Laravel middleware 'except' rule not working

Question

I have a controller with the following in the constructor:

$this->middleware('guest', ['except' =>
    [
        'logout',
        'auth/facebook',
        'auth/facebook/callback',
        'auth/facebook/unlink'
    ]
]);

The 'logout' rule (which is there by default) works perfectly but the other 3 rules I have added are ignored. The routes in routes.php look like this:

Route::group(['middleware' => ['web']],function(){

    Route::auth();

    // Facebook auth
    Route::get('/auth/facebook', 'Auth\AuthController@redirectToFacebook')->name('facebook_auth');
    Route::get('/auth/facebook/callback', 'Auth\AuthController@handleFacebookCallback')->name('facebook_callback');
    Route::get('/auth/facebook/unlink', 'Auth\AuthController@handleFacebookUnlink')->name('facebook_unlink');
}

If I visit auth/facebook, auth/facebook/callback or auth/facebook/unlink whilst logged in I get denied by the middleware and thrown back to the homepage.

I've tried specifying the 'except' rules with proceeding /'s so they match the routes in routes.php exactly but it makes no difference. Any ideas why these rules are being ignored, whilst the default 'logout' rule is respected?

Cheers!

Answer 1

You need to pass the method's name instead of the URI.

<?php
    
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
    
class MyController extends Controller {
    public function __construct() {
        $this->middleware('guest', ['except' => [
            'redirectToFacebook', 'handleFacebookCallback', 'handleFacebookUnlink'
        ]]);
    }
}

Since Laravel 5.3, you can use fluent interface to define middlewares on controllers, which seems cleaner than using multidimensional arrays.

<?php

$this->middleware('guest')->except('redirectToFacebook', 'handleFacebookCallback', 'handleFacebookUnlink');

Answer 2

I solved this issue in my Middleware by adding this inExceptArray function. It's the same way VerifyCsrfToken handles the except array.

<?php

namespace App\Http\Middleware;

use Closure;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class MyMiddleware
{
    /**
     * Routes that should skip handle.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $except = [
        '/some/route',
    ];

    /**
     * Determine if the request has a URI that should pass through.
     *
     * @param Request $request
     * @return bool
     */
    protected function inExceptArray($request)
    {
        foreach ($this->except as $except) {
            if ($except !== '/') {
                $except = trim($except, '/');
            }

            if ($request->is($except)) {
                return true;
            }
        }

        return false;
    }

    /**
     * Handle an incoming request.
     *
     * @param  Request  $request
     * @param Closure $next
     * @return mixed
     */
    public function handle($request, Closure $next)
    {
        // check user authed or API Key
        if (!$this->inExceptArray($request)) {
            // Process middleware checks and return if failed...
            if (true) {
              // Middleware failed, send back response
              return response()->json([
                'error' => true,
                'Message' => 'Failed Middleware check'
            ]); 
            }
        }
        // Middleware passed or in Except array
        return $next($request);
    }
}