• Documentation >
• Users >
• User management

User management

Passwords

Changing and recovering passwords

The user may request to change their password, or may forget it and ask to have it reset.

To change password, the user must have the user/password permission.

When the user requests a reset of a forgotten password, an email is sent to them with a token. It allows them to create a new password.

For information about how to create and configure the template, see Add forgot password option

The template for this email is located in Resources/views/forgot_password/mail/forgot_user_password.html.twig in ibexa/user. You can customize it according to your needs.

The validity of the password recovery token can be set using the ibexa.system.<siteaccess>.security.token_interval_spec parameter. By default, it is set to PT1H (one hour).

Revoking passwords

In case of a security situation such as a data leakage, you may need to force users to change their passwords. You can do it with the help of the ibexa:user:expire-password command, which revokes the passwords for specific users, User Groups or users belonging to the chosen Content Type.

To select which users to revoke passwords for, use one of the following options with the command:

• --user-id|-u - the ID of the user. Accepts multiple user IDs
• --user-group-id|-ug - the ID of the User Group. Accepts multiple group IDs
• --user-content-type-identifier|-ct - the identifier of the user Content Type. Accepts multiple Content Types

You can use the following additional options with the command:

• --force|-f - commits the change, otherwise the command only performs a dry run
• --iteration-count|-c - defines how many users are fetched at once. Lowering this value helps with memory issues
• --password-ttl|-t - number of days after which new passwords expire. Used when the command enables password expiration for user Content Types that do not use it yet.

For example, to revoke the passwords of all users of the user Content Type, run:

php bin/console ibexa:user:expire-password --user-content-type-identifier=user --force

To perform a dry run (without saving the results) of revoking passwords of all users from User Group 13, run:

php bin/console ibexa:user:expire-password --user-group-id=13

Password rules

You can customize the password policy in your project. Each password setting is customizable per User Field Type. You can change the password attributes or password expiration settings, and determine the rules for repeating passwords.

To access the password settings:

1. In the Back Office, in the Admin Panel, open the Content Types tab.
2. In the Content Type groups table, click on Users.
3. Edit the User Content Type.
4. In the Field definitions list, view the settings for User account (ezuser).

Tip

There can be other Content Types that function as users, beyond the built-in User Content Type. For details, see User Identifiers.

Password attributes

In the User account (ezuser) Field definition, you can determine if the password must contain at least:

• One uppercase letter
• One lowercase letter
• One number
• One non-alphanumeric character

You can also set the minimum password length.

Password expiration

In the User account (ezuser) Field definition, you can set password expiration rules, which will force users to change their passwords periodically.

You can also decide when the user will be notified that they need to change their password. The notification will be displayed in the Back Office after login and in the User Content item's preview.

Repeating passwords

You can set a rule that the password cannot be reused. You set it for the User Content Type in the User account (ezuser) Field Type's settings. When this is set, the user cannot type in the same password when it expires. It has to be changed to a new one.

This only checks the new password against the current one. A password that has been used before can be used again.

This rule is valid by default when password expiration is set.

Breached passwords

You can set a rule that prevents using passwords which have been exposed in a public breach. To do this, in the User account (ezuser) Field definition, select "Password must not be contained in a public breach".

This rule checks the password against known password dumps by using the https://haveibeenpwned.com/ API. It does not check existing passwords, so it will not block login for anyone. It applies only to new passwords when users change them.

Note

The password itself isn't sent to the https://haveibeenpwned.com/ API, which makes this check secure. For more information on how that is possible, see Validating Leaked Passwords with k-Anonymity.

Login methods

Two login methods are available: with User name or with email.

Providers for these two methods are ibexa.security.user_provider.username and ibexa.security.user_provider.email, respectively.

You can configure which method is allowed in packages/security.yaml:

security:
    providers:
        ibexa:
            chain:
                providers: [ibexa_username, ibexa_email]

        ibexa_username:
            id: ibexa.security.user_provider.username

       ibexa_email:
            id: ibexa.security.user_provider.email

    firewalls:
        #...    
        ibexa_front:
            # ...
            provider: ibexa

You can customize per User Field whether the email address used as a login method must be unique or not.

To check that all existing User accounts have unique emails, run the ibexa:user:audit-database command. It will list all User accounts with duplicate emails.

Caution

Because logging in with email was not available until version v3.0, you can come across issues if you use the option on an existing database.

This may happen if more than one account uses the same email address. Login through the User name will still be available.

To resolve the issues, run ibexa:user:audit-database and manually modify accounts that have duplicate emails.

Login rules

You can set the rules for allowed User names in the Back Office per User Field.

The rules are set using regular expressions.

For example, to ensure that User names can only contain lowercase letters, set [a-z]+$ as Username pattern:

To check that all existing User accounts have names that fit the current pattern, run the ibexa:user:audit-database command. It will check all User accounts in the database and list those that do not fit the pattern.

Registering new users

You can allow your users to create accounts by employing the /register route. This route leads to a registration form that, when filled in, creates a new User Content item in the repository.

