Mobile number verification through sms with Twilio in Rails

If sending SMS from your application(like phone no verification) is one of your requirement then Twilio is one of the solutions as a service provider for delivering SMS on your behalf.

There are two ways of implementing this in a Rails application -

Traditional
Two-factor authentication

Traditional

Create an account on twilio.
Get your Account SID and Auth Token.
Add gem - ‘gem ‘twilio-ruby’’
Add twilio.yml in config with data -

development:  
  twilio_account_sid: your_account_sid
  twilio_auth_token: your_auth_token
  twilio_phone_number: phone_no_provided_by_twilio_to_send_sms_from

Twilio phone number can be found in twilio console under section -

Create a session controller with two actions -> send_otp and verify_otp.

 def send_otp  
    if params[:user] && params[:user][:phone_no].present? && params[:user][:country_code].present?
       otp = SecureRandom.random_number(1000000)
       begin        
         otp_message = "Your one time password is #{otp}"        
         settings = YAML.load_file(File.join(Rails.root, 'config', 'twilio.yml'))[Rails.env]
         client = Twilio::REST::Client.new(settings['twilio_account_sid'], settings['twilio_auth_token'])
         client.messages.create(from: settings['twilio_phone_number'], to: (params['country_code'] + params['phone_no']), body: otp)
 
         json_response({message: 'OTP sent successfully.'})
       rescue => e        
         json_response({error: e.message}, :unprocessable_entity)
       end  
    else    
       json_response({error: 'Params are missing.'}, :not_acceptable)
    end
 end

Save the sent otp in cache on your server.

def verify_otp  
    if params[:user] && params[:user][:phone_no].present? && params[:user][:otp].present?
    saved_otp = CacheManagement.instance.get_value(params[:user][:phone_no])

      user = User.where(phone_no: params[:user][:phone_no]).take
      auth_token = SecureRandom.base64(12)
      if user.present?
        CacheManagement.instance.set_value(auth_token, user.id, User::AUTH_TOKEN_EXPIRY_TIME)
        json_response({error: 'User already exists.', user: user, auth_token: auth_token})
      else        
        build_resource(number_params)       
        resource.save
        CacheManagement.instance.set_value(auth_token, resource.id, User::AUTH_TOKEN_EXPIRY_TIME)
        json_response({message: 'User created successfully.', user: resource, auth_token: auth_token})
      end      
      # ---- If otp is not correct ----- #  
    else    
      json_response({error: 'Params are missing.'}, :not_acceptable)
    end
end

Two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication is a solution where Twilio gets integrated with Authy and Authy send OTP and manages mobile verification. User sends a request to authy. Then authy sends opt to user via Twilio and then for verification also user send request to Authy and then authy verifies the OTP.

Create an account on twilio.
Get your Account SID and Auth Token.
Setup Authy.
Add Api keys.
Add gem - ‘gem ‘twilio-ruby’’
Add gem - ‘gem ‘authy’’
Add twilio.yml in config with data -

development:  
  twilio_account_sid: your_account_sid
  twilio_auth_token: your_auth_token
  twilio_phone_number: phone_no_provided_by_twilio_to_send_sms_from
  api_key: your_authy_api_key
  api_uri: https://api.authy.com/

Create an authy.rb initializer with content -

TWILIO_SETTINGS = YAML::load_file(File.join(Rails.root, 'config', 'twilio.yml'))[Rails.env]

Authy.api_key = TWILIO_SETTINGS['api_key']
Authy.api_uri = 'https://api.authy.com/'

Create a session controller with two actions -> send_otp and verify_otp.

def send_otp  
  response = Authy::PhoneVerification.start(via: 'sms', country_code: params[:country_code], phone_number: params[:phone_no])
  render json: {response: response.message}, status: response.code
end

def verify_otp  
  response = Authy::PhoneVerification.check(verification_code: params[:otp], country_code: params[:country_code],
                                            phone_number: params[:phone_no])
  if response.ok?
    _user = User.find_or_initialize_by(phone_no: params[:phone_no], country_code: params[:country_code])
    if _user.new_record?
      if _user.save
        render json: {user: _user}, status: :ok      
      else        
         render json: {errors: _user.errors}, status: :unprocessable_entity      
      end    
     else      
       render json: {user: _user}, status: :ok    
     end  
    else    
      render json: {errors: [response.message]}, status: :unprocessable_entity  
    end
end

Traditional

Two-factor authentication

That’s all you have to do for mobile number verification process implementation in your application.