Initially I was going to wait for my Layerful Framework (a transparent layering framework for Kohana) to mature before releasing its bundled modules. However, since this Authlite module can be used independently to Layerful, I am releasing it now.

What is Authlite

Authlite is a user authentication module for Kohana.

What’s the difference between Authlite and Auth?

Kohana comes with an official Auth module which does exactly what was described in the last paragraph, so why another module then?

It is because Authlite offers greater flexibilty. Please read the features outlined below to find more.

Features

• Legacy database compatibility
• Configurable database columns
• Multiple instances of Authlite
• Does not enforce user roles
• Auth-like syntax and usage
• Lightweight

Legacy database compatibility

One thing that keeps me away from using Kohana’s Auth module, is that it forces us to use a password hash seed. This is okay for a brand new application, but what about the ones with legacy databases? There are a lot of existing applications use plain MD5 or SHA1 hashes, Auth makes it impossible to use these existing data.

Authlite, on the other hand, does not force developers to use any seeds at all. Like Auth, we can define the encryption method (e.g. md5, sha1) in the config file.

Configurable database columns

Further than that, the user model, username column, password column and session column are all configurable.

Multiple instances of Authlite

If your application has more than one user tables, you will struggle to make it work in Auth. In Authlite, simply have one config file for each user object, and config their user model, session key and the other variables accordingly.

Does not enforce user roles

For simple applications we often do not even want to have roles attached to our user model. In Auth, user role is mandatory, which makes things more complicated than they should be. In Authlite, roles are handled by Kohana framework itself. By using ORM model relationships, roles can be added, removed and modified very easily. A tailoured ACL (Access Control List) solution can be developed in no time.

Auth-like syntax and usage

Authlite is based on Auth, so if you’re already familiar with using Auth, you will find Authlite a breeze to use.

Lightweight

Even if you have never used Auth before, you will find Authlite to be extremely easy to use. :)

Usage Example

// Authlite instance
$this->authlite = Authlite::instance('authlite');

// login check
if ( ! $this->authlite->logged_in() && Router::$method != 'login')
{
	url::redirect(Router::$controller.'/login');
}
else
{
	// assigns the user object
	$this->user = $this->authlite->get_user();
}

Changelog

v1.2.3 [2009-02-05]

• login() now supports non-unique usernames

v1.2.2 [2009-02-05]

• added force_login()

v1.2.1 [2009-01-27]

• fixed a logging bug introduced in 1.2

v1.2 [2009-01-27]

• added add_to_ignore() and remove_from_ignore()
• code clean up

Older versions were not tagged with version numbers, you may check out the commit history on GitHub.

To Do

• Add configurable, optional hash seed

Source Code / Download

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Well, please watch the screencast (4min, 12MB) first, you will see the transparent layer in action.

To me, I wanted to make a framework that is more feature-rich than Kohana but at the same time is not intrusive. By having this transparent middle-man layer, a developer is able to seamlessly enhance the Kohana framework without altering the existing user application.

It might not be useful to everyone but what the heck, it at least is useful to one person, me. :D

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Of course the actual system will be a lot more complex due to cross-referencing components, modules, libraries, helpers, but you get the idea. :)

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• Release: [Kohana Module] Authlite, for User Authentication (24)

It is in early development stage but here is how it performs in Kohana. Granted it doesn’t do much at this stage. The screenshot below showcases the performance of the ‘transparent layer’ support, using the default Kohana profiler.

I will soon post a chart on how the framework relates to and integrates with Kohana and Zend Framework. :)

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What I wanted to do is to create a framework on top of these two great open source frameworks, this way building applications will be a lot easier in the future because I will have all the basic (and advanced) functionalities ready to go. :) In a nutshell, the framework will act as a ‘middle-man’ layer.

One of the goals of my framework is to act as transparent as possible. This means, the user can simply drop the framework at a convenient location, place a hook file in Kohana add it as a normal Kohana module, and that’s it! Let the magic begins!

One major achievement for me today is how I made the framework absolutely transparent. Normally this is how you extend a Kohana library or helper:

class valid extends valid_Core {}

Thanks to Kohana’s cascading file system, it will automatically start looking for ‘valid_Core’ in the modules and system directories.

Now, I wanted to add my framework, and assume my framework has an enhanced version of valid_Core, and I want to use that, what do I do? See below:

class valid extends valid_Core {}

That’s right, it is *exactly* the same syntax as before! You don’t have to alter your existing application in anyway to take advantage of more libraries and helpers. :)

And of course if the library or helper isn’t present in my framework, it will automatically fall back to the Kohana one. And if for some reason you don’t like the enhanced version, you can easily disable them. :)

That’s it for today. In the next few days I’m going to play with the new Kohana unit test library (only available in the SVN repository for now). I wonder how it compares to SimpleTest and PHPUnit.

P.S. The name of my framework is called ‘Layerful’, I will release it in open source license once it’s mature enough. :)

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• Release: [Kohana Module] Authlite, for User Authentication (24)