I implemented similar thing not so long ago. Basic concept follows in an example code.
I created my own configAcl.php file which is loaded in bootstrap file, in my case it is index.php. Here is how it'd be according to your case:
$acl = new Zend_Acl();
$roles = array('admin', 'normal');
// Controller script names. You have to add all of them if credential check
// is global to your application.
$controllers = array('auth', 'index', 'news', 'admin');
foreach ($roles as $role) {
$acl->addRole(new Zend_Acl_Role($role));
}
foreach ($controllers as $controller) {
$acl->add(new Zend_Acl_Resource($controller));
}
// Here comes credential definiton for admin user.
$acl->allow('admin'); // Has access to everything.
// Here comes credential definition for normal user.
$acl->allow('normal'); // Has access to everything...
$acl->deny('normal', 'admin'); // ... except the admin controller.
// Finally I store whole ACL definition to registry for use
// in AuthPlugin plugin.
$registry = Zend_Registry::getInstance();
$registry->set('acl', $acl);
Another case is if you want to allow normal user only "list" action on all your controllers. It's pretty simple, you'd add line like this:
$acl->allow('normal', null, 'list'); // Has access to all controller list actions.
Next you should create new plugin which takes care of credential checking automatically when there is a request for some controller action. This checking takes place in preDispatch() method that is called before every call to the controller action.
Here is AuthPlugin.php:
class AuthPlugin extends Zend_Controller_Plugin_Abstract
{
public function preDispatch(Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract $request)
{
$loginController = 'auth';
$loginAction = 'login';
$auth = Zend_Auth::getInstance();
// If user is not logged in and is not requesting login page
// - redirect to login page.
if (!$auth->hasIdentity()
&& $request->getControllerName() != $loginController
&& $request->getActionName() != $loginAction) {
$redirector = Zend_Controller_Action_HelperBroker::getStaticHelper('Redirector');
$redirector->gotoSimpleAndExit($loginAction, $loginController);
}
// User is logged in or on login page.
if ($auth->hasIdentity()) {
// Is logged in
// Let's check the credential
$registry = Zend_Registry::getInstance();
$acl = $registry->get('acl');
$identity = $auth->getIdentity();
// role is a column in the user table (database)
$isAllowed = $acl->isAllowed($identity->role,
$request->getControllerName(),
$request->getActionName());
if (!$isAllowed) {
$redirector = Zend_Controller_Action_HelperBroker::getStaticHelper('Redirector');
$redirector->gotoUrlAndExit('/');
}
}
}
}
Final steps are loading your configAcl.php and register the AuthPlugin in bootstrap file (probably index.php).
require_once '../application/configAcl.php';
$frontController = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance();
$frontController->registerPlugin(new AuthPlugin());
So this is the basic concept. I didn't test the code above (copy and paste and rewrite just for the showcase purpose) so it's not bullet-proof. Just to give an idea.
EDIT
For the clarity. The code above in AuthPlugin suppose that the $identity object is filled with user data ("role" column in the database). This could be done within the login process like this:
[...]
$authAdapter = new Zend_Auth_Adapter_DbTable($db);
$authAdapter->setTableName('Users');
$authAdapter->setIdentityColumn('username');
$authAdapter->setCredentialColumn('password');
$authAdapter->setIdentity($username);
$authAdapter->setCredential(sha1($password));
$authAdapter->setCredentialTreatment('? AND active = 1');
$auth = Zend_Auth::getInstance();
$result = $auth->authenticate($authAdapter);
if ($result->isValid()) {
$data = $authAdapter->getResultRowObject(null, 'password'); // without password
$auth->getStorage()->write($data);
[...]
