I found some great tutorials on implementing ACL authentication in CakePHP. However, for the longest time I couldn’t get the actual example code to work. The way to authenticate everything in your application is to create an app_controller.php file in your app folder (see Preparing to Add Auth). In every other controller I’ve created in CakePHP, you follow this convention:

<?php

class FooBarsController extends AppController {

var $name = 'FooBars';

}

?>

I followed the same convention (didn’t read the docs very closely) and just got all kinds of errors. After digging a bit deeper, turns out AppController extends Controller…apparently it can’t extend itself

Hopefully this’ll save some time for someone, but the full controller for the example in the cookbook for the app_controller.php is this:

<?php

class AppController extends Controller {
var $components = array('Auth', 'Acl');

function beforeFilter() {
//Configure AuthComponent
$this->Auth->authorize = 'actions';
$this->Auth->loginAction = array('controller' => 'users', 'action' => 'login');
$this->Auth->logoutRedirect = array('controller' => 'users', 'action' => 'login');
$this->Auth->loginRedirect = array('controller' => 'posts', 'action' => 'add');
}
}
?>