Anonymous users with Devise?

Question

If I want to build a chatroom with rails (canonical case) with a choice of anonymous ('pick a nickname') and authorized (u/n & pw), how would I build this with Devise?

I've successfully got Devise working in the latter case, it's the anonymous part (create & maintain a session) I'm struggling with.

Answer 1

There is actually a Devise Wiki page for that, only they call it Guest user:

How To: Create a guest user

Answer 2

use extra before_filter to setup anonymous user, for instance,

def anonymous_sign_in
  return if user_signed_in?
  u = User.new(:type => 'anonymous')
  u.save(:validate => false)
  sign_in :user, u
end

Answer 3

Another option is not to sign in a guest user, but have current_user return a guest user in the absence of a signed in user.

In the below if the user is not signed in then current_user will return a guest user. So any controller which can be access without signing in do not need the authenticate_user! before filter.

def current_user                                                              
  super || guest_user                                                         
end                                                                           

def guest_user                                                                
  User.find(session[:guest_user_id].nil? ? session[:guest_user_id] = create_guest_user.id : session[:guest_user_id])
end                                                                           

def create_guest_user                                                         
  token = SecureRandom.base64(15)                                             
  user = User.new(:first_name => "anonymous", :last_name => 'user', :password => token, :email => "#{[email protected]}")
  user.save(:validate => false)                                               
  user                                                                        
end