New in Symfony 5.3: Improvements for Security Users

May 3, 2021 · Published by Avatar of Javier Eguiluz Javier Eguiluz

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Renamed User to InMemoryUser

Robin Chalas

Contributed by
Robin Chalas
in #40443.

In Symfony applications, the memory user provider allows to create users (and define their credentials) in a configuration file which is loaded in memory, without using databases or any other persisting service.

Although this user provider is only for prototypes or very small/special applications, it's based on a class called User (the entire namespace is Symfony\Component\Security\Core\User\User). This confuses some newcomers, who think this is the main User class in Symfony security.

That's why in Symfony 5.3 we've renamed User to InMemoryUser and UserChecker to InMemoryUserChecker to better convey their purpose (in 5.3 the old names still work but they are deprecated and in Symfony 6.0 they will be removed):

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# config/packages/security.yaml
 security:
     password_hashers:
-        Symfony\Component\Security\Core\User\User: bcrypt
+        Symfony\Component\Security\Core\User\InMemoryUser: bcrypt

Renamed username to identifier

Wouter De Jong

Contributed by
Wouter De Jong
in #40403.

Another source of confusion related to users is the concept of "username" which is used in the Symfony security. In many applications this username is not a traditional username, but an email or even some API token.

That's why in Symfony 5.3 we've decided to avoid this confusion and we've renamed "username" to "user identifier". This might require some changes in your application code (in 5.3 the old names still work but they are deprecated and in Symfony 6.0 they will be removed):

  • UserInterface::getUsername() is now UserInterface::getUserIdentifier()
  • loadUserByUsername() is now loadUserByUserIdentifier(), both in user loaders and user providers
  • UsernameNotFoundException is now UserNotFoundException

Decoupled Passwords from Users

Robin Chalas

Contributed by
Robin Chalas
in #40267.

The Symfony\Component\Security\Core\User\UserInterface is implemented by all the security users in Symfony applications. Sadly, this interface is a product of its time and it contains some methods that are no longer used in modern applications.

The first unneeded method is getSalt(), which is no longer necessary when using modern password hashing algorithms (bcrypt, Argon2, etc.) This method has been moved to a new LegacyPasswordAuthenticatedUserInterface.

The other method is getPassword() which is no longer needed in many password-less features, such as login links. This method has been moved to a new PasswordAuthenticatedUserInterface.

In Symfony 5.3, UserInterface still contains the getPassword() and getSalt() methods (they will be removed in Symfony 6.0). However, when upgrading to Symfony 5.3, you need to implement the new interfaces if you use those methods.

Published in #Living on the edge

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Comments

Avatar of Lyubomir Grozdanov
Lyubomir Grozdanov Certified said on May 3, 2021
Very nice! Thank you 💥💥💥
Avatar of Nikolai Plath
Nikolai Plath said on May 3, 2021
Excellent!
Avatar of Robin Chalas
Robin Chalas said on May 3, 2021
> In Symfony 5.3, UserInterface implements these two interfaces, so you don’t need to change anything in your code. In Symfony 6.0 that will be no longer the case and you’ll need to implement the new interfaces if you need those methods.

That's not really true: UserInterface does not extend these two interfaces.
But UserInterface still contains the `getPassword()` and `getSalt()` methods until 6.0, for BC.
When upgrading to 5.3, you do need to change your code if your users are authenticated using a password (implement the new interface(s) that you need).
Avatar of Javier Eguiluz
Javier Eguiluz Certified said on May 3, 2021
@Robin thanks for reviewing the blog post! I've made the changes that you suggested.
Avatar of Rareș Șerban
Rareș Șerban said on May 4, 2021
Why have the names like `getUserIdentifier` instead of `getIdentifier`? This one doesn't seem that bad, but `loadUserByUserIdentifier` instead of `loadUserByIdentifier` is a mouthful.
Don't see the reason to include `user` in the name each time. If you don't want to be confused with some other identifier, maybe `security` can be used, eg: `loadUserBySecurityIdentifier`
Avatar of Wouter de Jong
Wouter de Jong said on May 6, 2021
@Rareș Șerban you got it completely correct: "identifier" is a very generic term. We expect most of the applications to use a Doctrine Entity (or some other ORM) as Security user, and having both `getIdentifier()` and `getId()` in one class would be very confusing.

I think "user identifier" is better than "security identifier": it's the most specific ("security" is still generic) and it's shorter than "security" (so less a mouthful ;-) ). If you disagree, feel free to open an issue at https://github.com/symfony/symfony/issues/new/ to discuss it in more detail!
Avatar of Jacek Krysztofik
Jacek Krysztofik said on Jun 9, 2021
Why does UserInterface NOT declare the getUserIdentifier() method?
Avatar of Nebojša Kamber
Nebojša Kamber said on Jun 10, 2021
@Jacek Krysztofik
Declaring it in an interface would be a BC break, since every class implementing it would have to have that method.
They just hinted that method in annotations, so we can prepare for Symfony 6.
The actual declaration will be in Symfony 6

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