[rails] Limit some url(i mean controller) to same local network user only

Question

The system need to be access by two kind of person . local user (use that is in local network) and public user (user that access with domain name) How do i make my rail app to limit some of my url that access to controller for the public user?

Using two rails with same mysql database but different port and port forward one only? Limit some url to local user only? use apache instead of mongrel? But how?

Answer 1

The safest way would be to create two versions of the program, each listening only to the specific port and/or interface. But managing two applications instead of one might be too costly.

I suggest you inspect the request object, and decide which properties may be used to distinguish "internal" and "external" access.

In your controllers use a "before_filter" to grant or deny access.

Answer 2

You can do this a couple of ways:

Have a PublicBaseController and a LocalBaseController. Both inherit from ApplicationController

class LocalBaseController < ApplicationController
  before_filter :local_only

  protected
  def local_only
    return false unless request.local?
  end
end

then later:

class AccountsController < LocalBaseController
  def index
    # will not execute unless it is local
  end
end

This is a good writeup, albeit slightly old, about how Rails decides if a request is local.