This is an example application for Rails 3.1.x that combines Devise with Mongoid. The Devise gem gives you ready-made authentication and user management. MongoDB is used as a datastore with the Mongoid gem for quick development without schemas or migrations.
Best of all, there’s a detailed tutorial (walk-through) to show how it’s built.
You can clone this app or generate a new Rails application using this app as a template.
Any issues? Please create a GitHub issue.
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A complete walkthrough tutorial is available on the GitHub wiki:
The tutorial documents each step to follow to create the application. Every step is documented concisely, so a complete beginner can create this application without any additional knowledge. However, no explanation is offered for any of the steps, so if you are a beginner, you’re advised to look for an introduction to Rails elsewhere. See a list of recommended books and online resources for learning Rails.
If you simply wish to modify the application for your own project, you can download the application and set it up as described below, without following the tutorial.
This is a demonstration application that allows you to visit a home page and see a list of users. With the default user’s email and password (supplied below), you can log in and view details for each user. You can customize this app as you need.
| Author | Example App | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Plataformatec | Devise | Simple example using SQLite |
| Daniel Kehoe | Devise, RSpec, Cucumber | Detailed tutorial, app template, starter app, using SQLite |
| Daniel Kehoe | OmniAuth, Mongoid | Detailed tutorial, app template, starter app, using MongoDB |
See a list of additional Rails examples, tutorials, and starter apps.
Before running this app, you will need:
- The Ruby language (version 1.9.2)
$ ruby -v
- Rails 3.1
$ rails -v
- Rake 0.9.2
$ rake --version
- A working installation of MongoDB (version 1.6.0 or newer)
You must update the standard Ruby installation from Rake 0.8.7 to Rake 0.9.2 before using the application templates to generate a new Rails app.
See Installing Rails 3.1 and Managing Rails Versions and Gems for detailed instructions and advice.
If you don’t have MongoDB installed on your computer, you’ll need to install it and set it up to be always running on your computer (run at launch). On Mac OS X, the easiest way to install MongoDB is to install Homebrew and then run the following:
brew install mongodb
Homebrew will provide post-installation instructions to get MongoDB running. The last line of the installation output shows you the MongoDB install location (for example, /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/1.8.0-x86_64). You’ll find the MongoDB configuration file there. After an installation using Homebrew, the default data directory will be /usr/local/var/mongodb.
You have several options for getting the code.
If you simply wish to examine the example code, you can download the code (“clone the repository”) with the command
$ git clone git://github.com/RailsApps/rails3-mongoid-devise.git
The source code is managed with Git (a version control system). You’ll need Git on your machine (install it from http://git-scm.com/).
You can use an application template to generate a new version of the example app. You’ll find an application template for this app in the Rails Application Templates repository.
Use the command:
$ rails new myapp -m https://github.com/RailsApps/rails3-application-templates/raw/master/rails3-mongoid-devise-template.rb -T -O
Use the -T -O flags to skip Test::Unit files and Active Record files.
This creates a new Rails app (with the name myapp) on your computer.
The application generator template will ask you for your preferences:
- Would you like to use jQuery?
- Would you like to use jQuery UI?
- Would you like to use Haml instead of ERB?
- Would you like to use RSpec instead of TestUnit?
- Would you like to use factory_girl for test fixtures with RSpec?
- Would you like to use Cucumber for your BDD?
- Would you like to use Guard to automate your workflow?
- Would you like to use Mongoid to connect to a MongoDB database?
- Would you like to use Devise for authentication?
- Would you like to set a robots.txt file to ban spiders?
- Would you like to use ‘rails-footnotes’ during development?
- Which front-end framework would you like for HTML5 and CSS3?
- None
- Zurb Foundation
- Twitter Bootstrap
- Skeleton
- Normalize CSS for consistent styling
The tutorial shows how a customized application template can be assembled from “recipes.” The application template was created using the Rails Apps Composer gem which provides a convenient way to assemble a reusable application template by selecting various “recipes” for popular Rails development packages.
If you’re open sourcing the app on GitHub, please edit the README file to add a description of the app and your contact info. Changing the README is important if you’re using a clone of the example app. I’ve been mistaken (and contacted) as the author of apps that are copied from my example.
