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northern/acl
============

Role based ACL and permissions.

2.0.0(9y ago)1223MITPHPPHP >=5.3.3

Since Mar 24Pushed 9y ago1 watchersCompare

[ Source](https://github.com/northern/Acl)[ Packagist](https://packagist.org/packages/northern/acl)[ RSS](/packages/northern-acl/feed)WikiDiscussions master Synced 1mo ago

READMEChangelogDependencies (4)Versions (5)Used By (0)

ACL
===

[](#acl)

A simple Role based Access Control List build on Zend Framework 2 ACL.

Introduction
------------

[](#introduction)

Northern\\Acl is a role based ACL that allows for easy definition of permissions for specific roles. Roles can inherit from other roles. Simply by storing a role against a user, using that role would allow you to test if that role is permitted a certain access criteria.

Installation
------------

[](#installation)

To use Northern\\Acl add it to your project using Composer:

```
"northern/acl": "1.*"

```

Usage
-----

[](#usage)

To use Northern\\Acl start by defining a permissions list. We can start with an empty list:

```
$permissions = [
   'roles'     => [],
   'resources' => [],
   'rules'     => [],
];

```

Our permissions list contains three top-level requirements, `roles`, `resources` and `rules`. The idea behind a role based ACL is that a specific role has access to resources through specified rules. Don't confuse the elements you define in this list with 'real' objects in your application. The permissions list is simply a structure (or model) we test against, it is static and therefore it doesn't need to be stored in a database but can simply be defined in a business object in your application as part of your business rules.

Let's add some permissions..

For the purpose of this demonstration we define four roles; `guest`, `member`, `author` and `admin`. For the sake of argument, we define the resources for a simple blog so we have `post` and `comment` as resources:

```
$permissions = [
   'roles'     => [
      ['name' => 'guest'],
      ['name' => 'member', 'parent' => 'guest'],
      ['name' => 'author', 'parent' => 'member'],
      ['name' => 'admin',  'parent' => 'author'],
   ],
   'resources' => [
      ['name' => 'post'],
      ['name' => 'comment'],
   ],
   'rules'     => [],
];

```

Easy as. Now lets define a rule that allows guests to view both posts and comments:

```
$permissions = [
   'roles'     => [
      ['name' => 'guest'],
      ['name' => 'member', 'parent' => 'guest'],
      ['name' => 'author', 'parent' => 'member'],
      ['name' => 'admin',  'parent' => 'author'],
   ],
   'resources' => [
      ['name' => 'post'],
      ['name' => 'comment'],
   ],
   'rules'     => [
      [
         'access'      => 'allow',
         'role'        => 'guest',
         'permissions' => ['view'],
         'resources'   => ['post', 'comment'],
      ]
   ],
];

```

As you can see, the rule is pretty straight forward. both `permissions` and `resources` can either be set as single values or as an array. Let's create a rule that allows members to create comments:

```
$permissions = [
   'roles'     => [
      ['name' => 'guest'],
      ['name' => 'member', 'parent' => 'guest'],
      ['name' => 'author', 'parent' => 'member'],
      ['name' => 'admin',  'parent' => 'author'],
   ],
   'resources' => [
      ['name' => 'post'],
      ['name' => 'comment'],
   ],
   'rules'     => [
      [
         'access'      => 'allow',
         'role'        => 'guest',
         'permissions' => ['view'],
         'resources'   => ['post', 'comment'],
      ], [
         'access'      => 'allow',
         'role'        => 'member',
         'permissions' => ['create'],
         'resources'   => ['comment'],
      ]
   ],
];

```

Great. Now let's fill in the rest of the permissions:

```
$permissions = [
   'roles'     => [
      ['name' => 'guest'],
      ['name' => 'member', 'parent' => 'guest'],
      ['name' => 'author', 'parent' => 'member'],
      ['name' => 'admin',  'parent' => 'author'],
   ],
   'resources' => [
      ['name' => 'post'],
      ['name' => 'comment'],
   ],
   'rules'     => [
      [
         'access'      => 'allow',
         'role'        => 'guest',
         'permissions' => ['view'],
         'resources'   => ['post', 'comment'],
      ], [
         'access'      => 'allow',
         'role'        => 'member',
         'permissions' => ['create'],
         'resources'   => ['comment'],
      ], [
         'access'      => 'allow',
         'role'        => 'author',
         'permissions' => ['create', 'edit', 'delete'],
         'resources'   => ['post'],
      ], [
         'access'      => 'allow',
         'role'        => 'admin',
         'permissions' => NULL,
         'resources'   => NULL,
      ]
   ],
];

```

We added the author permissions and set the admin permissions to allow all access on all resources.

To use these permissions we need to load them into the ACL, like this:

```
$acl = new \Northern\Acl\Acl();
$acl->loadPermissions( $permissions );

```

The `$acl` instance will allow us to test for permissions through the `isAllowed` method. However, the true power of Northern\\Acl is in the `Permissions` class of which need to create a subclass:

```
class Permissions extends \Northern\Acl\Permissions {

    public function getRoles()
    {
       return ['guest', 'member', 'author', 'admin'];
    }

    public function getResources()
    {
       return ['post', 'comment'];
    }

    public function getRules()
    {
    	  return ['create', 'view', 'edit', 'delete'];
    }

}

```

We can now use this `Permissions` class to do some magic:

```
$acl = new \Northern\Acl\Acl();
$acl->loadPermissions( $permissions );

$authorPermissions = new Permissions( $acl, 'author' );

$authorPermissions->canCreatePost();
// TRUE!

```

As you can see. The `Permissions` instance allows you to test for permissions on a role through magic methods.

That's all folks!

###  Health Score

28

—

LowBetter than 54% of packages

Maintenance20

Infrequent updates — may be unmaintained

Popularity13

Limited adoption so far

Community7

Small or concentrated contributor base

Maturity61

Established project with proven stability

 Bus Factor1

Top contributor holds 100% of commits — single point of failure

How is this calculated?**Maintenance (25%)** — Last commit recency, latest release date, and issue-to-star ratio. Uses a 2-year decay window.

**Popularity (30%)** — Total and monthly downloads, GitHub stars, and forks. Logarithmic scaling prevents top-heavy scores.

**Community (15%)** — Contributors, dependents, forks, watchers, and maintainers. Measures real ecosystem engagement.

**Maturity (30%)** — Project age, version count, PHP version support, and release stability.

###  Release Activity

Cadence

Every ~269 days

Total

3

Last Release

3536d ago

Major Versions

1.0.1 → 2.0.02016-09-11

### Community

Maintainers

![](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/547843?v=4)[Luke Schreur](/maintainers/northern)[@northern](https://github.com/northern)

---

Top Contributors

[![northern](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/547843?v=4)](https://github.com/northern "northern (11 commits)")

---

Tags

aclnorthernpermissios

###  Code Quality

TestsPHPUnit

### Embed Badge

![Health badge](/badges/northern-acl/health.svg)

```
[![Health](https://phpackages.com/badges/northern-acl/health.svg)](https://phpackages.com/packages/northern-acl)
```

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