Laravel SentinelLog

Laravel SentinelLog is a powerful, all-in-one authentication logging and security package for Laravel. It provides advanced features like device tracking, 2FA, session management, brute force protection, geo-fencing, and SSO support, ensuring security while keeping users informed.

Features

• Authentication Logging: Logs login, logout, and failed attempts.
• Device & Geolocation Tracking: Tracks devices and locations for authentication events.
• Notifications: Alerts for new device logins and failed attempts.
• Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): TOTP-based 2FA with QR code support.
• Session Management: Tracks multiple sessions and detects hijacking.
• Brute Force Protection: Rate-limits login attempts and blocks suspicious IPs.
• Geo-Fencing: Restricts logins to specific countries.
• Single Sign-On (SSO): Token-based SSO for seamless authentication.
• New Location Verification: Detects logins from unrecognised locations and emails the user a verify/deny link, invalidating the session on denial.

Demo Project

Want to see Laravel SentinelLog in action? Check out our demo project:

Laravel SentinelLog Demo

This demo project showcases:

• Complete authentication system with SentinelLog integration
• Real-world implementation of all features
• Best practices for configuration and usage
• Example of custom notifications and event handling
• Interactive UI for testing various security features

To run the demo locally:

git clone https://github.com/Harish120/sentinel-test.git
cd sentinel-test
composer install
cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate
php artisan migrate
php artisan db:seed
php artisan serve

Visit http://localhost:8000 to explore the demo.

Installation

Prerequisites

• PHP 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, or 8.5
• Laravel 10.x, 11.x, 12.x, or 13.x
• Composer

Steps

1. Install the Package

  composer require harryes/laravel-sentinellog

2. Publish Configuration

  php artisan vendor:publish --tag=sentinel-log-config

2a. (Optional) Publish Views — only if you want to customise the verify/deny confirmation pages:

  php artisan vendor:publish --tag=sentinel-log-views

This copies the Blade templates to resources/views/sentinel-log/location/.

Do not publish unless you intend to customise. The package serves the confirmation pages automatically via loadViewsFrom() — no publishing step is required for them to work. Publishing a copy you never edit will silently shadow future package view updates.

3. Run Migrations

  php artisan migrate

4. Add Trait to User Model

    use Harryes\SentinelLog\Traits\NotifiesAuthenticationEvents;
    
    class User extends Authenticatable
    {
        use NotifiesAuthenticationEvents;
    
        protected $fillable = ['two_factor_secret', 'two_factor_enabled_at'];
        protected $casts = [
            'two_factor_enabled_at' => 'datetime',
            'two_factor_secret'     => 'encrypted', // encrypts the TOTP secret at rest
        ];
    }

Security: The encrypted cast uses your application's APP_KEY to encrypt the 2FA secret in the database. A database dump will not expose raw TOTP secrets. If you have existing unencrypted secrets, re-generate them after adding the cast — existing codes will stop working until the secret is re-saved through the encryption layer.

Configuration

Edit config/sentinel-log.php to customize the package. Key options:

General Settings

    'enabled' => true,
    'events' => ['login' => true, 'logout' => true, 'failed' => true],
    'table_name' => 'authentication_logs',

Notifications

    'new_device'        => ['enabled' => true, 'channels' => ['mail'], 'threshold' => 1],
    'failed_attempt'    => ['enabled' => true, 'channels' => ['mail'], 'threshold' => 3, 'window' => 60],
    'session_hijacking' => ['enabled' => true, 'channels' => ['mail']],

To also persist notifications to the database, add 'database' to the channels array for any notification. Your users table must have the notifications table from php artisan notifications:table.

    'new_device' => ['enabled' => true, 'channels' => ['mail', 'database']],

Note: The NewLocationLogin database payload stores verification_id (the record's primary key) rather than the raw token, so the verify/deny URLs cannot be reconstructed from the notifications table.

Optional Chat Channels (Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, custom webhook)

Mail is the default and it keeps working with zero setup. If your team also watches a Slack, Discord, or Teams channel, or you run alerts through a Telegram bot, you can send the same alerts there too. None of this needs an extra composer package, they all just take a plain HTTP POST, so turning any of them on will not add new dependencies to your app.

Add the channel name to whichever notification's channels array you want, and fill in its settings:

    'notifications' => [
        'new_device'        => ['enabled' => true, 'channels' => ['mail', 'slack']],
        'failed_attempt'    => ['enabled' => true, 'channels' => ['mail', 'slack', 'discord']],
        'session_hijacking' => ['enabled' => true, 'channels' => ['mail', 'teams', 'telegram']],
    ],

    'channels' => [
        'slack' => [
            'webhook_url' => env('SENTINEL_LOG_SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL'),
        ],
        'discord' => [
            'webhook_url' => env('SENTINEL_LOG_DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL'),
        ],
        'teams' => [
            'webhook_url' => env('SENTINEL_LOG_TEAMS_WEBHOOK_URL'),
        ],
        'telegram' => [
            'bot_token' => env('SENTINEL_LOG_TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN'),
            'chat_id' => env('SENTINEL_LOG_TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID'),
        ],
        'webhook' => [
            'webhook_url' => env('SENTINEL_LOG_WEBHOOK_URL'),
        ],
    ],

How to set each one up:

• Slack: create an incoming webhook for the channel you want alerts in.
• Discord: open the channel's settings, go to Integrations, and create a webhook there.
• Microsoft Teams: add an Incoming Webhook connector to the channel and copy its URL.
• Telegram: message @BotFather to create a bot and get a token, message your bot once, then visit https://api.telegram.org/bot<token>/getUpdates to read back the chat id.
• Custom webhook ('webhook'): a catch-all for anything else, PagerDuty, Zapier, n8n, or your own endpoint. It posts the notification's normal toArray() payload, the same data the database channel stores, so you get structured JSON rather than a chat message.

