Examples using Active Directory/LDAP groups for permissions \ roles in Rails App.
- by Nick Gorbikoff
Hello.
I was wondering how other people implemented this scenario. I have an internal rails app ( inventory management, label printing, shipping,etc). I'm rewriting security on the system, cause the old way got to cumbersome to maintain ( users table, passwords, roles) - I used restful_authentication and roles. It was implemented about 3 years ago. I already implemented AuthLogic with ruby-ldap-net to authenticate users ( actually that was surprisingly easy, compared to how I struggled with other frameworks/languages before). Next step is roles. I already have groups defined in Active Directory - so I don't want to run a separate roles system in my rails app, I just want to reuse Active Directory groups - since that part of the system is already maintained for other purposes ( shared drives, backups, pc access, etc)
So I was wondering if others had experience implementing permissions/roles in a rails app based on groups in Active Directory or LDAP. Also the roles requirements are pretty complex.
Here is an example:
For instance I have users that belong to the supervisors group in AD and to inventory dept, so I was that user to be able to run "advanced" tasks in invetory - adjust qty, run reports, however other "supervisors" from other departmanets, shouldn't be able to do this, also Top Management - should be able to use those reports (regardless weather they belong to the invetory or not), but not Middle Management, unless they are in inventory group. Admins of the system (Domain Admins) should have unrestricted access to the system , except for HR & Finances part unless they are in HR ( like you don't want all system admins (except for one authorized one) to see personal info of other employees).
I looked at acl9, cancan, aegis. I was wondering if there are any advantaged/cons to using one versus the other for this particular use of system access based on AD. Suggest other systems if you had good experience.
Thank you!!!
