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Limit access of Strapi users to their own entries

Christian Engel on May 15, 2022

This was actually one of the first problems I encountered when I began using Strapi version 4 as a backend boilerplate for my streaming service for...

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Wilhelm Uschtrin • Aug 1 '22

Hey, just made an account to say thank you. Been looking for a working write-up to this use case all day. Also posted your create() method here, I think result is undefined though, right?. Many thanks! ❤️

Christian Engel • Aug 15 '22

You are right, the create method should return updated!

Sajjad Ali • Aug 22 '22

I ended up doing like this. I wonder if this is the best way to fetch single record if it belongs to user?

async findOne(ctx){
    const user = ctx.state.user;
    const { id } = ctx.params;
    const invoice = await strapi.entityService.findOne('api::invoice.invoice', id, {
      populate: { user_id: { fields: ['id'], } },
    })

    if (invoice?.user_id?.id == user.id) {
      return invoice;
    } else {
      return {
        data: null,
        error: {
            message: 'Not authorized'
        }
      }
    }
  }

Christian Engel • Aug 23 '22

While this certainly works, I would not advise to do it this way. What you do here is fetch the whole invoice object from the database, as well as the user object (partially) and move that data over to the nodeJS context. Then you look into the object and discard it if it does not match the desired user id.

Thats like ordering a car and have it delivered to a store next to you and only checking you are too young to actually buy it just before handing the car over to you.

Why didn't you use the filters parameter on findOne() like in my blog post above? I think this should work fine:

const invoice = await strapi.entityService.findOne('api::invoice.invoice', id, {
      filters: { user_id: { $eq: user.id, } },
    })

Orleando Dassi • Jan 7 • Edited

As per what I see in the documentation, the findOne method of the entityService doesn't support filters but the findMany does.

I was able to perform a single request using the "Query Engine API" instead, as follows:

const invoice = await strapi.query('api::invoice.invoice')
                            .findOne({ where: { id, user_id: user.id } });

Documentation: docs.strapi.io/dev-docs/api/query-...

Sajjad Ali • Aug 23 '22

Thanks for the reply. This is the findOne() method I tried exactly like your post but it's not working as expected.

async findOne(ctx){
  const user = ctx.state.user;

  ctx.query.filters = {
      ...(ctx.query.filters || {}),
      user_id: user.id
  };

  return super.findOne(ctx);
}

As mentioned, It's fetching invoices which doesn't belong to the user. For example, logged-in User 1 can fetch single invoice which belongs to User 2.

But find all method works fine and returns the posts which only belongs to User 1.

async find(ctx){
  const user = ctx.state.user;

  ctx.query.filters = {
      ...(ctx.query.filters || {}),
      user_id: user.id
  };

  return super.find(ctx);
}

So the filter works great for find() method but all other methods (findOne, update, delete) are open to all users. User 1 can find/update/delete invoice which belongs to User 2.

I have been testing in Insomnia. That's why I came up with that crazy method. Which I know is not the best way at all but hoping to get some better suggestion.

I just tried this.

async findOne(ctx){
  const user = ctx.state.user;
  const { id } = ctx.params;

  const invoice = await strapi.entityService.findOne('api::invoice.invoice', id, {
    filters: { user_id: { $eq: user.id, } },
  })

  return invoice;
}

Again same result. User 1 can fetch User 2 invoice.

Erfan Attarzadeh • Dec 1 '22

Did you find any solutions?

Sharkfin • Jul 26 '22

saved me, thanks Friend

Christian Engel • Aug 15 '22

My pleasure, always trying to help :)

Sajjad Ali • Aug 21 '22 • Edited

Thank you for this article. Really helpful. Though I have few issues.

While it working great for find() method and showing posts which belongs to the user but findOne() and update() method is working for posts which doesn't belong to the logged-in user.

for example. When I make request to /api/invoices/ route with jwt token. It works fine and only fetch invoices which belongs to that user.id. But when I make request to /api/invoices/1. It's fetching single invoice which doesn't belong to logged-in user. In other words, It's fetching all single invoices and update() method have same issue, user can update all invoices.

The code is exact copy/paste except owner is replaced with user_id: user.id. Any idea, what I might be doing wrong?

Thanks

Christian Engel • Aug 23 '22

Without actually seeing your code, I cannot make any comments about what might be wrong, sorry :)

Philippe Manzano • Oct 13 '22

Thank you!
It works fine when using the web (frontend users), but admin API token seems broken after this change (500, internal error). I guess admin user (API token) is not evaluatable as owner.
Why not going with policies? It seems hard but wraps around the controller: docs.strapi.io/developer-docs/late...

Arthur Jacquemin • Mar 17 '23 • Edited

more simple

async findOne(ctx) {
    const {id} = ctx.params;
    const {user} = ctx.state;

    const entity = await strapi.query(UID).findOne({
      where: {
        id,
        user: user.id,
      }
    })

    if (entity === null) {
      return ctx.notFound();
    }

    return super.findOne(ctx);
  },

SpiralCrew • Oct 16 '23 • Edited

Thanks for the article. I am now learning about policies and middlewares in Strapi 4, and that makes it a bit easier.

For example:

// setUser middleware

module.exports = (config, { strapi }) => {
  return async (ctx, next) => {
    const user = ctx.state.user;
    ctx.request.body.data.user = user.id;

    return next();
  };
};

You could do something similar for other endpoints and add those middleware to your routes, like:

import { factories } from "@strapi/strapi";

export default factories.createCoreRouter("api::query.query", {
  config: {
    create: {
      middlewares: ["global::set-user"],
    },
  },
});

Alan • May 29 '23

Man, I'm trying to do this, but it just does not work. I can see queries from postman hitting the endpoint, the authenticated user is there, but the filtering is just not happening. And I have no idea why. I even created question on strapi forums, but have had no luck getting answers : forum.strapi.io/t/im-following-exa...

Alan • May 29 '23

Allright, just thought I'd read the quirks part of your series and whoa... once I enabled the permissions for users, everything started working...

Matthias H. • Jul 28 '23

This does not seem to work if your users-permissions-plugin Users model does not have the find/findOne permissions - unless I'm doing something wrong.
I needed to do something like

await strapi.entityService.findMany(
        "api::content.content",
        {
          filters: {
            user: {
              id: {
                $eq: user.id,
              },
            },
          },
        }
      );

In this case, my content type has a many-to-one relation to the User from U&P plugin.
Is there any better way to do this? Via Policies?
I don't want to specifically have to check the DB on every request (be it find, findOne, update, delete, etc.), but is sorta the best I've found so far.

Erfan Attarzadeh • Dec 1 '22

You saved my life. Thank you. Although, the create() response was different to the default response. Default response has a data inside data key.

PHTremor • Sep 1 '22

Thank You.