Using ActionCable with multiple identification methods

Question

I develop a Ruby on Rails 5.1 application using ActionCable. User authentification via Devise works fine for several channels. Now, I want to add a second type of channels which does not require any user authentification. More precisely, I would like to enable anonymous website visitors to chat with support staff.

My current implementation of ApplicationCable::Connection for authenticated users looks like this:

# app/channels/application_cable/connection.rb

module ApplicationCable
  class Connection < ActionCable::Connection::Base
    identified_by :current_user

    def connect
      self.current_user = find_verified_user
    end

    protected

    def find_verified_user
      user = User.find_by(id: cookies.signed['user.id'])
      return user if user
      fail 'User needs to be authenticated.'
    end
  end
end

Anonymous users will be identified by some random UUID (SecureRandom.urlsafe_base64).

Question:

How do I best add this new type of channels? Could I add a boolean flag require_authentification somewhere, override it in my inherited channel class for anonymous communication, and switch the identification method in Connection depending on this attribute? Or would I rather have to implement a completely new module, say AnonymousApplicationCable?

Answer 1

Hi I came into the same problem, after looking at your solution in rails github comment, I assume it is better to create the token and keep the logic in the connect method.

So what I do was just utillize the the warden checking and if it is nil just create the anonymous token and otherwise. For this to work, I need to declare 2 identifier :uuid and :current_user

class Connection < ActionCable::Connection::Base
identified_by :current_user, :uuid


 def connect

   if !env['warden'].user
     self.uuid = SecureRandom.urlsafe_base64
   else
     self.current_user = find_verified_user
   end

 end

 protected

 def find_verified_user # this checks whether a user is authenticated with devise

   if verified_user = env['warden'].user

     verified_user
   else

     reject_unauthorized_connection
   end
 end

end