Security

To completely disable some operations from your application, refer to the disabling operations section.

Using API Platform, you can leverage all security features provided by the Symfony Security component. For instance, if you wish to restrict the access of some endpoints, you can use access controls directives.

Since 2.1, you can add security through Symfony’s access control expressions in your entities.

Here is an example:

<?php
// api/src/Entity/Book.php

use ApiPlatform\Core\Annotation\ApiResource;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;

/**
 * Secured resource.
 *
 * @ApiResource(
 *     attributes={"access_control"="is_granted('ROLE_USER')"},
 *     collectionOperations={
 *         "get",
 *         "post"={"access_control"="is_granted('ROLE_ADMIN')"}
 *     },
 *     itemOperations={
 *         "get"={"access_control"="is_granted('ROLE_USER') and object.owner == user"}
 *     }
 * )
 * @ORM\Entity
 */
class Book
{
    /**
     * @var int
     *
     * @ORM\Column(type="integer")
     * @ORM\Id
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
     */
    public $id;

    /**
     * @var string The title
     *
     * @ORM\Column
     * @Assert\NotBlank
     */
    public $title;

    /**
     * @var User The owner
     *
     * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity=User::class)
     */
    public $owner;
}

This example is going to allow only fetching the book related to the current user. If he tries to fetch a book which is not linked to his account, that will not return the resource. In addition, only admins are able to create books which means that a user could not create a book.

It is also possible to use the event system for more advanced logic or even custom actions if you really need to.

Configuring the Access Control Message

By default when API request will be denied you will get the “Access Denied.” message. You can change it by configuring “access_control_message” attribute.

For example:

<?php
// src/Entity/Book.php

namespace App\Entity;

use ApiPlatform\Core\Annotation\ApiResource;

/**
 * ...
 * @ApiResource(
 *     attributes={"access_control"="is_granted('ROLE_USER')"},
 *     collectionOperations={
 *         "post"={"access_control"="is_granted('ROLE_ADMIN')", "access_control_message"="Only admins can add books."}
 *     },
 *     itemOperations={
 *         "get"={"access_control"="is_granted('ROLE_USER') and object.owner == user", "access_control_message"="Sorry, but you are not the book owner."}
 *     }
 * )
 */
class Book
{
    // ...
}

Alternatively, using YAML:

# api/config/api_platform/resources.yaml
App\Entity\Book:
    attributes:
        access_control: 'is_granted("ROLE_USER")'
    collectionOperations:
        post:
            method: 'POST'
            access_control: 'is_granted("ROLE_ADMIN")'
            access_control_message: 'Only admins can add books.'
    itemOperations:
        get:
            method: 'GET'
            access_control: 'is_granted("ROLE_USER") and object.owner == user'
            access_control_message: 'Sorry, but you are not the book owner.'
    # ...

In access control expressions for collection, the object variable contains the list of resources that will be serialized. To remove entries from a collection, you should implement a Doctrine extension to customize the generated DQL query (e.g. add WHERE clauses depending of the currently connected user) instead of using access control expressions.

If you use custom data providers, you’ll have to implement the filtering logic accordingly to the persistence layer you rely on.

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