Laravel Redirect Back with() Message

For Laravel 5.3 and above

Check Scott's answer below.

For Laravel 5 up to 5.2

Simply put,

On auth middleware:

// redirect the user to "/login"
// and stores the url being accessed on session
if (Auth::guest()) {
    return redirect()->guest('login');
}
return $next($request);

On login action:

// redirect the user back to the intended page
// or defaultpage if there isn't one
if (Auth::attempt(['email' => $email, 'password' => $password])) {
    return redirect()->intended('defaultpage');
}

For Laravel 4 (old answer)

At the time of this answer there was no official support from the framework itself. Nowadays you can use the method pointed out by bgdrl below this method: (I've tried updating his answer, but it seems he won't accept)

On auth filter:

// redirect the user to "/login"
// and stores the url being accessed on session
Route::filter('auth', function() {
    if (Auth::guest()) {
        return Redirect::guest('login');
    }
});

On login action:

// redirect the user back to the intended page
// or defaultpage if there isn't one
if (Auth::attempt(['email' => $email, 'password' => $password])) {
    return Redirect::intended('defaultpage');
}

For Laravel 3 (even older answer)

You could implement it like this:

Route::filter('auth', function() {
    // If there's no user authenticated session
    if (Auth::guest()) {
        // Stores current url on session and redirect to login page
        Session::put('redirect', URL::full());
        return Redirect::to('/login');
    }
    if ($redirect = Session::get('redirect')) {
        Session::forget('redirect');
        return Redirect::to($redirect);
    }
});

// on controller
public function get_login()
{
    $this->layout->nest('content', 'auth.login'); 
}

public function post_login()
{
    $credentials = [
        'username' => Input::get('email'),
        'password' => Input::get('password')
    ];

    if (Auth::attempt($credentials)) {
        return Redirect::to('logged_in_homepage_here');
    }

    return Redirect::to('login')->with_input();
}

Storing the redirection on Session has the benefit of persisting it even if the user miss typed his credentials or he doesn't have an account and has to signup.

This also allows for anything else besides Auth to set a redirect on session and it will work magically.

Suggestion from vsmoraes worked for me:

Laravel >= 5.4

php artisan cache:clear 
chmod -R 775 storage/
composer dump-autoload

Laravel < 5.4

php artisan cache:clear 
chmod -R 775 app/storage 
composer dump-autoload

NOTE: DO NOT DO THIS ON ANY REMOTE SERVER (DEV OR PRODUCTION)

When I asked this question, this was a problem on my localhost, running in a Virtual Machine. So I thought setting up a 777 was safe enough, however, folks are right when they say you should look for a different solution. Try 775 first