Integrating FOSUserBundle to Manage Users

FOSUserBundle is a popular Symfony bundle which simplifies the management of users in Symfony applications. This article explains how to better integrate it with EasyAdmin to manage users’ information. The article assumes that you have installed FOSUserBundle and have created a user entity as explained in its documentation.

Creating New Users

FOSUserBundle defines a user manager to handle all operations on user instances, such as creating and editing users. This manager, which is accessed through the fos_user.user_manager service, makes the bundle “agnostic” to where the users are stored and it’s a good practice to use it.

Before using this manager, read :doc:../tutorials/custom-actions if you haven’t done it already so you can modify the behavior of the new action. Then, override the createNewUserEntity() and persistUserEntity() methods to override the way users are created and persisted:

// src/Controller/AdminController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Controller\EasyAdminController;

class AdminController extends EasyAdminController
{
    public function createNewUserEntity()
    {
        return $this->get('fos_user.user_manager')->createUser();
    }

    public function persistUserEntity($user)
    {
        $this->get('fos_user.user_manager')->updateUser($user, false);
        parent::persistEntity($user);
    }
}

The false value of the second argument of updateUser() tells FOSUserBundle to not save the changes (to not flush the UnitOfWork) at that moment and to let Doctrine take care of saving those changes when needed.

.. note::

If your user entity is not called `User`, you need to change the above
method names. For example, if the entity is called `Customers`, the
methods to define are `createNewCustomersEntity()` and
`persistCustomersEntity()`.

Editing User Information

FOSUserBundle provides a custom User entity with some predefined properties, such as email, enabled and lastLogin. You can manage these properties in the same way you manage any property of any other entity:

# config/packages/easy_admin.yaml
easy_admin:
    entities:
        User:
            class: App\Entity\User
            form:
                fields:
                    - username
                    - email
                    - enabled
                    - lastLogin
                    # if administrators are allowed to edit users' passwords and roles, add this:
                    - { property: 'plainPassword', type: 'text', type_options: { required: false } }
                    - { property: 'roles', type: 'choice', type_options: { multiple: true, choices: { 'ROLE_USER': 'ROLE_USER', 'ROLE_ADMIN': 'ROLE_ADMIN' } } }

However, it’s recommended to save changes using FOSUserBundle’s user manager. Therefore, open your AdminController and add the following method:

// src/Controller/AdminController.php
class AdminController extends BaseAdminController
{
    // ...

    public function updateUserEntity($user)
    {
        $this->get('fos_user.user_manager')->updateUser($user, false);
        parent::updateEntity($user);
    }
}

.. note::

If your user entity is not called `User`, you need to change the above
method name. For example, if the entity is called `Customers`, the method
to define is `updateCustomersEntity()`.

Using Different Validation when Creating or Editing the User

A common need when managing users is to apply different validation rules when
creating or editing them. In the following example, the form applies different
validation groups for each action and the password is mandatory only when the
user is created:

``` yaml
# config/packages/easy_admin.yaml
easy_admin:
    entities:
        User:
            class: App\Entity\User
            edit:
                fields:
                    # ...
                    - { property: 'plainPassword', type_options: { required: false} }
                    # ...
                form_options: { validation_groups: ['Profile'] }
            new:
                fields:
                    # ...
                    - { property: 'plainPassword', type_options: { required: true} }
                    # ...
                form_options: { validation_groups: ['Registration'] }
```