HTTP Basic authentication

Simple Basic example

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  http_basic_authenticate_with name: "dhh", password: "secret", except: :index

  def index
    render plain: "Everyone can see me!"
  end

  def edit
    render plain: "I'm only accessible if you know the password"
  end
end

Advanced Basic example

Here is a more advanced Basic example where only Atom feeds and the XML API are protected by HTTP authentication. The regular HTML interface is protected by a session approach:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  before_action :set_account, :authenticate

  private
    def set_account
      @account = Account.find_by(url_name: request.subdomains.first)
    end

    def authenticate
      case request.format
      when Mime[:xml], Mime[:atom]
        if user = authenticate_with_http_basic { |u, p| @account.users.authenticate(u, p) }
          @current_user = user
        else
          request_http_basic_authentication
        end
      else
        if session_authenticated?
          @current_user = @account.users.find(session[:authenticated][:user_id])
        else
          redirect_to(login_url) and return false
        end
      end
    end
end

In your integration tests, you can do something like this:

def test_access_granted_from_xml
  authorization = ActionController::HttpAuthentication::Basic.encode_credentials(users(:dhh).name, users(:dhh).password)

  get "/notes/1.xml", headers: { 'HTTP_AUTHORIZATION' => authorization }

  assert_equal 200, status
end