User types

There are two user types defined: users and customers. users are Back Office users that are involved in creating the page such as editors, and customers are frontend users. To decide where the user should be registered to, you need to specify their user type under user_type_identifier.

ibexa:
    system:
        <scope>:
            user_registration:
                user_type_identifier: user

User Groups

By default, new Users generated in this way are placed in the Guest accounts group. You can select a different default group in the following section of configuration:

ibexa:
    system:
        default:
            user_registration:
                group_id: <userGroupContentId>

Registration form field configuration

To modify the registration form template, add or remove fields under allowed_field_definitions_identifiers:

ibexa:
    system:
        <scope>:
            user_registration:
                user_type_identifier: user
                form:
                    allowed_field_definitions_identifiers:
                        - first_name
                        - last_name
                        - user_account

Other user management templates

You can also modify form templates in the following way:

Changing user password:

ibexa:
    system:
        <siteaccess>:
            user_change_password:
                templates:
                    form: <path_to_template>

Password recovery forms:

ibexa.site_access.config.<siteaccess>.user_forgot_password.templates.form
ibexa.site_access.config.<siteaccess>.user_forgot_password_success.templates.form
ibexa.site_access.config.<siteaccess>.user_forgot_password_login.templates.form
ibexa.site_access.config.<siteaccess>.user_forgot_password.templates.mail

Resetting password:

ibexa.site_access.config.<siteaccess>.user_reset_password.templates.form
ibexa.site_access.config.<siteaccess>.user_reset_password.templates.invalid_link
ibexa.site_access.config.<siteaccess>.user_reset_password.templates.success

User settings:

ibexa.site_access.config.<siteaccess>.user_settings.templates.list
ibexa.site_access.config.<siteaccess>.user_settings.templates.update

Authenticate user with multiple user providers

Symfony provides native support for multiple user providers. This makes it easy to integrate any kind of login handlers, including SSO and existing third party bundles (e.g. FR3DLdapBundle, HWIOauthBundle, FOSUserBundle, BeSimpleSsoAuthBundle, etc.).

However, to be able to use external user providers with Ibexa DXP, a valid Platform user needs to be injected into the Repository. This is mainly for the kernel to be able to manage content-related permissions (but not limited to this).

Depending on your context, you will either want to create a Platform User, return an existing User, or even always use a generic User.

Whenever an external user is matched (i.e. one that does not come from Platform repository, like coming from LDAP), Ibexa DXP kernel initiates an MVCEvents::INTERACTIVE_LOGIN event. Every service listening to this event receives an Ibexa\Core\MVC\Symfony\Event\InteractiveLoginEvent object which contains the original security token (that holds the matched user) and the request.

Then, it is up to the listener to retrieve a Platform User from the Repository and to assign it back to the event object. This user will be injected into the repository and used for the rest of the request.

If no Ibexa DXP User is returned, the Anonymous User will be used.

User exposed and security token

When an external user is matched, a different token will be injected into the security context, the InteractiveLoginToken. This token holds a UserWrapped instance which contains the originally matched User and the API user (the one from the Ibexa DXP Repository).

Note that the API user is mainly used for permission checks against the repository and thus stays under the hood.

Customize the User class

It is possible to customize the user class used by extending Ibexa\Core\MVC\Symfony\Security\EventListener\SecurityListener service, which defaults to Ibexa\Core\MVC\Symfony\Security\EventListener\SecurityListener.

You can override getUser() to return whatever User class you want, as long as it implements Ibexa\Core\MVC\Symfony\Security\UserInterface.

The following is an example of using the in-memory user provider:

# config/packages/security.yaml
security:
    providers:
        # Chaining in_memory and ibexa user providers
        chain_provider:
            chain:
                providers: [in_memory, ibexa]
        ibexa:
            id: ibexa.security.user_provider
        in_memory:
            memory:
                users:
                    # You will then be able to login with username "user" and password "userpass"
                    user:  { password: userpass, roles: [ 'ROLE_USER' ] }
    # The "in memory" provider requires an encoder for Symfony\Component\Security\Core\User\User
    encoders:
        Symfony\Component\Security\Core\User\User: plaintext

Implement the listener

In the config/services.yaml file:

services:
    App\EventListener\InteractiveLoginListener:
        arguments: ['@ibexa.api.service.user']
        tags:
            - { name: kernel.event_subscriber } 

Do not mix MVCEvents::INTERACTIVE_LOGIN event (specific to Ibexa DXP) and SecurityEvents::INTERACTIVE_LOGIN event (fired by Symfony security component).

<?php

namespace App\EventListener;

use Ibexa\Contracts\Core\Repository\UserService;
use eIbexa\Core\MVC\Symfony\Event\InteractiveLoginEvent;
use Ibexa\Core\MVC\Symfony\MVCEvents;
use Symfony\Component\EventDispatcher\EventSubscriberInterface;

class InteractiveLoginListener implements EventSubscriberInterface
{
    /**
     * @var \Ibexa\Contracts\Core\Repository\UserService
     */
    private $userService;

    public function __construct(UserService $userService)
    {
        $this->userService = $userService;
    }

    public static function getSubscribedEvents()
    {
        return [
            MVCEvents::INTERACTIVE_LOGIN => 'onInteractiveLogin'
        ];
    }

    public function onInteractiveLogin(InteractiveLoginEvent $event)
    {
        // This loads a generic User and assigns it back to the event.
        // You may want to create Users here, or even load predefined Users depending on your own rules.
        $event->setApiUser($this->userService->loadUserByLogin( 'lolautruche' ));
    }
}