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How to Impersonate a User

2.5 version

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How to Impersonate a User¶

Sometimes, it’s useful to be able to switch from one user to another without having to log out and log in again (for instance when you are debugging or trying to understand a bug a user sees that you can’t reproduce). This can be easily done by activating the switch_user firewall listener:

YAML

# app/config/security.yml
security:
    firewalls:
        main:
            # ...
            switch_user: true

XML

<!-- app/config/security.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<srv:container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/security"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:srv="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd">
    <config>
        <firewall>
            <!-- ... -->
            <switch-user />
        </firewall>
    </config>
</srv:container>

PHP

// app/config/security.php
$container->loadFromExtension('security', array(
    'firewalls' => array(
        'main'=> array(
            // ...
            'switch_user' => true
        ),
    ),
));

To switch to another user, just add a query string with the _switch_user parameter and the username as the value to the current URL:

1	http://example.com/somewhere?_switch_user=thomas

To switch back to the original user, use the special _exit username:

1	http://example.com/somewhere?_switch_user=_exit

During impersonation, the user is provided with a special role called ROLE_PREVIOUS_ADMIN. In a template, for instance, this role can be used to show a link to exit impersonation:

Twig

{% if is_granted('ROLE_PREVIOUS_ADMIN') %}
    <a href="{{ path('homepage', {'_switch_user': '_exit'}) }}">Exit impersonation</a>
{% endif %}

PHP

<?php if ($view['security']->isGranted('ROLE_PREVIOUS_ADMIN')): ?>
    <a
        href="<?php echo $view['router']->generate('homepage', array(
            '_switch_user' => '_exit',
        ) ?>"
    >
        Exit impersonation
    </a>
<?php endif ?>

Of course, this feature needs to be made available to a small group of users. By default, access is restricted to users having the ROLE_ALLOWED_TO_SWITCH role. The name of this role can be modified via the role setting. For extra security, you can also change the query parameter name via the parameter setting:

YAML

# app/config/security.yml
security:
    firewalls:
        main:
            # ...
            switch_user: { role: ROLE_ADMIN, parameter: _want_to_be_this_user }

XML

<!-- app/config/security.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<srv:container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/security"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:srv="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd">
    <config>
        <firewall>
            <!-- ... -->
            <switch-user role="ROLE_ADMIN" parameter="_want_to_be_this_user" />
        </firewall>
    </config>
</srv:container>

PHP

// app/config/security.php
$container->loadFromExtension('security', array(
    'firewalls' => array(
        'main'=> array(
            // ...
            'switch_user' => array(
                'role' => 'ROLE_ADMIN',
                'parameter' => '_want_to_be_this_user',
            ),
        ),
    ),
));

This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.