Laravel 4 Auth:attempt not working

Question

I am having hard time working with Laravel 4 Auth::attempt method , followed the right documentation, read couple of SO threads but still i am not able to get it working.

$userData = array('email' => '[e-mail]','password' => 'admin');
if(Auth::attempt($userData)){
    // redirect
}
else{
   echo 'Invalid';
}

And it returns Invalid everytime

Now i am not sure what is the actual reason.

In my config/auth.php i have following

<?php

   return array(
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Default Authentication Driver
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| This option controls the authentication driver that will be utilized.
| This drivers manages the retrieval and authentication of the users
| attempting to get access to protected areas of your application.
|
| Supported: "database", "eloquent"
|
*/

'driver' => 'eloquent',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Authentication Model
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| When using the "Eloquent" authentication driver, we need to know which
| Eloquent model should be used to retrieve your users. Of course, it
| is often just the "User" model but you may use whatever you like.
|
*/

'model' => 'User',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Authentication Table
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| When using the "Database" authentication driver, we need to know which
| table should be used to retrieve your users. We have chosen a basic
| default value but you may easily change it to any table you like.
|
*/

'table' => 'users',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Password Reminder Settings
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here you may set the settings for password reminders, including a view
| that should be used as your password reminder e-mail. You will also
| be able to set the name of the table that holds the reset tokens.
|
*/
'reminder' => array(
    'email' => 'emails.auth.reminder', 'table' => 'password_reminders',
),
 );
 ?>

Answer 1

Note that you User table , the password field is Hashed, cause of Auth::attempt($credentials); $credentials->password evaluate the hashed password

Answer 2

The Auth class requires a column called id as your primary key in your users table.

Answer 3

Could you show code for your model? These are some things that should be in the User model in order for Auth to work.

<?php

    use Illuminate\Auth\UserInterface;
    use Illuminate\Auth\Reminders\RemindableInterface;

    class User extends Eloquent implements UserInterface, RemindableInterface{

    protected $fillable = array('fname','lname','email','password','create_at','updated_at');

    /**
    * The database table used by the model.
    *
    * @var string
    */
    protected $table = 'users';

    /**
    * The attributes excluded from the model's JSON form.
    *
    * @var array
    */
    protected $hidden = array('password');

    /**
    * Get the unique identifier for the user.
    *
    * @return mixed
    */
    public function getAuthIdentifier()
    {
        return $this->getKey();
    }

    /**
    * Get the password for the user.
    *
    * @return string
    */
    public function getAuthPassword()
    {
        return $this->password;
    }

    /**
    * Get the e-mail address where password reminders are sent.
    *
    * @return string
    */
    public function getReminderEmail()
    {
        return $this->email;
    }
}

Answer 4

@eric-evans is correct. To use authentication in laravel 4, you must make your "user" model uses the \Illuminate\Auth\UserInterface interface, and implements the methods

public function getAuthIdentifier() {
            return $this->getKey();
  }
public function getAuthPassword() {
            return $this->password;
        }

Answer 5

Check does your password is hashed. It should not be normal text..

Answer 6

I was having some trouble with this as well. What I noticed is that in my User model I had:

protected $softDelete = true;

In the database I had the deleted_at column, but it defaulted with a zeroed out timestamp - 0000-00-00 00:00:00. This was causing the record to not be found and in turn causing the authentication to fail.

I had to fix the migration to have the deleted_at column properly created like so:

public function up()
{
  Schema::create('users', function($t) {
    $t->increments('id');
    $t->string('first_name');
    $t->string('last_name');
    $t->string('username');
    $t->string('email');
    $t->string('password');
    $t->softDeletes();
    $t->timestamps();
  });
}

Here are the docs on soft delete: http://laravel.com/docs/eloquent#soft-deleting