Custom authentication guard in Laravel Sanctum
Tags: laravel, authentication, programming
Published: 2022-03-29 14:47:17

How to specify auth guard when using multiple guards with Sanctum

### Preamble

[Laravel Sanctum](https://laravel.com/docs/sanctum) is the go-to solution for token-based API authentication and SPA (Single page application) authentication. It uses an authentication guard when performing the SPA authentication.

By default, the `web` guard is used as per the [configuration file](https://github.com/laravel/sanctum/blob/2.x/config/sanctum.php). The same guard is used in the default Laravel [request authentication](https://github.com/laravel/laravel/blob/9.x/config/auth.php) as well.

If your web app has multiple `panels` (say, admin, manager, customer, etc.), you'd be using multiple authentication guards. And there is a way to specify a guard to the auth middleware like:

```PHP
Route::get('/setup', function () {
    // Only the users authenticated via the admin guard can visit this page.
})->middleware('auth:admin');
```

But in the case of Sanctum, there is no way to specify the guard. The word `sanctum` itself is used in the place of the guard name:

```PHP
Route::get('/setup', function () {
    // The default `web` guard is used. There is no option to specify any other guard name here.
})->middleware('auth:sanctum');
```

How do we use the non-default guard then? [Many](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62359429/laravel-sanctum-custom-guard) [developers](https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/laravel/sanctum-spa-multi-auth) [have](https://github.com/laravel/sanctum/issues/144) faced this issue. Let's solve it.

### Solution

**Step 1: Create a middleware**

We will create a new middleware that will set the authentication guard for us based on the URL. Let us call it `SetSanctumGuard`:

```PHP
<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App\Http\Middleware;

use Closure;
use Illuminate\Support\Str;

class SetSanctumGuard
{
    public function handle($request, Closure $next)
    {
        if (Str::startsWith($request->getRequestUri(), '/api/admin/')) {
            config(['sanctum.guard' => 'admin']);
        } elseif (Str::startsWith($request->getRequestUri(), '/api/manager/')) {
            config(['sanctum.guard' => 'manager']);
        } elseif (Str::startsWith($request->getRequestUri(), '/api/customer/')) {
            config(['sanctum.guard' => 'customer']);
        }

        return $next($request);
    }
}
```

Assuming that our web app follows this pattern in the API endpoints, we can decide the auth guard dynamically inside the middleware. Or you can try any other way as per your web app scenario to decide the guard.

**Step 2: Enable the middleware**

There are multiple ways to specify a middleware. In this case, we can simply add it to the `api` array inside the `app/Http/Kernel.php` file.

```PHP
protected $middlewareGroups = [
    'web' => [
        // ...
    ],

    'api' => [
        \App\Http\Middleware\SetSanctumGuard::class,
        // ...
    ],
];
```

**Step 3: Add a note in the config file** (Optional)

To assure that none of the team members (or even yourself) get surprises in the future, it is a good idea to note this in the `config/sanctum.php` file. I do it like:

```PHP
return [
    'guard' => '', // This is set by the `SetSanctumGuard` middleware

    //...
];
```

And with this,  your web app should be using the respective auth guard to protect the routes as per the user type.

### Cheers

I hope Sanctum allows this customization in the near future. And we will not need to create a custom middleware for this use case.

Until then, enjoy this quick hack and build powerful Laravel web apps. Have fun!

---

_Credits - Cover Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@glenncarstenspeters?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Glenn Carstens-Peters</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/@glenncarstenspeters?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a>_