Models accessible only for authenticated user THAT CREATED THEM (Laravel) - laravel

Question

I'm writing a software application to let the people have their own private archive of cooking recipes.
The RecipeController constructor contains:
$this->middleware('auth')
because only registered users can use recipes, but I need to protect also the access to the models.
The point is that users can view and modify only their own recipes.
Example: The user TortelliEngineer can create a recipe "Tortelli Secret Recipe" using the model Recipe; he can view, update and delete his recipe(s), but nobody else can see his precious "Tortelli Secret Recipe".
So, which is the cleanest way?
I added a user_id attribute to the model Recipe.
I must use this parameter every single time that I ask to the database for a Recipe (goodbye "findOrFail" by ID)
That means that every time I make a request I must access the Request object that contains User that contains User_id
using Auth::id() EVERY SINGLE TIME that I need one (or n) recipe
Like this:
class RecipeRepository{
public function all(){
return Recipe::where('user_id', Auth::id())
->orderBy('created_at', 'asc')
->get();
}
public function find($recipe_id){
return Recipe::where('user_id', Auth::id())
->where('id', $recipe_id)
->firstOrFail();
}
Is that correct? Do you hate me for this? Do you know better or more correct ways to do it?

Answer 1

Most of the time I make a method inside the model to check if someone is authorised, owner etc.. of something.
An example would be:
// User model
public function owns_recipe($recipe)
{
return ($recipe->user_id == $this->id);
}
You can call this at the very beginning in of the methods of your controller:
// Controller
public function index (Request $request)
{
$recipe = Recipe::find($request->id); // Get recipe
$user = ... // Get user somehow
if (!$recipe) App::abort(404); // Show 404 not found, or something
if (!$user->owns_recipe($recipe)) App::abort(403); // Show 403 permission denied, or something
... // Do whatever you want :)
}

Answer 2

While there are many ways of approaching this, Laravel does provide some built-in methods for handling general authentication of actions. In the first place I'd do something along the lines of what you intended (have a getRecipesByOwner method in RecipeRepository) and you can pass the user to it from the injected Request object:
// RecipeController
public function index(Request $request)
{
$recipes = $this->recipeRepo->findRecipesByOwner($request->user());
}
In addition though, I'd recommend creating policies to manage whether or not a user is capable of updating/deleting/viewing individual recipes. You can then authorize their actions in the controllers/blade templates/etc. via built-in methods like:
// Controller
public function update(Request $request, Recipe $recipe)
{
$this->authorize('update', $recipe);
}
// Blade template
#can('update', $recipe)
#endcan
The documentation is available at: https://laravel.com/docs/5.3/authorization#creating-policies