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Installation

These instructions assume that you have already installed the CodeIgniter 4 app starter as the basis for your new project, set up your .env file, and created a database that you can access via the Spark CLI script.

Requirements

  • Composer
  • Codeigniter v4.3.5 or later
  • A created database that you can access via the Spark CLI script
  • InnoDB (not MyISAM) is required if MySQL is used.

Composer Installation

Installation is done through Composer. The example assumes you have it installed globally. If you have it installed as a phar, or otherwise you will need to adjust the way you call composer itself.

composer require codeigniter4/shield

Troubleshooting

IMPORTANT: composer error

If you get the following error:

Could not find a version of package codeigniter4/shield matching your minimum-stability (stable).
Require it with an explicit version constraint allowing its desired stability.

  1. Run the following commands to change your minimum-stability in your project composer.json:

    composer config minimum-stability dev
composer config prefer-stable true

  2. Or specify an explicit version:

    composer require codeigniter4/shield:dev-develop

    The above specifies develop branch. See https://getcomposer.org/doc/articles/versions.md#branches

    composer require codeigniter4/shield:^1.0.0-beta

    The above specifies v1.0.0-beta or later and before v2.0.0. See https://getcomposer.org/doc/articles/versions.md#caret-version-range-

Initial Setup

There are a few setup items to do before you can start using Shield in your project.

Command Setup

  1. Run the following command. This command handles steps 1-6 of Manual Setup.

    php spark shield:setup

    Note

    If you want to customize table names, you must change the table names before running database migrations. See Customizing Table Names.

Manual Setup

  1. Config Setup: Copy the Auth.php, AuthGroups.php, and AuthToken.php from vendor/codeigniter4/shield/src/Config/ into your project's config folder and update the namespace to Config. You will also need to have these classes extend the original classes. See the example below. These files contain all the settings, group, and permission information for your application and will need to be modified to meet the needs of your site.

    // new file - app/Config/Auth.php
<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace Config;

// ...
use CodeIgniter\Shield\Config\Auth as ShieldAuth;

class Auth extends ShieldAuth
{
    // ...
}

  2. Helper Setup: The auth and setting helpers need to be included in almost every page. The simplest way to do this is to add it to the app/Config/Autoload.php file:

    public $helpers = ['auth', 'setting'];

  3. Routes Setup: The default auth routes can be setup with a single call in app/Config/Routes.php:

    service('auth')->routes($routes);

  4. Security Setup: Set Config\Security::$csrfProtection to 'session' for security reasons, if you use Session Authenticator.

  5. Email Setup: Configure app/Config/Email.php to allow Shield to send emails.

    <?php

namespace Config;

use CodeIgniter\Config\BaseConfig;

class Email extends BaseConfig
{
    public string $fromEmail  = '[email protected]';
    public string $fromName   = 'your name';
    // ...
}

  6. Migration: Run the migrations.

    Note

    If you want to customize table names, you must change the table names before running database migrations. See Customizing Table Names.

    php spark migrate --all

    Note: migration error

    When you run spark migrate --all, if you get Class "SQLite3" not found error:

    1. Remove sample migration files in tests/_support/Database/Migrations/
    2. Or install sqlite3 php extension