Laravel 6 - setting up a multi-tenant application with nested tenants - php

Question

I am currently trying to figure out the best way to set up multi-tenancy for my system. The issue I'm facing is that a tenant doesn't always have to be a sub-domain but can be set up as part of a sub-domain, where the sub-domain can have multiple tenants. I can't seem to find anything online that would help me set this up in Laravel 6.
System Requirements:
A server can have many sub-domains
A sub-domain can be a tenant
A sub-domain can have many tenants
A tenant can have many users
a tenant can have different features
The system has to be set up with a single database that will use tenant_id to determine which data belongs to a tenant.
I am currently storing all sub-domain data in a table "subdomains" with the following structure:
id
subdomain (unique)
status
nested_tenants (yes/no)
where the column nested_tenants determines whether or not the sub-domain is a tenant(=0) itself or has multiple tenants(=1). if the sub-domain does not have nested tenants then we set tenant_id=subdomain
if the sub-domain does have nested tenants then we store all of these in a table with structure:
id
subdomain (the sub-domain it belongs to)
tenant (the tenant - unique field)
name
status
and we set tenant_id=tenant from this table.
if we have nested tenants for a sub-domain then we cannot determine what the current tenant is until the user logs in. we would have to get the tenant_id from the user details.
My current set up:
I've been following this article and have set up the following:
I have two models
Subdomain,
Tenant
Routes/web.php:
Route::group([
'middleware' => \App\Http\Middleware\IdentifySubdomain::class,
'as' => 'tenant:',
'namespace' => 'Tenant'
], function () {
// custom auth routes
Route::get('/login', 'Auth\LoginController#index')->name('login');
Route::post('/login', 'Auth\LoginController#login');
Route::get('/home', 'HomeController#index')->name('home');
});
Middleware IdentifySubdomain:
class IdentifySubdomain
{
protected $tenantManager;
public function __construct(TenantManager $tenantManager) {
$this->tenantManager = $tenantManager;
}
public function handle($request, Closure $next)
{
/** need to check whether subdomain is valid
* if subdomain is valid return the request page else error message.
* if subdomain is true it will check the nested_tenants value from db.
* if nested_tenants is false it will set the tenant to current subdomain
* else the tenant is not set yet.
*/
// get host domain and subdomain domain
$host = $request->getHost();
// get subdomain position
$pos = strpos($host, env('TENANT_DOMAIN'));
$subdomain = substr($host, 0, $pos - 1);
if ($pos !== false && $this->tenantManager->checkSubdomain($subdomain)) {
return $next($request);
}
throw new NotFoundHttpException;
}
}
TenantManager:
class TenantManager {
private $tenant;
public function setTenant(?Tenant $tenant) {
$this->tenant = $tenant;
return $this;
}
public function getTenant(): ?Tenant {
return $this->tenant;
}
public function loadTenant(string $identifier): bool {
$tenant = Tenant::query()->where('tenant', '=', $identifier)->first();
if ($tenant) {
$this->setTenant($tenant);
return true;
}
return false;
}
public function checkSubdomain(string $identifier) : bool {
$subdomain = Subdomain::query()->where('subdomain', '=', $identifier)->first();
if ($subdomain) {
if ($subdomain->nested_tenants) {
// tenant not found yet so do not set tenant
return true;
} else {
return $this->loadTenant($identifier);
}
}
return false;
}
}
Service Provider
class TenantServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
public function register()
{
$manager = new TenantManager;
$this->app->instance(TenantManager::class, $manager);
$this->app->bind(Tenant::class, function() use ($manager) {
$tenant = $manager->getTenant();
if ($tenant === null) {
return new Tenant;
}
return $manager->getTenant();
});
}
}
Login Controller:
class LoginController extends Controller
{
public function __construct()
{
$this->middleware('guest')->except('logout');
}
...
public function login(Request $request, Tenant $tenant) {
$request->validate([
'email' => ['required', 'email', 'max:255'],
'password' => ['required'],
]);
$credentials = $request->only('email', 'password');
$credentials['status'] = 1;
if ($tenant->id) {
$credentials['tenant_id'] = $tenant->tenant;
}
if (Auth::attempt($credentials)) {
return redirect()->intended('home');
}
return Redirect::to('login')->withSuccess('Login Failed! You entered invalid credentials');
}
...
}
Issues
My main concern is that I don't feel like this is the best approach to keeping track of the tenant. I need it so that once the tenant is set I can use it throughout the application, without always first checking if the user is authenticated first - to then get the tenant. I am currently adding Tenant $tenant to the controller methods where I need tenant related data, but is a there better way of going about this?
Any advice on how I could improve my current set up would be helpful.

Answer 1

I think you should implement Traits to add tenant constraints for example:
in models:
BelongsToTenantModelTrait{
public static function bootBelongsToTenantModelTrait(){
static::addGlobalScope(function ($model){
model->where('tenant_id',auth()->user()->tenant->id);
//Or any similar logic
});
}
and other traits to controllers if needed.
You may also add middlewares like AuthTenant if needed as well.
I think this way should decouple the tenant-related logic as much as possible.
Let me know what you think.