How to do authorization and authentication with session on nodejs and express?

Question

Node.js

I realized that I need to use the passport and passport-local modules for authorization, do I need to use express-session for sessions, or are there built-in tools? What structure to follow when creating a web application? I still can’t figure out the numerous exports and required, how to organize the application structure in a simpler and more understandable way?

Answer 1

What do you mean by built-in means? What is wrong with passport? Of the "built-in" in Node, I remember only http and fs. The rest must be installed using npm.
Below is an example of implementing user authorization for a Single page application (SPA) using passport and passport-local.

var log4js = require('log4js');
var logger = log4js.getLogger('root-logger');
var fs = require('fs');
var nconf = require('nconf');
var passport = require('passport');
var LocalStrategy = require('passport-local').Strategy;
var application_root = __dirname,
        express = require('express'),
        path = require('path'),
        mongoose = require('mongoose');
var MongoStore = require('connect-mongo')(express);
log4js.configure('conf/log4js_configuration.json', {});
nconf.argv().env().file({file: 'conf/config.json'});

var app = express();
logger.setLevel('INFO');
logger.info('Starting application');

passport.use(new LocalStrategy({
    usernameField: 'username',
    passwordField: 'password'
}, function (username, password, done) {
    User.findOne({username: username}, function (err, user) {
        if (err) {
            logger.info(err);
        }
        return err
                ? done(err)
                : user
                ? password === user.password
                ? done(null, user)
                : done(null, false, {message: 'Incorrect password.'})
                : done(null, false, {message: 'Incorrect username.'});
    });
}));

passport.serializeUser(function (user, done) {
    done(null, user.id);
});

passport.deserializeUser(function (user, done) {
    done(null, user);
});

// Define a middleware function to be used for every secured route
var auth = function (req, res, next) {
    if (!req.isAuthenticated())
        res.send(401);
    else
        next();
};

// configure express
app.configure(function () {
    app.use(express.cookieParser());
    app.use(express.bodyParser());
    app.use(express.methodOverride());
    app.use(express.session({secret: 'hd94857dbcvd'}));
    app.use(passport.initialize()); // Add passport initialization
    app.use(passport.session());    // Add passport initialization    
    app.use(app.router);
    app.use(express.errorHandler({dumpExceptions: true, showStack: true}));
    app.use(express.static(path.join(application_root, '.')));
});

// start server
var port = nconf.get('Application:http:port');
app.listen(port, function () {
    logger.info('Express server listening on port %d in %s mode', port, app.settings.env);
});

mongoose.connect(nconf.get('Application:mongo:connection_string'), {user: nconf.get('Application:mongo:username'), pass: nconf.get('Application:mongo:password')});

// application user schema
var UserSchema = new mongoose.Schema({ 
    username: {
        type: String,
        unique: true,
        required: true
    },
    password: {
        type: String,
        required: true
    },
    roles: [String]
});

var User = mongoose.model('User', UserSchema);

app.post('/login', passport.authenticate('local'), function (req, res) {
    res.send(req.user);
});

app.get('/loggedin', function (req, res) {
    res.send(req.isAuthenticated() ? req.user : '0');
});

app.post('/logout', function (req, res) {
    req.logOut();
    res.send(200);
});

// this route is accessible only for authorized users
app.get('/api/search', auth, function (req, res) {
    var param = req.query.name;
    logger.info(param);
    return res.send("Hello, world!");
});