zendesk_remote_auth

16/02/2012 Viewbook took over this gem from Tobias Crawley, this is now the official repo for this gem.

zendesk_remote_auth is a simple gem providing help with Zendesk’s SSO functionality (see www.zendesk.com/support/api/remote-authentication).

Installation and Setup

• Install: gem install zendesk_remote_auth

• Setup:

You will need to give the gem your token and authentication url, perhaps in an initializer:

Zendesk::RemoteAuth.token = 'YOUR-TOKEN'
Zendesk::RemoteAuth.auth_url = 'https://domain.zendesk.com/access/remoteauth'

and config the gem in environment.rb (if using rails):

config.gem 'zendesk_remote_auth'

Usage

Note: The latest release requires ActiveSupport 3.0 or greater.

Mixin the Zendesk::RemoteAuthHelper module wherever needed, then call:

zendesk_remote_auth_url(:name => 'user name',
                        :email => 'user email',
                        <optional params>)

This will return a url you can redirect the user to to log them in to your zendesk account.

As a convenience, you can pass a user object to zendesk_remote_auth_url:

zendesk_remote_auth_url(user)

This user must respond_to? :name and :email, and its :id will be used as the :external_id (making it useless with user objects that return an ephemeral object_id, but works well with ActiveRecord and the like). If the user object responds to :zendesk_organization, that will be used as the :organization for the call.

Same goes for :zendesk_tags, you’ll need a string such as:

"fine looking gentlemen,single"

And it’ll automatically be passed as :tags to Zendesk

This method will generate and include the hash of the parameters for you if necessary.

Example Auth Controller

Here is an example controller that handles login and logout for zendesk:

# Uses restful-authentication style auth.
#
# Define the following in routes.rb:
# map.with_options :controller => 'zendesk_auth' do |zd|
#   zd.connect '/zendesk/authorize', :action => 'authorize'
#   zd.connect '/zendesk/logout', :action => 'logout'
# end
class ZendeskAuthController < ApplicationController
  include Zendesk::RemoteAuthHelper

  skip_before_filter :login_required, :only => :logout

  def authorize
    redirect_to zendesk_remote_auth_url(current_user)
  end

  def logout
    redirect_to logout_url
  end

  protected
  def login_required
    if !logged_in?
      flash[:notice] = 'You must log in to access the support site.'
      store_location
      redirect_to login_path
    end
  end
end

Note on Patches/Pull Requests

• Fork the project.

• Make your feature addition or bug fix.

• Add tests for it. This is important so I don’t break it in a future version unintentionally.

• Commit, do not mess with rakefile, version, or history. (if you want to have your own version, that is fine but bump version in a commit by itself I can ignore when I pull)

• Send me a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.