Geoff Maddock

I think you can just invert the logic when checking for denied access role


// someController.php

public function someAction() {
    // If this is true, throw exception
    if ($this->isGranted('ROLE_ACCESS_DENIED')) {
        throw $this->createAccessDeniedException('You were banned from this action!');
    }
}

Cheers!

Reply
Mike P. Avatar
Mike P. Avatar Mike P. | posted 4 years ago

If I add a Voter for the user view action, do I see it right that the @SECURITY annotation of the controller action is no longer necessary?
(/**
* @Security("is_granted('ROLE_USER)
*/)

Reply
weaverryan Avatar

Yo Mike P.!

Whether you've created a custom voter or not.. you still need to call either the "is granted" function somewhere: either in the @Security annotation or in your controller (via $this->denyAccessUnlessGranted() or $this->isGranted()). So, it depends on what you mean by "add a Voter for the user view action". Are you calling isGranted (in one of these forms) in that action? If you are not, then the security system (and your voter) are never called.

Cheers!

Reply
Cat in space

"Houston: no signs of life"
Start the conversation!

Symfony 3

What PHP libraries does this tutorial use?

// composer.json
{
    "require": {
        "php": ">=5.5.9",
        "symfony/symfony": "3.0.*", // v3.0.0
        "doctrine/orm": "~2.5@dev", // 2.7.x-dev
        "doctrine/doctrine-bundle": "~1.6@dev", // 1.10.x-dev
        "doctrine/doctrine-cache-bundle": "~1.2@dev", // 1.3.2
        "symfony/security-acl": "~3.0@dev", // dev-master
        "symfony/swiftmailer-bundle": "~2.3", // v2.3.8
        "symfony/monolog-bundle": "~2.7@dev", // dev-master
        "sensio/distribution-bundle": "~5.0@dev", // v5.0.22
        "sensio/framework-extra-bundle": "^3.0.2", // v3.0.11
        "incenteev/composer-parameter-handler": "~2.0", // v2.1.2
        "doctrine/doctrine-fixtures-bundle": "^2.3", // v2.4.1
        "composer/package-versions-deprecated": "^1.11" // 1.11.99
    },
    "require-dev": {
        "sensio/generator-bundle": "~3.0", // v3.0.0
        "symfony/phpunit-bridge": "~2.7" // v2.7.6
    }
}
Edit on GitHub
Previous Chapter
Next Course