Get Online Users in Laravel

In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to get online users in our Laravel application. In here we are going to make our custom middleware.

Prerequisites

Laravel

To Continue with this tutorial, you should have installed Laravel 8 in your pc. If you are still not installed Laravel in your machine you can configure it from here.

Setting up the Project

First you need to create a new laravel project by running below command in your terminal

composer create-project laravel/laravel laravel-get-online-user

Then navigate to your project directory by using below command in your terminal

cd laravel-get-online-user

Set up Database details

Now you need to configure your Database details in your .env file.

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=laravel_online_user
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=

Add new column to Users table

We need to add last_seen column to default user migration file in our Laravel application.

<?php

use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

class CreateUsersTable extends Migration
{
    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->id();
            $table->string('name');
            $table->string('email')->unique();
            $table->timestamp('last_seen')->nullable();
            $table->timestamp('email_verified_at')->nullable();
            $table->string('password');
            $table->rememberToken();
            $table->timestamps();
        });
    }

    public function down()
    {
        Schema::dropIfExists('users');
    }
}

Then we need to migrate our migration files by running below command in your terminal:

php artisan migrate

Also don’t forget to last_seen table value in app/Models/User.php file.

<?php

namespace App;

use Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\MustVerifyEmail;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\User as Authenticatable;
use Illuminate\Notifications\Notifiable;

class User extends Authenticatable
{
    use Notifiable;

    protected $fillable = [
        'name', 'email', 'password', 'last_seen'
    ];

    protected $hidden = [
        'password', 'remember_token',
    ];

    protected $casts = [
        'email_verified_at' => 'datetime',
    ];
}

Generate Auth Scaffolding

In here we use dafault auth scaffolding in Laravel. To install it run below command in your terminal:

composer require laravel/ui --dev

After installing composer package, then run below command in your termianl:

php artisan ui bootstrap --auth

To compile assets, run below command in your termianl:

npm i && npm run dev

Create Middleware

Now we need to create UserActivity middleware for update last seen time and add online status, to create middlware let's run bellow command:

php artisan make:middleware UserActivity

After that place below code in UserActivity middleware:

<?php
  
namespace App\Http\Middleware;
  
use Closure;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Auth;
use Cache;
use App\Models\User;
  
class UserActivity
{
    public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next)
    {
        if (Auth::check()) {
            $expiresAt = now()->addMinutes(2); /* keep online for 2 min */
            Cache::put('user-is-online-' . Auth::user()->id, true, $expiresAt);
  
            /* last seen */
            User::where('id', Auth::user()->id)->update(['last_seen' => now()]);
        }
  
        return $next($request);
    }
}

Then we need to register our newly created middleware in our kernal.php

<?php
  
namespace App\Http;
  
use Illuminate\Foundation\Http\Kernel as HttpKernel;
  
class Kernel extends HttpKernel
{
    ...........
    protected $middlewareGroups = [
        'web' => [
            \App\Http\Middleware\EncryptCookies::class,
            \Illuminate\Cookie\Middleware\AddQueuedCookiesToResponse::class,
            \Illuminate\Session\Middleware\StartSession::class,
            \Illuminate\View\Middleware\ShareErrorsFromSession::class,
            \App\Http\Middleware\VerifyCsrfToken::class,
            \Illuminate\Routing\Middleware\SubstituteBindings::class,
            \App\Http\Middleware\RestrictIpAddressMiddleware::class,
            \App\Http\Middleware\UserActivity::class,
        ],
  
        'api' => [
            'throttle:api',
            \Illuminate\Routing\Middleware\SubstituteBindings::class,
        ],
    ];
    ...........
}

Create Controller

Now we need to create UserController and add following code on that file:

<?php
  
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
  
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Models\User;
  
class UserController extends Controller
{
    public function index(Request $request)
    {
        $users = User::select("*")
            ->whereNotNull('last_seen')
            ->orderBy('last_seen', 'DESC')
            ->paginate(10);
          
        return view('users', compact('users'));
    }
}

Create View

we need to create blade file called `/users.blade.php` in `resources/views` directory and paste this code in it:

@extends('layouts.app')
  
@section('content')
<div class="container">

    <table class="table table-bordered data-table">
        <thead>
            <tr>
                <th>No</th>
                <th>Name</th>
                <th>Email</th>
                <th>Last Seen</th>
                <th>Status</th>
            </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
            @foreach($users as $user)
                <tr>
                    <td>{{ $user->id }}</td>
                    <td>{{ $user->name }}</td>
                    <td>{{ $user->email }}</td>
                    <td>
                        {{ Carbon\Carbon::parse($user->last_seen)->diffForHumans() }}
                    </td>
                    <td>
                        @if(Cache::has('user-is-online-' . $user->id))
                            <span class="text-success">Online</span>
                        @else
                            <span class="text-secondary">Offline</span>
                        @endif
                    </td>
                </tr>
            @endforeach
        </tbody>
    </table>
</div>
@endsection

Create Route

Change your web.php file according to this:

<?php
  
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
  
use App\Http\Controllers\UserController;
  
Auth::routes();

Route::get('/', [UserController::class, 'index']);
Route::get('/home', [App\Http\Controllers\HomeController::class, 'index'])->name('home');

Run the application

To run your application run below command in your termial:

php artisan serve

Then navigate to following URL:

http://127.0.0.1:8000/

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to get online users in Laravel. If you have any issue regarding this tutorial, mention your issue in comment section or reach me through my E-mail. You can obtainf the complete source code from this GitHub repository.