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.

1. 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.

2. 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
   
   

3. 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 %>
        
     
     

4. 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.

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