NAME

	Catalyst::Plugin::Authorization::Abilities - Ability based authorization for Catalyst based on Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication and Catalyst::Plugin::Authorization::Roles

SYNOPSIS

	# In MyApp.pm (notice we do not use Authorization::Roles):

	use Catalyst qw/
		Authentication
		Authorization::Abilities
	/;
	__PACKAGE__->config->{'abilities'}->{'super_user_id'} = 1;

	# Anywhere in your code

	sub delete : Local {
		my ( $self, $c ) = @_;

		$c->assert_user_ability( qw/delete_foo/ ); # check if the user can perform a certain action, such as delete_foo
		$c->model("Foo")->delete_all();
	}

	# Checkout required database schemas under REQUIRED SCHEMAS

DESCRIPTION

	Ability based access control is an extension of the role based access control
	available through Catalyst::Plugin::Authorization::Roles. In this plugin, however,
	every user has a list of actions he is allowed to perform, and every restricted
	part of the application makes an assertion about the necessary abilities.

	Abilities to perform certain actions can be given to a user specifically, or
	via roles the user can assume. For example, if user 'user01' is member of role
	'admin', and this user wishes to perform some action, for example 'delete_foo',
	than they will only be able to do so if the 'delete_foo' ability was given to
	either the user itself or the 'admin' role itself.

	With check_user_ability and assert_user_ability, these conditionals are checked
	to grant or deny the user access to the required action.

	This method of authorization allows for much more flexibility with regards to
	access control, such that roles and abilities can be added/edited/deleted using
	the application itself (via your own controllers!). This is useful for applications
	such as message boards, where the administrator might wish to create roles with
	certain actions and associate users with those roles. For example, the admin can
	create an 'editor' role, giving users of this role the ability to edit and delete
	posts, but not any other administrative action. So in essence, this plugin takes
	the control of who's able to do what from the developer and hands it to the end-user.

	Note that this plugin is not to be used in conjunction with Catalyst::Plugin::Authorization::Roles,
	and that it requires several tables to be present in the database/schema (see SYNOPSIS).

METHODS

	assert_user_ability [ $user ], @actions

		Checks that the user (as supplied by the first argument, or, if omitted, 
		$c->user) has the ability to perform specified actions.

		If for any reason ($c->user is not defined, the user is missing the
		appropriate action/role, etc.) the check fails, an error is thrown.

		You can either catch these errors with an eval, or clean them up in your end 
		action.

		The action automatically grants ability, no matter which actions were passed,
		to the super-user. This is probably the user who installed MyApp and is setting
		it up, so that he can create roles and assign actions (otherwise the installing
		user might have never been able to do anything). The super-user is identified
		by supplying a user ID to MyApp's config (see SYNOPSIS). This setting defaults
		to user ID 1.

	check_user_ability [ $user ], @roles

		Takes the same args as assert_user_ability, and performs the same check, but
		instead of throwing errors returns a boolean value.

REQUIRED SCHEMAS

	MyApp::Schema::Actions

		package MyApp::Schema::Actions;

		...

		__PACKAGE__->table("actions");
		__PACKAGE__->add_columns(
			"id",
			{ data_type => "INTEGER", is_nullable => 0, size => undef },
			"name",
			{ data_type => "VARCHAR", is_nullable => 0, size => 128 },
			"description",
			{ data_type => "TEXT", is_nullable => 1, size => undef },
		);
		__PACKAGE__->set_primary_key("id");

	MyApp::Schema::Roles

		package MyApp::Schema::Roles;

		...

		__PACKAGE__->table("roles");
		__PACKAGE__->add_columns(
			"id",
			{ data_type => "INTEGER", is_nullable => 0, size => undef },
			"name",
			{ data_type => "VARCHAR", is_nullable => 0, size => 128 },
		);
		__PACKAGE__->set_primary_key("id");

	MyApp::Schema::UserRoles

		package MyApp::Schema::UserRoles;

		...

		__PACKAGE__->table("user_roles");
		__PACKAGE__->add_columns(
			"user_id",
			{ data_type => "INTEGER", is_nullable => 0, size => undef },
			"role_id",
			{ data_type => "INTEGER", is_nullable => 0, size => undef },
		);
		__PACKAGE__->set_primary_key("user_id", "role_id");
		__PACKAGE__->belongs_to('role' => 'MyApp::Schema::Roles', 'role_id');

	MyApp::Schema::RoleActions

		package MyApp::Schema::RoleActions;

		...

		__PACKAGE__->table("role_actions");
		__PACKAGE__->add_columns(
			"role_id",
			{ data_type => "INTEGER", is_nullable => 0, size => undef },
			"action_id",
			{ data_type => "INTEGER", is_nullable => 0, size => undef },
		);
		__PACKAGE__->set_primary_key("role_id", "action_id");
		__PACKAGE__->belongs_to('role' => 'MyApp::Schema::Roles', 'role_id');
		__PACKAGE__->belongs_to('action' => 'MyApp::Schema::Actions', 'action_id');

	MyApp::Schema::UserActions

		package MyApp::Schema::UserActions;

		...

		__PACKAGE__->table("user_actions");
		__PACKAGE__->add_columns(
			"user_id",
			{ data_type => "INTEGER", is_nullable => 0, size => undef },
			"action_id",
			{ data_type => "INTEGER", is_nullable => 0, size => undef },
		);
		__PACKAGE__->set_primary_key("user_id", "action_id");
		__PACKAGE__->belongs_to('action' => 'MyApp::Schema::Actions', 'action_id');

	MyApp::Schema::Users

		package MyApp::Schema::Users;

		...

		__PACKAGE__->table("users");
		__PACKAGE__->add_columns(
			"id",
			{ data_type => "INTEGER", is_nullable => 0, size => undef },
			...
		);
		__PACKAGE__->set_primary_key("id");
		__PACKAGE__->has_many(map_user_role => 'MyApp::Schema::UserRoles', 'user_id');
		__PACKAGE__->many_to_many(user_roles => 'map_user_role', 'role');
		__PACKAGE__->has_many(map_user_action => 'MyApp::Schema::UserActions', 'user_id');
		__PACKAGE__->many_to_many(actions => 'map_user_action', 'action');

SEE ALSO

	Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication

	Catalyst::Plugin::Authorization::Roles

AUTHOR

	Ido Perelmutter, ido50@yahoo.com.

	This module is based on code from Catalyst::Plugin::Authorization::Roles, created by Yuval Kogman nothingmuch@woobling.org.

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

	Copyright (c) 2008-2009 the aforementioned authors.

	This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
	it under the same terms as Perl itself.