How to set default user for guest users in laravel 5?

Question

Is it possible to create some user which will automatically included if user is not authenticated? For example, if I call $request->user() in controller I will get NULL . I want to get some default user model in this case (maybe instance of App\\User with id == 0). I need it because I want to attach some roles and permissions to guest users via entrust module.

Answer 1

You could add a simple middleware that would authenticate users as Guest user if they aren't authenticated. The code below should do the trick:

class LoginAsGuest {
  public function handle($request, Closure $next)
  {
    if (!Auth::id()) {
      Auth::loginUsingId($guestUserId);
    }
  }
}

Make sure this middleware runs last so that user has a chance to be authenticated using their session/cookie data.