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Symfony RESTful API: Authentication with JWT (Course 4)

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Authenticate a Request with JWT

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We already added a denyAccessUnlessGranted() line to ProgrammerController::newAction(). That means this endpoint is broken: we don't have an API authentication system hooked up yet.

Open up ProgrammerControllerTest() and find testPOST(): the test for this endpoint:

256 lines tests/AppBundle/Controller/Api/ProgrammerControllerTest.php
... lines 1 - 6
class ProgrammerControllerTest extends ApiTestCase
{
... lines 9 - 15
public function testPOST()
{
... lines 18 - 34
}
... lines 36 - 254
}

Rename this to testPOSTProgrammerWorks() - this will make its name unique enough that we can run it alone:

262 lines tests/AppBundle/Controller/Api/ProgrammerControllerTest.php
... lines 1 - 6
class ProgrammerControllerTest extends ApiTestCase
{
... lines 9 - 15
public function testPOSTProgrammerWorks()
{
... lines 18 - 40
}
... lines 42 - 260
}

Copy that name and run it:

./vendor/bin/phpunit --filter testPOSTProgrammerWorks

Instead of the 201, we get a 200 status code after being redirected to /login. I know we don't have our security system hooked up yet, but pretend that it is hooked up and working nicely. How can we update the test to send a token?

Sending a Token in the Test

Well, first, we'll need to create a valid token. Do that the same way we just did in the controller: $token = $this->getService() - which is just a shortcut we made to fetch a service from the container - and grab the lexik_jwt_authentication.encoder service. Finally, call encode() and pass it ['username' => 'weaverryan']:

262 lines tests/AppBundle/Controller/Api/ProgrammerControllerTest.php
... lines 1 - 6
class ProgrammerControllerTest extends ApiTestCase
{
... lines 9 - 15
public function testPOSTProgrammerWorks()
{
$data = array(
'nickname' => 'ObjectOrienter',
'avatarNumber' => 5,
'tagLine' => 'a test dev!'
);
$token = $this->getService('lexik_jwt_authentication.encoder')
->encode(['username' => 'weaverryan']);
... lines 26 - 40
}
... lines 42 - 260
}

And we have a token! Now, how do we send it to the server? Well, it's our API, so we can do whatever the heck we want! We can set it as a query string or attach it on a header. The most common way is to set it on a header called Authorization. Add a headers key to the Guzzle call with one header called Authorization. Set its value to the word Bearer, a space, and then the $token.:

262 lines tests/AppBundle/Controller/Api/ProgrammerControllerTest.php
... lines 1 - 6
class ProgrammerControllerTest extends ApiTestCase
{
... lines 9 - 15
public function testPOSTProgrammerWorks()
{
... lines 18 - 26
// 1) Create a programmer resource
$response = $this->client->post('/api/programmers', [
'body' => json_encode($data),
'headers' => [
'Authorization' => 'Bearer '.$token
]
]);
... lines 34 - 40
}
... lines 42 - 260
}

Weird as it might look, this is a really standard way to send a token to an API. If we re-run the test now, it of course still fails. But we're finally ready to create an authentication system that looks for this token and authenticates our user.

Leave a comment!

This tutorial uses an older version of Symfony. The concepts of API tokens & JWT are still valid, but integration in newer Symfony versions may be different.
Symfony 3

What PHP libraries does this tutorial use?

// composer.json
{
    "require": {
        "php": ">=5.5.9",
        "symfony/symfony": "3.0.*", // v3.0.3
        "doctrine/orm": "^2.5", // v2.5.4
        "doctrine/doctrine-bundle": "^1.6", // 1.6.2
        "doctrine/doctrine-cache-bundle": "^1.2", // 1.3.0
        "symfony/swiftmailer-bundle": "^2.3", // v2.3.11
        "symfony/monolog-bundle": "^2.8", // v2.10.0
        "sensio/distribution-bundle": "^5.0", // v5.0.4
        "sensio/framework-extra-bundle": "^3.0.2", // v3.0.14
        "incenteev/composer-parameter-handler": "~2.0", // v2.1.2
        "jms/serializer-bundle": "^1.1.0", // 1.1.0
        "white-october/pagerfanta-bundle": "^1.0", // v1.0.5
        "lexik/jwt-authentication-bundle": "^1.4" // v1.4.3
    },
    "require-dev": {
        "sensio/generator-bundle": "^3.0", // v3.0.6
        "symfony/phpunit-bridge": "^3.0", // v3.0.3
        "behat/behat": "~3.1@dev", // dev-master
        "behat/mink-extension": "~2.2.0", // v2.2
        "behat/mink-goutte-driver": "~1.2.0", // v1.2.1
        "behat/mink-selenium2-driver": "~1.3.0", // v1.3.1
        "phpunit/phpunit": "~4.6.0", // 4.6.10
        "doctrine/doctrine-fixtures-bundle": "^2.3" // 2.3.0
    }
}
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