If a channel is turned on but not fully configured (no webhook URL, or no bot token), the package logs a warning and moves on. It will never throw an error or stop a login from working. The same goes for a webhook that is down or times out, so a broken Slack or Teams integration can never take your login flow down with it.

You can also point different users at different destinations by adding routeNotificationForSlack(), routeNotificationForDiscord(), routeNotificationForTeams(), or routeNotificationForTelegram() to your notifiable model, the same way you would for routeNotificationForMail(). For Telegram this should return the chat id, for the others a webhook URL. That value takes priority over the config setting.

Want a channel that is not here yet? Open an issue or a PR, the channel classes in src/Channels are built so a new one is just a small subclass.

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

    'two_factor' => [
        'enabled'     => false,
        'required'    => false, // when true, all TwoFactorAuthenticatable users must complete 2FA setup
        'middleware'  => 'sentinel-log.2fa',
        'setup_route' => 'two-factor.setup',
    ],

• enabled — registers the sentinel-log.2fa middleware alias so you can apply it to routes
• required — when true, the middleware redirects any user who has not set up 2FA to the setup route; when false (default), only users who have already set up 2FA are prompted to verify

Important: The package does not register a two-factor.setup route — you must define it in your own application. If your route has a different name, set setup_route to match or use the SENTINEL_LOG_2FA_SETUP_ROUTE env variable.

Sessions

    'sessions' => ['enabled' => true, 'max_active' => 5],

Brute Force Protection

    'brute_force' => ['enabled' => true, 'threshold' => 5, 'window' => 15, 'block_duration' => 24],

Geolocation Provider

    // Defaults to ipwho.is — free, HTTPS, no API key required.
    // Override to use your own provider; must return JSON compatible with ipwho.is response format.
    'geo_provider_url' => 'https://ipwho.is',

Geo-Fencing

    'geo_fencing' => ['enabled' => false, 'allowed_countries' => ['United States', 'Canada']],

SSO

    'sso' => ['enabled' => false, 'client_id' => 'default_client', 'token_lifetime' => 24],

New Location Verification

    'location_verification' => [
        'enabled' => true,
        'channels' => ['mail'],
        'token_ttl' => 30, // Minutes until verify/deny links expire
        'redirect_after_verify' => '/',
        'redirect_after_deny' => '/',
    ],

Environment Variables

Add these to .env:

SENTINEL_LOG_ENABLED=true SENTINEL_LOG_2FA_ENABLED=true SENTINEL_LOG_2FA_REQUIRED=false SENTINEL_LOG_2FA_SETUP_ROUTE=two-factor.setup SENTINEL_LOG_GEO_PROVIDER_URL=https://ipwho.is SENTINEL_LOG_GEO_FENCING_ENABLED=true SENTINEL_LOG_GEO_FENCING_ALLOWED_COUNTRIES="United States,Canada" SENTINEL_LOG_LOCATION_VERIFICATION_ENABLED=true SENTINEL_LOG_SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL= SENTINEL_LOG_DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL= SENTINEL_LOG_TEAMS_WEBHOOK_URL= SENTINEL_LOG_TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN= SENTINEL_LOG_TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID= SENTINEL_LOG_WEBHOOK_URL=

Usage Examples

2FA Setup

Generate a 2FA secret and QR code:

    use Harryes\SentinelLog\Services\TwoFactorAuthenticationService;
    
    $service = new TwoFactorAuthenticationService();
    $user->update([
        'two_factor_secret' => $service->generateSecret(),
        'two_factor_enabled_at' => now(),
    ]);
    $qrCodeUrl = $service->getQrCodeUrl($user->two_factor_secret, $user->email);

Protect routes with 2FA middleware:

    Route::middleware('sentinel-log.2fa')->group(function () {
        Route::get('/dashboard', fn() => 'Protected!');
    });

Verify 2FA code:

    Route::post('/2fa/verify', function (TwoFactorAuthenticationService $service) {
        if ($service->verifyCode(auth()->user()->two_factor_secret, request('code'))) {
            session(['2fa_verified' => true]);
            return redirect('/dashboard');
        }
        return back()->withErrors(['code' => 'Invalid 2FA code']);
    });

Failed Login Attempt Notifications

To receive notifications when a user's account hits the failed attempt threshold, implement the NotifiableWithFailedAttempt contract on your User model alongside the NotifiesAuthenticationEvents trait:

use Harryes\SentinelLog\Contracts\NotifiableWithFailedAttempt;
use Harryes\SentinelLog\Models\AuthenticationLog;
use Harryes\SentinelLog\Traits\NotifiesAuthenticationEvents;

class User extends Authenticatable implements NotifiableWithFailedAttempt
{
    use NotifiesAuthenticationEvents;

    public function notifyFailedAttempt(AuthenticationLog $log): void
    {
        $this->notify(new YourFailedAttemptNotification($log));
    }
}

The method is called automatically by the LogFailedLogin listener once the threshold defined in notifications.failed_attempt.threshold is reached within the configured time window.

