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

Your code is bugging out because you are passing the wrong array keys to Auth::attempt(). That method requires an array with keys username, password and optionally remember. In that light, your above code should be:

Route::post('login', function()
{
    $credentials = [
        'username' => '[e-mail]',
        'password' => 'superSecretPassword'
    ];

    dd(Auth::attempt($credentials));
});

Answer 2

Make sure that your password field in your db has space for 64 characters. varchar(64)

The hash needs 64 characters and you won't get an error from laravel if your hashed password is truncated on insertion (and therefore not able to ever validate a password positively).