ZfcUser

Version 0.0.1 Created by Evan Coury and the ZF-Commons team

Introduction

ZfcUser is a user registration and authentication module for Zend Framework 2. Out of the box, ZfcUser works with Zend\Db, however alternative storage adapter modules are available (see below). ZfcUser provides the foundations for adding user authentication and registration to your ZF2 site. It is designed to be very simple and easily to extend.

Storage Adapter Modules

By default, ZfcUser ships with support for using Zend\Db for persisting users. However, by installing an optional alternative storage adapter module, you can take advantage of other methods of persisting users:

• ZfcUserDoctrineORM - Doctrine2 ORM
• ZfcUserDoctrineMongoODM - Doctrine2 MongoDB ODM

Requirements

• Zend Framework 2 (latest master)
• ZfcBase (latest master).

Features / Goals

• Authenticate via username, email, or both (can opt out of the concept of username and use strictly email) [COMPLETE]
• User registration [COMPLETE]
• Forms protected against CSRF [COMPLETE]
• Out-of-the-box support for Doctrine2 and Zend\Db [COMPLETE]
• Registration form protected with CAPTCHA [IN PROGRESS] (Needs more options)
• Robust event system to allow for extending [IN PROGRESS]
• Support for additional authentication mechanisms via plugins (Google, Facebook, LDAP, etc) [INCOMPLETE]
• Optional E-mail address verification [INCOMPLETE]
• Forgot Password [INCOMPLETE]
• Provide ActionController plugin and view helper [INCOMPLETE]

Installation

Main Setup

1. Install the ZfcBase ZF2 module by cloning it into ./vendor/ and enabling it in your application.config.php file.
2. Clone this project into your ./vendor/ directory and enable it in your application.config.php file.
3. Import the SQL schema located in ./vendor/ZfcUser/data/schema.sql.
4. Copy ./vendor/ZfcUser/config/module.zfcuser.config.php.dist to ./config/autoload/module.zfcuser.config.php.

Post-Install: Doctrine2 ORM

Coming soon...

Post-Install: Doctrine2 MongoDB ODM

Coming soon...

Post-Install: Zend\Db

1. If you do not already have a PDO connection set up via DI, put the following in ./config/autoload/database.config.php:

    <?php
    // ./config/autoload/database.config.php
    return array(
        'di' => array(
            'instance' => array(
                'alias' => array(
                    'masterdb' => 'PDO',
                ),
                'masterdb' => array(
                    'parameters' => array(
                        'dsn'            => 'mysql:dbname=CHANGEME;host=CHANGEME',
                        'username'       => 'CHANGEME',
                        'passwd'         => 'CHANGEME',
                        'driver_options' => array(PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND => 'SET NAMES \'UTF8\''),
                    ),
                ),
            ),
        ),
    );
   

2. Now, specify the DI alias for your PDO connection in ./configs/autoload/module.zfcuser.config.php, under the 'pdo' setting. If you created the ./config/autoload/database.config.php file in the previous step, the alias you'll specify is 'masterdb'.

Navigate to http://yourproject/user and you should land on a login page.

Password Security

DO NOT CHANGE THE PASSWORD HASH SETTINGS FROM THEIR DEFAULTS unless A) you have done sufficient research and fully understand exactly what you are changing, AND B) you have a very specific reason to deviate from the default settings.

If you are planning on changing the default password hash settings, please read the following:

• PHP Manual: crypt() function
• Securely Storing Passwords in PHP by Adrian Schneider

The password hash settings may be changed at any time without invalidating existing user accounts. Existing user passwords will be re-hashed automatically on their next successful login.

WARNING: Changing the default password hash settings can cause serious problems such as making your hashed passwords more vulnerable to brute force attacks or making hashing so expesnive that login and registration is unacceptably slow for users and produces a large burden on your server(s). The default settings provided are a very reasonable balance between the two, suitable for computing power in 2011.

Options

The ZfcUser module has some options to allow you to quickly customize the basic functionality. After installing ZfcUser, copy ./vendor/ZfcUser/config/module.zfcuser.config.php to ./config/autoload/module.config.php and change the values as desired.

The following options are available:

• user_model_class - Name of Entity class to use. Useful for using your own entity class instead of the default one provided. Default is ZfcUser\Model\User.
• enable_username - Boolean value, enables username field on the registration form, and allows users to log in using their username OR email address. Default is false.
• enable_display_name - Boolean value, enables a display name field on the registration form. Default value is false.
• enable_registration - Boolean value, Determines if a user should be allowed to register. Default value is true.
• require_activation - Boolean value, require that the user verify their email address to 'activate' their account. Default value is false. (Note, this doesn't actually work yet, but defaults an 'active' field in the DB to 0.)
• login_after_registration - Boolean value, automatically logs the user in after they successfully register. Default value is false.
• registration_form_captcha - Boolean value, determines if a captcha should be utilized on the user registration form. Default value is true. (Note, right now this only utilizes a weak Zend\Text\Figlet CAPTCHA, but I have plans to make all Zend\Captcha adapters work.)
• password_hash_algorithm - Name of the hashing algorithm to use for hashing. Supported algorithms are blowfish, sha512, and sha256. Default is blowfish.
• blowfish_cost - Only used if password_hash_algorithm is set to blowfish. This should be an integer between 4 and 31. The number represents the base-2 logarithm of the iteration count used for hashing. Default is 10 (about 10 hashes per second on an i5).
• sha256_rounds - Only used if password_hash_algorithm is set to sha256. This should be an integer between 1000 and 999,999,999. The number represents the iteration count used for hashing. Default is 5000.
• sha512_rounds - Only used if password_hash_algorithm is set to sha512. This should be an integer between 1000 and 999,999,999. The number represents the iteration count used for hashing. Default is 5000.

Changing Registration Captcha Element

By default, the user registration uses the Figlet captcha engine. This is because it's the only one that doesn't require API keys. It's possible to change out the captcha engine with DI. For example, to change to Recaptcha, you would add this to one of your configuration files (global.config.php, module.config.php, or a dedicated recaptcha.config.php):

<?php
// ./config/autoload/recaptcha.config.php
return array(
    'di'=> array(
        'instance'=>array(
            'alias'=>array(
                // OTHER ELEMENTS....
                'recaptcha_element' => 'Zend\Form\Element\Captcha',
            ),
            'recaptcha_element' => array(
                'parameters' => array(
                    'spec' => 'captcha',
                    'options'=>array(
                        'label'      => '',
                        'required'   => true,
                        'order'      => 500,
                        'captcha'    => array(
                            'captcha' => 'ReCaptcha',
                            'privkey' => RECAPTCHA_PRIVATE_KEY,
                            'pubkey'  => RECAPTCHA_PUBLIC_KEY,
                        ),
                    ),
                ),
            ),
            'ZfcUser\Form\Register' => array(
                'parameters' => array(
                    'captcha_element'=>'recaptcha_element',
                ),
            ),
        ),
    ),
);