Laravel 5.2 authentication with custom routes - php

Question

I'm working in a web project using Laravel 5.2
My use case is very simple:
Before rendering any page, verify if the user is authenticated. If not, provide a login form with custom authentication (not the Eloquent's default stuff)
After reading about this scenario I have:
// routes.php
Route::get('/', 'HomeController#index');
Then if I want all my pages secured, I require the middleware auth in controller's constructor. All my controllers should follow the same pattern if I want to request a logged in user before serving any page.
// app/Http/Controllers/HomeController.php
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Http\Requests;
class HomeController extends Controller
{
public function __construct()
{
$this->middleware('auth');
}
public function index()
{
return view('home');
}
}
So far, so good. If I visit my app at '/' I'm redirected to a /login page.
I created the login page:
// views/auth/login.blade.php
#extends('layouts.app')
#section('content')
<form class="form-signin" method="post" action="{{ url ('/login') }}">
{!! csrf_field() !!}
<h2 class="form-signin-heading">Please sign in</h2>
<label for="inputUsername" class="sr-only">Username</label>
<input type="text" id="inputUsername" class="form-control" placeholder="Username" name="username" required autofocus>
<label for="inputPassword" class="sr-only">Password</label>
<input type="password" id="inputPassword" class="form-control" placeholder="Password" name="password" required>
<button class="btn btn-lg btn-primary btn-block" type="submit">Sign in</button>
</form>
#endsection
Please notice the action of the form that redirects to /login.
Then I update the routes.php by providing the new following routes:
// Authentication Routes...
Route::get('login', 'Auth\AuthController#showLoginForm');
Route::post('login', 'Auth\AuthController#login');
Route::get('logout', 'Auth\AuthController#logout');
Route::get('/', 'HomeController#index');
With these new routes I'm catching login/logout scenarios and assigning AuthController's methods to handle them.
On the already implemented AuthController, I guess I need to define these methods.
I was not able to make this to work or maybe I'm doing this custom authentication in a wrong way.
I have:
// app/Http/Auth/AuthController.php
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers\Auth;
use App\User;
use Validator;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\ThrottlesLogins;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\AuthenticatesAndRegistersUsers;
class AuthController extends Controller
{
use AuthenticatesAndRegistersUsers, ThrottlesLogins;
protected $redirectTo = '/';
public function __construct()
{
$this->middleware($this->guestMiddleware(), ['except' => 'logout']);
}
// ... lot of default stuff ..
protected function login($data)
{
//
// do custom login authentication with $data
// ie: validate thru a web service or something
//
return redirect()->intended('/');
}
}
Any suggestions on how to implement this?

Answer 1

Change your login function to
protected function login(Request $data)
{
//
// do custom login authentication with $data
// ie: validate thru a web service or something
//
return redirect()->intended('/');
}
This overrides the function from Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\AuthenticatesUsers that originally used by Laravel Auth

Answer 2

Thanks to everyone who responded to this question. I ended rolling out a custom integration where users are duplicated on the Eloquent's User model and my external service.
Unfortunately the lack of documentation around Laravel 5.2 and custom authentication methods makes this as a patch solution until something more stable comes out.
Thanks and happy coding!