Flask-Permissions

Flask-Permissions is a simple Flask permissions extension that works with Flask-SQLAlchemy. It also plays nicely with Flask-Login although that isn't a strict requirement.

Installation

Installs quickly and easily using PIP:

pip install Flask-Permissions

Getting Started

1. Import Flask, Flask-SQLAlchemy, and, if you want, Flask-Login.

    from flask import Flask
    from flask.ext.login import LoginManager, current_user
    from flask.ext.sqlalchemy import SQLAlchemy
   

2. Import the Permissions object.

    from flask.ext.permissions.core import Permissions
   

3. Instantiate the Permissions object passing in your Flask app, SQLAlchemy database, and a proxy for the current user.

    perms = Permissions(app, db, current_user)
   

4. Sub-class the Flask-Permissions UserMixin. Call the UserMixin's __init__ in your own __init__.

    from app import db
    from flask.ext.permissions.models import UserMixin
   
   
    class User(UserMixin):
        # Add whatever fields you need for your user class here.
   
        def __init__(self, ...):
            # Do your user init
            UserMixin.__init__(self, roles)
   

5. Add roles to your users and abilities to your roles. This can be done using convenience methods on the UserMixin and Role classes.

   You'll need a role to start adding abilities.

    my_role = Role('admin')
   

   Add abilities by passing string ability names to role.add_abilities(). You may pass existing or new abilities in this way. New abilities will be created for you. Add the role to the session and commit when you're done.

    my_role.add_abilities('create_users', 'delete_users', 'bring_about_world_peace')
    db.session.add(my_role)
    db.session.commit()
   

   Add roles on an instance of your UserMixin sub-class.

    my_user = User()
   

   The user.add_roles() method works just like role.add_abilities(). Pass in a string name or a series of string names. New roles will be created for you. Existing roles will simply be applied to the user. Don't forget to add and commit to the database!

    my_user.add_roles('admin', 'superadmin')
    db.session.add(my_user)
    db.session.commit()
   

   Similarly to the add methods, the classes also offer remove methods that work in the same way. Pass strings to role.remove_abilities() or user.remove_roles() to remove those attributes from the objects in question.

6. Put those decorators to work! Decorate any of your views with the user_is or user_has decorators from flask.ext.permissions.decorators to limit access.

    from flask.ext.permissions.decorators import user_is, user_has
   

   @user_is decorator:

    @app.route('/admin', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
    @user_is('admin')
    def admin():
        return render_template('admin.html')
   

   @user_has decorator:

    @app.route('/delete-users', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
    @user_has('delete_users')
    def delete_users():
        return render_template('delete-users.html')
   

Example Implementation

This is ripped almost directly from a project I'm working on that implements Flask-Permissions. Be sure to check out the code comments for help with what does what.

_init_.py

# Import Flask, Flask-SQLAlchemy, and maybe Flask-Login
from flask import Flask
from flask.ext.login import LoginManager, current_user
from flask.ext.sqlalchemy import SQLAlchemy

# Import the Permissions object
from flask.ext.permissions.core import Permissions

# Here, you'll initialize your app with Flask and your database with
# Flask-SQLAlchemy. It might look something like this:
db = SQLAlchemy()

app = Flask(__name__)
app.config.from_object('config')

db.init_app(app)
with app.test_request_context():
    db.create_all()

# If you're using Flask-Login, this would be a good time to set that up.
login_manager = LoginManager()
login_manager.init_app(app)

# Now, initialize a Permissions object. I've assigned it to a variable here,
# but you don't have to do so.
perms = Permissions(app, db, current_user)

models.py

# Import your database
from app import db
# I'm using these handy functions for my user's password. Flask is dependent
# on Werkzeug, so you'll have access to these too.
from werkzeug import generate_password_hash, check_password_hash
# Import the mixin
from flask.ext.permissions.models import UserMixin


class User(UserMixin):
    # Add whatever fields you need for your user class. Here, I've added
    # an email field and a password field
    email = db.Column(db.String(120), unique=True)
    pwdhash = db.Column(db.String(100))

    def __init__(self, email, password, roles=None):
        self.email = email.lower()
        self.set_password(password)
        # Be sure to call the UserMixin's constructor in your class constructor
        UserMixin.__init__(self, roles)

    def set_password(self, password):
        self.pwdhash = generate_password_hash(password)

    def check_password(self, password):
        return check_password_hash(self.pwdhash, password)

    def __str__(self):
        return self.email

views.py

# Import the decorators
from flask.ext.permissions.decorators import user_is, user_has

# Set up your route and decorate it
@app.route('/admin', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
# Pass the name of the role you want to test for to the decorator
@user_is('admin')
def admin():
    return render_template('admin.html')

# Here's an example of user_has
@app.route('/delete-users', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
# Pass the name of the ability you want to test for to the decorator
@user_has('delete_users')
def delete_users():
    return render_template('delete-users.html')

License

This extension is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more details.

Thank You

I hope you enjoy this project. I built Flask-Permissions because I couldn't find a simple permissions system for Flask. This does everything I need, and I feel the implementation is very easy to understand.

I'd love to hear your comments either on Twitter (@raddevon) or via email (devon@raddevon.com). I welcome pull requests, but I'm just one guy (and still a relatively new coder) so please try to be patient with me. If this project helps you, consider leaving me a gittip.