Added documentation on authentication and authorization

README.md

@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ are up to you.
 * [Versioning APIs][versioning-apis]
 * [Routes][routes]
 * [Error handling][error-handling]
+* [Authentication and authorization][authentication-and-authorization]
 * [API documentation](http://rubydoc.info/gems/webmachine/frames/file/README.md)
 * [Mailing list](mailto:webmachine.rb@librelist.com)
 * IRC channel #webmachine on freenode
@@ -165,3 +166,4 @@ LICENSE for details.
 [versioning-apis]: /documentation/versioning-apis.md
 [routes]: /documentation/routes.md
 [error-handling]: /documentation/error-handling.md
+[authentication-and-authorization]: /documentation/authentication-and-authorization.md

documentation/authentication-and-authorization.md

@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+# Authentication
+
+To secure a resource, override the `is_authorized?` method to return a boolean indicating whether or not the client is authenticated (ie. your application believes they are who they say they are). Confusingly, the HTTP "401 Unauthorized" response code actually relates to authentication, not authorization (see the [Authorization](#authorization) section below).
+
+## HTTP Basic Auth
+
+```ruby
+
+class MySecureResource < Webmachine::Resource
+
+  include Webmachine::Resource::Authentication
+
+  def is_authorized?(authorization_header)
+    basic_auth(authorization_header, "My Application") do |username, password|
+      @user = User.find_by_username(username)
+      !@user.nil? && @user.auth?(password)
+    end
+  end
+
+end
+
+```
+
+# Authorization
+
+Once the client is authenticated (that is, you believe they are who they say they are), override `forbidden?` to return true if the client does not have permission to perform the given method this resource.
+
+```ruby
+
+class MySecureResource < Webmachine::Resource
+
+  def forbidden?
+    MySecureResourcePolicy.new(@user, @my_domain_model).forbidden?(request.method)
+  end
+
+end
+```