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This tutorial uses a deprecated micro-framework called Silex. The fundamentals of REST are still ?valid, but the code we use can't be used in a real application.

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06.

Securing More Endpoints

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Securing More Endpoints

Hey! We have this great system where users are actually being authenticated! Now we can start checking for security everywhere we need it. In newAction we’re requiring that you are logged in:

// src/KnpU/CodeBattle/Controller/Api/ProgrammerController.php
// ...

public function newAction(Request $request)
{
    if (!$this->isUserLoggedIn()) {
        throw new AccessDeniedException();
    }
    // ...
}

Awesome! In showAction and listAction we are going to leave those anonymous. In updateAction, we do need some extra security. It’s more than just being logged in: we need to check to see if our user is actually the owner of that programmer or not. So we just add some if statement logic: if ($programmer->userId != $this->getLoggedInUser()->id, then throw new AccessDeniedException:

// src/KnpU/CodeBattle/Controller/Api/ProgrammerController.php
// ...

public function updateAction($nickname, Request $request)
{
    $programmer = $this->getProgrammerRepository()->findOneByNickname($nickname);

    if ($programmer->userId != $this->getLoggedInUser()->id) {
        throw new AccessDeniedException();
    }

    // ...
}

Easy enough!

Centralizing Security Logic Checks

Since we’re also going to use this in deleteAction let’s go into our BaseController and make this a generic function. Open up the BaseController, create a new protected function enforceProgrammerOwnershipSecurity. Let’s copy the logic in there and don’t forget to add your AccessDeniedException use statement:

// src/KnpU/CodeBattle/Controller/BaseController.php
// ...
use Symfony\Component\Security\Core\Exception\AccessDeniedException;
// ...

protected function enforceProgrammerOwnershipSecurity(Programmer $programmer)
{
    if ($this->getLoggedInUser()->id != $programmer->userId) {
        throw new AccessDeniedException();
    }
}

Perfect, so now go back to our ProgrammerController. It’s a lot easier to just reuse this logic. Let’s also use this down in deleteAction:

// src/KnpU/CodeBattle/Controller/Api/ProgrammerController.php
// ...

public function updateAction($nickname, Request $request)
{
    $programmer = $this->getProgrammerRepository()->findOneByNickname($nickname);
    // ...

    $this->enforceProgrammerOwnershipSecurity($programmer);

    // ...
}

public function deleteAction($nickname)
{
    $programmer = $this->getProgrammerRepository()->findOneByNickname($nickname);
    // ...

    $this->enforceProgrammerOwnershipSecurity($programmer);

    // ...
}

Now the only other thing that could go wrong, is if the user is not logged in at all and they hit updateAction. Then, we would die inside this function. The problem is that $this->getLoggedInUser would be null and we’ll call the id property on a null object:

// src/KnpU/CodeBattle/Controller/BaseController.php
// ...

protected function enforceProgrammerOwnershipSecurity(Programmer $programmer)
{
    if ($this->getLoggedInUser()->id != $programmer->userId) {
        throw new AccessDeniedException();
    }
}

So before we call this function, we need to make sure the user is at least logged in. If they aren’t, then they are definitely not the owner of this programmer.

So let’s create another function here called enforceUserSecurity. In this case, go back to ProgrammerController and grab the logic right here:

// src/KnpU/CodeBattle/Controller/BaseController.php
// ...

protected function enforceUserSecurity()
{
    if (!$this->isUserLoggedIn()) {
        throw new AccessDeniedException();
    }
}

There we go. And from inside enforceProgrammerOwnershipSecurity we can just make sure that the user is actually logged in:

// src/KnpU/CodeBattle/Controller/BaseController.php
// ...

protected function enforceProgrammerOwnershipSecurity(Programmer $programmer)
{
    $this->enforceUserSecurity();

    if ($this->getLoggedInUser()->id != $programmer->userId) {
        throw new AccessDeniedException();
    }
}

And in ProgrammerController, we can do the same thing and save ourselves a little bit of code:

// src/KnpU/CodeBattle/Controller/Api/ProgrammerController.php
// ...

public function newAction(Request $request)
{
    $this->enforceUserSecurity();
    // ...
}

Between these two new methods, we have a really easy way to go function by function inside of our controller to make sure that we’re enforcing the right type of security.

Because we’re sending our Authorization header in the background of our scenarios, we should be able to run our entire programmer.feature and see it pass:

php vendor/bin/behat features/api/programmer.feature

Perfect! And just like that, we have our entire application locked down.