There’s an excellent write-up on authenticating users against an LDAP database with Phoenix which was created by Richard Nyström.  For some reason even though it’s barely a year old, there seem to be a few points that are either out of date or simply incorrect. I worked through his example and I wanted to share a few amendments to his original code in the interests of other developers who may want to use LDAP with Phoenix.

First the set up of Phoenix

mix phx.new ldap_example # was mix phoenix.new ldap_example
...
Fetch and install dependencies? [Yn] Y

cd ldap_example

mix ecto.create (configure your db in config/dev.exs if needed)

mix phx.gen.schema User users username:string name:string email:string
# was
# mix phoenix.gen.model User users username:string name:string email:string

mix ecto.migrate

Next change is in the session_controller.ex file:

#was LdapExample.SessionController

defmodule LdapExampleWeb.SessionController do

#was LdapExample.Web, :controller

use LdapExampleWeb, :controller
alias LdapExample.{User, Repo, Ldap}

def new(conn, _params) do
render conn, "new.html", changeset: User.login_changeset
end

def create(conn, %{"user" => params}) do
username = params["username"]
password = params["password"]
case Ldap.authenticate(username, password) do
:ok -> handle_sign_in(conn, username)
_ -> handle_error(conn)
end
end

defp handle_sign_in(conn, username) do
{:ok, user} = insert_or_update_user(username)
conn
|> put_flash(:info, "Logged in.")
|> Guardian.Plug.sign_in(user)
|> redirect(to: page_path(conn, :index))
end

defp insert_or_update_user(username) do
{:ok, ldap_entry} = Ldap.get_by_uid(username)
user_attributes = Ldap.to_map(ldap_entry)
user = Repo.get_by(User, username: username)
changeset =
case user do
nil -> User.changeset(%User{}, user_attributes)
_ -> User.changeset(user, user_attributes)
end
Repo.insert_or_update changeset
end

defp handle_error(conn) do
conn
|> put_flash(:error, "Wrong username or password")
|> redirect(to: page_path(conn, :new))
end

def delete(conn, _params) do
Guardian.Plug.sign_out(conn)
|> put_flash(:info, "Logged out successfully.")
|> redirect(to: "/")
end
end

The changes to user.ex are not made in the web/model/user.ex; rather they’re made in the existing user.ex file.

And finally a change to session_view.ex

#was LdapExample.SessionView

defmodule LdapExampleWeb.SessionView do

use LdapExampleWeb, :view

end