The application uses the following gems:
- rails
- rspec-rails
- database_cleaner
- factory_girl_rails
- cucumber-rails
- capybara
- mongoid
- bson_ext
- devise
See an example Rails 3.1.3 Gemfile.
See Managing Rails Versions and Gems for advice and details.
Install the required gems on your computer:
$ bundle install
You can check which gems are installed on your computer with:
$ gem list --local
Keep in mind that you have installed these gems locally. When you deploy the app to another server, the same gems (and versions) must be available.
Mongoid provides access to the MongoDB database from Rails.
You can use the default configuration found in the file config/mongoid.yml.
If you want to see what’s in your MongoDB databases, I recommend using the MongoHub app (for Mac OS X).
This app uses Devise for user management and authentication. Devise is at http://github.com/plataformatec/devise.
You can modify the configuration file for Devise if you want to use something other than the defaults:
config/initializers/devise.rb
Configure email by modifying
config/initializers/devise.rb
and setting the return email address for emails sent from the application.
You may need to set values for your mailhost in
config/environments/development.rb
config/environments/production.rb
You’ll want to set up a default user so you can easily log in to test the app. You can modify the file db/seeds.rb for your own name, email and password:
puts 'EMPTY THE MONGODB DATABASE'
Mongoid.master.collections.reject { |c| c.name =~ /^system/}.each(&:drop)
puts 'SETTING UP DEFAULT USER LOGIN'
user = User.create! :name => 'First User', :email => 'user@example.com', :password => 'please', :password_confirmation => 'please'
puts 'New user created: ' << user.name
Use the defaults or change the values for name, email, and password as you wish.
Add the default user to the MongoDB database by running the command:
$ rake db:seed
You can check that your app runs properly by entering the command
$ rails server
To see your application in action, open a browser window and navigate to http://localhost:3000/. You should see the default user listed on the home page. When you click on the user’s name, you should be required to log in before seeing the user’s detail page.
To sign in as the default user, (unless you’ve changed it) use
- email: user@example.com
- password: please
You should delete or change the pre-configured logins before you deploy your application.
For your convenience, here are instructions for deploying your app to Heroku. Heroku provides low cost, easily configured Rails application hosting.
Devise provides a variety of features for implementing authentication. See the Devise documentation for options.
This example application and tutorial demonstrates Devise and Mongoid working together on Rails 3. Add any models, controllers, and views that you need.
The application contains RSpec unit tests and Cucumber scenarios and steps. The tests are minimal and can be improved.
Please send the author a message, create an issue, or submit a pull request if you can contribute improved RSpec or Cucumber files.
After installing the application, run rake -T to check that rake tasks for RSpec and Cucumber are available.
Run rake spec to run all RSpec tests.
Run rake cucumber (or more simply, cucumber) to run all Cucumber scenarios and steps.
See the Tutorial for this app for details of how it was built. Please create an Issue on GitHub if you identify any problems or have suggestions for improvements.
For a Mongoid introduction, Ryan Bates offers a Railscast on Mongoid. You can find documentation for Mongoid at http://mongoid.org/ There is an active Mongoid mailing list and you can submit Mongoid issues at GitHub.
For a Devise introduction, Ryan Bates offers a Railscast on Devise. You can find documentation for Devise at http://github.com/plataformatec/devise. There is an active Devise mailing list and you can submit Devise issues at GitHub.
Please create an issue on GitHub if you identify any problems or have suggestions for improvements.
If you make improvements to this application, please share with others.
Send the author a message, create an issue, or fork the project and submit a pull request.
If you add functionality to this application, create an alternative implementation, or build an application that is similar, please contact me and I’ll add a note to the README so that others can find your work.
Daniel Kehoe (http://danielkehoe.com/) implemented the application and wrote the tutorial.
Is the app useful to you? Follow the project on Twitter:
@rails_apps
and tweet some praise. I’d love to know you were helped out by what I’ve put together.
Thank you for improvements to the tutorial by contributors:
This work is a compilation and derivation from other previously released works. With the exception of various included works, which may be restricted by other licenses, the author or authors of this code dedicate any and all copyright interest in this code to the public domain. We make this dedication for the benefit of the public at large and to the detriment of our heirs and successors. We intend this dedication to be an overt act of relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights to this code under copyright law.