Auth

Session-based authentication, the prebuilt login form, and the User plugin pattern from production.

Stable Reading time ~ 3 min Edit on GitHub

Nibiru ships a session-based authentication core (Nibiru\Auth) and a users module that gives you a working login form, an authorisation check, and the database schema in three commands.

The Auth core

Auth::auth($login, $password) is the lowest-level call. It:

Looks up the user by user_login.
Decrypts the stored password using the salt from [SECURITY] password_hash.
On match, replaces $_SESSION with ['auth' => ['session_id' => …, 'user_id' => …, 'login' => …]].

$auth = new \Nibiru\Auth();
if ($auth->auth($_POST['login'], $_POST['password'])) {
    View::forwardTo('/dashboard');
} else {
    View::assign(['error' => 'Invalid credentials.']);
}

The Users module

Generate it once with the CLI:

./nibiru -m users

Then run the matching migrations:

./nibiru -mi local

You now have:

application/module/users/ — the module folder.
users table — created by 005-user.sql.
User plugin — Nibiru\Module\Users\Plugin\User with isAuthorized(), loginForm(), currentUser().

application/controller/loginController.php:

<?php
namespace Nibiru;
use Nibiru\Adapter\Controller;
use Nibiru\Module\Users\Plugin\User;

class loginController extends Controller
{
    private User $user;

    public function __construct() {
        parent::__construct();
        $this->user = new User();
    }

    public function pageAction() {
        if ($this->user->isAuthorized()) {
            View::forwardTo('/');
            return;
        }
        View::assign([
            'title'     => 'Sign in',
            'loginForm' => $this->user->loginForm(),
        ]);
    }

    public function submitAction() {
        if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] !== 'POST') return;
        $auth = new Auth();
        if ($auth->auth($_POST['login'] ?? '', $_POST['password'] ?? '')) {
            View::forwardTo('/');
        } else {
            View::assign(['error' => 'Invalid login.']);
        }
    }

    public function logoutAction() {
        unset($_SESSION['auth']);
        session_regenerate_id(true);
        View::forwardTo('/login');
    }

    public function navigationAction() {
        JsonNavigation::getInstance()->loadJsonNavigationArray();
    }
}

application/view/templates/login.tpl:

{include 'shared/header.tpl'}
<body>
{include file="navigation.tpl"}
<main class="container">
  <h1>{$title}</h1>
  {if $error}<div class="alert alert-danger">{$error}</div>{/if}
  {$loginForm nofilter}
</main>
{include 'shared/footer.tpl'}
</body>

Form::action="/login/submit" is set inside loginForm() so the form posts to the right action.

Guarding controllers

The simple check:

public function pageAction() {
    if (!$this->user->isAuthorized()) {
        View::forwardTo('/login');
        return;
    }
    / ...
}

For role-aware checks, the showcase apps use the Acl plugin from the same module:

use Nibiru\Module\Users\Plugin\Acl;

if (!Acl::can('edit', 'documents')) {
    View::forwardTo('/forbidden');
    return;
}

Tables acl, user_to_acl, acl-data (migrations 001, 008, 011) form the role/permission base.

Hardening

For production, replace Auth::auth() with a hardened version:

namespace Nibiru;
use Nibiru\Pdo;

class HardenedAuth
{
    public function auth(string $login, string $password): bool {
        $row = Pdo::fetchRow(
            'SELECT user_id, user_pass FROM "user" WHERE user_login = :l AND user_account_active = 1',
            [':l' => $login]
        );
        if (!$row || !password_verify($password, $row['user_pass'])) {
            return false;
        }
        if (password_needs_rehash($row['user_pass'], PASSWORD_ARGON2ID)) {
            Pdo::update('user', [
                'user_pass' => password_hash($password, PASSWORD_ARGON2ID),
            ], ['user_id' => $row['user_id']]);
        }
        session_regenerate_id(true);
        $_SESSION['auth'] = [
            'session_id' => session_id(),
            'user_id'    => $row['user_id'],
            'login'      => $login,
        ];
        return true;
    }
}

Migrate existing rows on first login with password_needs_rehash.

CSRF

Nibiru doesn’t generate CSRF tokens for you. Add them yourself:

public function pageAction() {
    if (!isset($_SESSION['csrf'])) {
        $_SESSION['csrf'] = bin2hex(random_bytes(16));
    }
    View::assign(['csrf' => $_SESSION['csrf']]);
}

public function submitAction() {
    if (!hash_equals($_SESSION['csrf'] ?? '', $_POST['csrf'] ?? '')) {
        http_response_code(419);
        return;
    }
    / ...handle submission...
}

Embed <input type="hidden" name="csrf" value="{$csrf}"> in your form.

Production apps include a QR-code-based magic-link login that issues short-lived tokens. The flow:

User scans QR → URL is /login/token/<one-time-token>.
tokenAction validates and creates a session.

The framework already depends on bacon/bacon-qr-code and picqer/php-barcode-generator via Composer, so you can render QR codes inline:

$writer = new \BaconQrCode\Writer(new \BaconQrCode\Renderer\ImageRenderer(
    new \BaconQrCode\Renderer\RendererStyle\RendererStyle(220),
    new \BaconQrCode\Renderer\Image\SvgImageBackEnd()
));
$svg = $writer->writeString('https://app.example.com/login/token/' . $token);
View::assign(['qr' => $svg]);

Common pitfalls

$_SESSION is replaced, not merged by the default Auth::auth(). Anything you stored before login is lost. Save and restore explicitly if needed.
No rate limiting. Add Fail2Ban or a middleware-style observer.
Session cookies need flags. Set session.cookie_secure = 1, session.cookie_httponly = 1, and session.cookie_samesite = "Lax" in php.ini for production.