PLEASE NOTE: THIS PLUGIN/METHOD IS DEPRECATED. For updated info, see:

Basic Tutorial using Requestmap

There are three ways to define security mappings - see Securing URLs for more details. This tutorial uses the Requestmap approach. To use Controller annotations, use this tutorial and to specify security mappings using the standard Spring Security approach use this tutorial.

Create your Grails application

# grails create-app bookstore
# cd bookstore

Install the Spring Security plugin

# grails install-plugin acegi

Create the User, Role, and Requestmap domain classes

# grails create-auth-domains User Role Requestmap

You can choose other names for User, Role, and Requestmap, and can create them in packages; these are just examples.
Note: Depending on your database, some names might not be valid. This goes for any domain classes you create, but names for security seem to have an affinity towards trouble. So before you use names like "User" or "Group", make sure they are not reserved keywords in your database :)

The script will create this User class:

/**
 * User domain class.
 */
class User {
   static transients = ['pass']
   static hasMany = [authorities: Role]
   static belongsTo = Role   /** Username */
   String username
   /** User Real Name*/
   String userRealName
   /** MD5 Password */
   String passwd
   /** enabled */
   boolean enabled
   String email
   boolean emailShow
   /** description */
   String description = ''
   /** plain password to create a MD5 password */
   String pass = '[secret]'
   static constraints = {
      username(blank: false, unique: true)
      userRealName(blank: false)
      passwd(blank: false)
      enabled()
   }
}

and this Role class:

/**
 * Authority domain class.
 */
class Role {   static hasMany = [people: User]
   /** description */
   String description
   /** ROLE String */
   String authority
   static constraints = {
      authority(blank: false, unique: true)
      description()
   }
}

and this Requestmap class:

/**
 * Request Map domain class.
 */
class Requestmap {   String url
   String configAttribute
   static constraints = {
      url(blank: false, unique: true)
      configAttribute(blank: false)
   }
}

Optional - create controllers and GSPs for User, Role, and Requestmap domain classes

# grails generate-manager

will create:

grails-app/controllers/RequestmapController.groovy
grails-app/controllers/RoleController.groovy
grails-app/controllers/UserController.groovy
grails-app/views/requestmap/create.gsp, edit.gsp, list.gsp, view.gsp
grails-app/views/role/create.gsp, edit.gsp, list.gsp, view.gsp
grails-app/views/user/create.gsp, edit.gsp, list.gsp, view.gsp

Note that these generated files are not part of the plugin - these are application files. So you're free to edit them however you like - they're examples to get you started. You could also generate standard Grails controllers and GSPs using

# grails generate-all User
# grails generate-all Role
# grails generate-all Requestmap

although for this tutorial I assume you're using the plugin-generated files.

Optional - create controllers and GSPs for Captcha, Register, and an Emailer Service.

# grails generate-registration

will create:

grails-app/controllers/CaptchaController.groovy
grails-app/controllers/RegisterController.groovy
grails-app/services/EmailerService.groovy
grails-app/views/register/edit.gsp, index.gsp, show.gsp

Again note that these generated files are not part of the plugin - these are application files that you're free to edit and customize.

Create a controller that will be restricted by role

# grails create-controller Secure

This will create grails-app/controllers/SecureController.groovy - add some output so we can verify that things are working:

class SecureController {
   def index = {
      render 'Secure access only'
   }
}

Start the server

# grails run-app

Before we secure the page, navigate to http://localhost:8080/bookstore/secure to verify that you can see the page without being logged in:

Navigate to http://localhost:8080/bookstore/role/create and create an 'admin' role:

then navigate to http://localhost:8080/bookstore/requestmap/create and create the mapping for SecureController:

URL: /secure/**
Role: ROLE_ADMIN

Note: If your controller class names have a capital letter in the name (other than the first character, e.g. BigCar or BigTruck), then the url you provide here should be something like "/bigcar/**" or "/bigtruck/**". The url you would expect to put in (i.e. "/bigCar/**" or "/bigTruck/**") will not work since the default behavior is to convert the url to lowercase before comparing with security rules.

Note: Be sure to prefix your role names with "ROLE_". If you don't, UserController won't add selected roles to users, and you won't be able to login.

and finally navigate to http://localhost:8080/bookstore/user/create to create a test user:

Now navigate again to http://localhost:8080/bookstore/secure and this time, you should be presented with the login page:

When logging in, you can test the Remember Me functionality. Check the checkbox, and once you've tested the secure page close your browser and re-open it. Navigate again the the secure page, and since you have a cookie stored, you shouldn't need to log in again. Logout at any time by navigating to http://localhost:8080/bookstore/logout

Change some plugin parameters

You can change the configuration of the plugin by editing the following file:

/home/xxx/.grails/1.2.2/projects/yourproject/plugins/acegi-0.5.3/grails-app/conf/SecurityConfig.groovy

A list of property for this plugin is available to the AcegiSecurity Plugin - Customizing with SecurityConfig