SSO Integration

Generate an SSO token:

    use Harryes\SentinelLog\Services\SsoAuthenticationService;
    
    $ssoService = new SsoAuthenticationService();
    $token = $ssoService->generateToken(auth()->user(), 'client_app_1');

Handle SSO login in the client app:

    Route::get('/sso/login', fn() => 'Logged in via SSO')->middleware('auth');

Device Recognition

SentinelLog uses a persistent cookie token as the primary device identity signal — the same approach used by GitHub, Google, and Stripe.

How it works:

• On first login from a browser, a cryptographically random 64-character token is generated and stored in a long-lived sentinel_device_token cookie (2 years, HttpOnly, SameSite=Lax)
• On every subsequent login, the cookie is read and looked up in the login history
• If the token is not found → new device → NewDeviceLogin notification sent
• If the token is found → recognised device → no notification

Why a cookie and not a header hash?
Header-based hashes that include the IP address break for mobile users (WiFi ↔ cellular), dynamic IPs, and VPN users. The cookie token is stable across all of these. A secondary header hash (User-Agent + Accept-Language + Accept-Encoding) is still stored in device_info alongside the token for forensic reference.

To enable new device notifications, set in config:

'notifications' => [
    'new_device' => ['enabled' => true, 'channels' => ['mail']],
],

Upgrading from a previous version? Existing login records have no token field in device_info. Each user will receive a single "new device" email on their first login after the upgrade — after which the cookie is set and recognition is stable.

Session Management

View active sessions:

    $sessions = auth()->user()->authenticationLogs()->with('session')->get();

Brute Force & Geo-Fencing

Attempts are automatically rate-limited, and IPs are blocked after exceeding the threshold. Geo-fencing blocks logins from unallowed countries based on config/sentinel-log.php.

New Location Verification

When a user logs in from a city/country they have never used before, SentinelLog automatically sends them a NewLocationLogin notification with two action links:

• Yes, this was me — opens a confirmation page. The user clicks confirm which submits a POST request, marking the location as trusted and logging a location_verified event.
• No, deny this login — opens a confirmation page showing the location and IP details. The user clicks confirm which submits a POST request to revoke the session, logging a location_denied event.

Why confirmation pages for both links? Email security scanners (Outlook Safe Links, Apple Mail, Gmail) automatically follow every link in an email on delivery. Without a confirmation step, scanners would silently trust or revoke the session before the user even reads the email.

Both confirmation pages are Blade templates you can customise — see the installation steps above.

The links expire after token_ttl minutes (default 30). No application code changes are required — the check runs inside the LogSuccessfulLogin listener on every login.

To disable the feature:

SENTINEL_LOG_LOCATION_VERIFICATION_ENABLED=false

To prune expired, unactioned verification records:

    use Harryes\SentinelLog\Services\LocationVerificationService;

    app(LocationVerificationService::class)->pruneExpired();

Scheduled Maintenance

SentinelLog accumulates records over time. Add these to your scheduler to keep tables clean:

// routes/console.php (Laravel 11+) or App\Console\Kernel (Laravel 10)
use Harryes\SentinelLog\Models\AuthenticationLog;
use Harryes\SentinelLog\Services\BruteForceProtectionService;
use Harryes\SentinelLog\Services\LocationVerificationService;

Schedule::call(fn () => AuthenticationLog::pruneOlderThan())
    ->daily()
    ->name('sentinel-log:prune-auth-logs');

Schedule::call(fn () => app(BruteForceProtectionService::class)->pruneExpired())
    ->daily()
    ->name('sentinel-log:prune-blocked-ips');

Schedule::call(fn () => app(LocationVerificationService::class)->pruneExpired())
    ->daily()
    ->name('sentinel-log:prune-location-verifications');

| Method | What it cleans | Recommended frequency | |---|---|---| | AuthenticationLog::pruneOlderThan() | Auth log entries older than prune.days (default 30) | Daily | | BruteForceProtectionService::pruneExpired() | Expired IP block records from sentinel_blocked_ips | Daily | | LocationVerificationService::pruneExpired() | Expired unactioned location verification tokens | Daily |

You can override the retention period: AuthenticationLog::pruneOlderThan(90) keeps 90 days of history.

Note on IP blocks: A blocked IP is considered inactive once its expires_at timestamp passes — no record deletion is needed for the block to stop working. pruneExpired() is purely a housekeeping concern.

Contributing

Submit issues or pull requests on GitHub. Feedback is welcome!

License

This package is open-sourced under the MIT License.