Complete User Authentication and Registration with Rails 8

Suman Awal January 7, 2025

Rails 8 comes with the built-in functionality for the User authentication. However, it does not have user registration. Here, we will create a simple Rails application with the complete user registration, authentication, and destroy session features.

Ensure that Rails 8 is installed on the machine before starting.

Create a Rails Application
```
rails new authentication_with_rails_8 --css=tailwind
```
With --css=tailwind a new Rails application will be configured with the tailwind CSS with some default styling.

Generate rails authentication


rails g authentication

This command generates following files which includes data base migration for the users, User model, controllers for session and password and views. With this generator, app get leverage of builtin features for the authentication and password reset functionality.


app/models/current.rb
app/models/user.rb
app/models/session.rb
app/controllers/sessions_controller.rb
app/controllers/passwords_controller.rb
app/mailers/passwords_mailer.rb
app/views/sessions/new.html.erb
app/views/passwords/new.html.erb
app/views/passwords/edit.html.erb
app/views/passwords_mailer/reset.html.erb
app/views/passwords_mailer/reset.text.erb
db/migrate/xxxxxxx_create_users.rb
db/migrate/xxxxxxx_create_sessions.rb
test/mailers/previews/passwords_mailer_preview.rb

User Registration

With the rails generation above it does not provide the functionality of User registration. Now let's create a user registration functionality.

Create a registrations controller


# app/controllers/registrations_controller.rb

 class RegistrationsController < ApplicationController
   allow_unauthenticated_access

   def new
     @user = User.new
   end

   def create
     @user = User.new(user_params)
     if @user.save
       start_new_session_for @user
       redirect_to root_path, notice: 'User successfully signed up.'
     else
       flash[:alert] = @user.errors.full_messages.join("\n")
       render :new
     end
   end

   private

   def user_params
     params.require(:user).permit(:email_address, :password, :password_confirmation)
   end
 end

Update routes Add routes for the registrations controller and a root path to navigate after signup/login.


# config/routes
# Add the following ling
resources registrations, only: [:new, :create]

root "home#index"

Create views Create a form for the user registration.


# app/views/registrations/new.html.erb

   
     <% if alert = flash[:alert] %>
    <%= alert %>
     <% end %>

    Sign up

     <%= form_with model: @user, url: registrations_url, class: "contents" do |form| %>
    
         <%= form.email_field :email_address, required: true, autofocus: true, value: params[:email_address], 
class: "block shadow rounded-md border border-gray-400 px-3 py-2 mt-2 w-full" %>
    

       
         <%= form.password_field :password, required: true, placeholder: "Enter your password", maxlength: 72, 
class: "block shadow rounded-md border border-gray-400  px-3 py-2 mt-2 w-full" %>
    

       
         <%= form.password_field :password_confirmation, required: true, placeholder: "Confirm your password", maxlength: 72, class: "block shadow rounded-md border border-gray-400 px-3 py-2 mt-2 w-full" %>
    

       
         
           <%= form.submit "Sign up", class: "rounded-lg py-3 px-5 bg-blue-600 text-white inline-block cursor-pointer" %>
    
       
     <% end %>

Create a home page to navigate after login.

Create controller


 # app/controllers/home_controller.rb

   class HomeController < ApplicationController
     def index; end
   end

Create Views


# app/views/home/index.html.erb

<%= link_to 'Logout', session_path, method: :delete, data: {turbo_method: :delete} %>

This will create a home page with a logout button.

Conclusion

In this way, we can create a complete authentication system with the built-in feature provided by Rails 8.

Ps. if you have any questions

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