Laravel login as another user

Question

I am currently developing a laravel app where there are 3 user_roles

1. Superadmin
2. Admin
3. Normal

So each role can access the roles below him.

e.g

Superadmins can access admins and normal users account.

How do I allow a authenticated superadmin user to log in as an admin or normal user with a click of a button?

USER_ROLES TABLE
id      name
 1      superadmin
 2      admin
 3      normal

----------------------------
USERS TABLE
id      first_name        last_name        user_role_id    password
 1      john              doe              1               *******
 2      jane              doe              2               *******
 3      cassie            snow             3               *******
 4      sansa             stark            3               *******

Answer 1

You can use the following methods to log in any user

$userId = 1;
Auth::loginUsingId($userId, true);

or

$user = User::find(1);
Auth::login($user);

If you have set up roles in your user model you could use something like

    //check if the current user is superadmin
    $userRoles = Auth::user()->getRoleNames()->toArray();
        if (in_array('superadmin', $userRoles)) {
             //login the user
             Auth::login($user);          
        }

Answer 2

First you need add 2 columns to user table: type(integer 1=admin, 2=some other) and active (boolean 1 to true and 0 false)

php artisan make:migration add_cols_to_users_table --table=users

    public function up()
{
    Schema::table('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->integer('type')->default(0);
        $table->boolean('active')->default(0);
    });
}

public function down()
{
    Schema::table('users', function ($table) {
        $table->dropColumn(['type', 'active']);
    });
}
}

link on some page

 <a href="{{ url('impersonate') }}/{{ $user->id }}" class="btn btn-success">Enter as {{$user->name}}</a>

someUserController.php:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;

class someUserController extends Controller
{
public function __construct()
{
    $this->middleware('auth');
    $id = Auth::id();
    $user = User::find($id);

    //echo '<pre>ID:'.$id.' - '.print_r($user,1); die();

    if($user->type !== 1)  //1 for type admin
    {
        echo ' error not admin (nice try!).';
        die();
    }
}

public function impersonate($id)
{       
    Auth::logout(); // for end current session
    Auth::loginUsingId($id);

    return redirect()->to('get-dashboard');
}

}

routes.php | web.php

Route::get('/impersonate/{id}', 'someUserController@impersonate');

Route::get('get-dashboard', function () {

    $id = \Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth::id();
    $user = \App\User::find($id);

    //echo '<pre>'.print_r($user,1); die();

    if(!$user->active) return redirect('404-page');


    switch($user->type)
    {
        case 1: return redirect('x-url-dashboard-1'); break;
        case 2: return redirect('x-url-dashboard-2'); break;
        case 3: return redirect('x-url-dashboard-3'); break;
    }


});