I can use JavaScript to construct custom requests using my token, jQuery example
$.ajax({
url: "/page",
type: 'GET',
headers: {"Authorization": 'Bearer ' + localStorage.getItem('token')}
});
To get the page at /page which may require authentication to do.
But what if I have in my page a link
The user is already authenticated, there is a token in localStorage.
How can I set it up so that clicking on the link loads a new webpage as usual, but tell the server Authorization: Bearer ... in the header of that request so the server knows the request is authentic?
You can't specify headers in browser navigation. If you need to authenticate when the user visits the page, you should create a cookie.
Cookies get sent in all requests. Storing your authentication token there would do what you need.
Related
I'm a bit frustrated with managing my JWT token during login, submits and redirects. Before I get started here's my technology stack just in case:
JQuery/Html -> Node.Js -> Java Restful Services -> MySQL.
My java Restful services manages creating the JWT Token returning it to the Node.js layer which decides what to do with it and pass it on the the client. This all works wonderfully.
To get the JWT token I'm making an ajax based authentication request to the Node middle tier, which authenticates and returns the token which is summarily crammed into localstorage on the client.
Now I have no desire what so ever to make the entire site load off a single page through ajax, it's a complex site and doing that is just dumb! I need to forward and navigate to sub pages while carrying along the JWT token.
Here's the question (finally)... How do send along the JWT token to the middle tier (node.js) without attaching it as a request or post parameter because that's a big no no? I can't seem to find a way to stuff it in the header associated with Bearer.
You need to store the token at client side using for example a cookie or localStorage
Ajax requests
Cookies: A cookie is sent automatically when making a request to the server, so you do not need to add a specific header
LocalStorage:It is needed to provide the token in each request using an HTTP header.
For example
POST /authenticatedService
Host: example.com
Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzdWIiOiIxMjM0NTY3ODkwIiwibmFtZSI6IkpvaG4gRG9lIiwiYWRtaW4iOnRydWV9.TJVA95OrM7E2cBab30RMHrHDcEfxjoYZgeFONFh7HgQ
This is an example code to show how to execute an ajax POST request using jquery
$.ajax({
type: "POST", //GET, POST, PUT
url: '/authenticatedService' //the url to call
data: yourData, //Data sent to server
contentType: contentType,
beforeSend: function (xhr) { //Include the bearer token in header
xhr.setRequestHeader("Authorization", 'Bearer '+ jwt);
}
}).done(function (response) {
//Response ok. process reuslt
}).fail(function (err) {
//Error during request
});
Form submit
With a form submission you can not control the headers set by browser, so it is not possible to set the Authorization header with a Bearer token. In this case you can
Cookie: store the JWT in a cookie that will be sent with the form data. You will need to add extra security to avoid CSRF attachs
Form param: The JWT is stored in a hidden field of the form.
Use always POST (not GET) to avoid cache of JWT
Link
A link executes a GET request. You could build the link adding the JWT as a query param url?jwt=...
But, consider in this case the security risks. Browser can cache the url and it will be present in logs. An attacker could potentially obtain them if he has access. Also the user could copy the link and use it outside your web application (e.g send it by email...)
If you use cookies, the token will be automatically sent to the server by clicking on the link, but this will only work if the user is authenticated. In this case be aware of CSRF vulnerabilities
Your only option is to store the token in a cookie if you don't want to do anything suggested above. You can't set http headers in links.
I am working on a simple website using jwt. (node.js, koa.js)
Most example codes including expressjs, I cannot find the client-side example
about how to deal with jwt sent from a server.
Only one example (https://github.com/auth0-blog/cookie-jwt-auth) showed me that
[index.html]
... script src="app.js...
[app.js]
$.ajax({
type: 'POST',
url: 'http://localhost:3001/secured/authorize-cookie',
data: {
token: token
},
headers: {
'Authorization' : 'Bearer ' + token
}
After I read this example, I felt that I should have some scripts for users to send an authorization header with jwt. Is it right?
Or are there some front-end frameworks that deal with authorization header?
Thank you for reading newbie'q question.
Yes, you will need to define a mechanism for sending the user's JWT back to the server. It's up to you to decide where the JWT will live in the request -- the most common places are in the Authorization header, or by setting a cookie on the browser (which will be sent along with every HTTP request). You should also consider whether you want the JWT to persist across sessions / page reloads (using for example document.cookie or localStorage).
If you choose not to use the cookie approach, you can configure all $.ajax requests to set your Authorization header "pre-flight" using $.ajaxSetup({...}) (but this is a bit of a sledge-hammer approach). Manually setting the Authorization header on each individual $.ajax request, as you've demonstrated above, is a good option too.
If you want to skip headers all together, you can send the JWT inside the body of your request (as JSON, for example).
I have a simple html page served from my local machine by an app running on port 8000, using the domain appdev.my_company.com.
The same app serves an API from the domain appcenter.my_company.com.
I have an endpoint in said API which sets a session cookie header that looks like this:
Set-Cookie:gac_3_6e...="VC1_69...=="; Domain=.my_company.com; Path=/
I made an ajax request to said endpoint, from the static page, hoping that the cookie would be set since the domain is the same (only the subdomain differs):
/* In http://appdev.my_company.com:8000 */
$.ajax({
url: "http://appcenter.my_company.com:8000/login/",
method: 'POST',
data: JSON.stringify(data),
success: function(){
console.log("logged in");
},
headers: {
"Content-Type": "application/json"
}
});
But it doesn't.
The cookie needs to be associated in the browser window with the current domain, because we need to reload a plugin that picks up this cookie (the cookie comes from a thrid party server).
How can I get this cookie to be registered in the browser? If I look into the resources tab of the web console, no cookie shows up.
I took a look at domain matching of the RFC6265, and it appears this should work.
What can be wrong in this case?
Please checkout CORS. This is the exact problem they try to solve. The only other way (to my knowledge) is to proxy the requests to the other source via your server.
I'm working in Node.js Application. it requires login, logout ,and sign up functionalities I was thinking in creating the authentication using token based instead of cookies. and this will be the workflow
Send POST /login to the server to check if the user exist or not
if user exist I will send the token in JSON object and store it in the browser local storage
Now I want to redirect to home page after storing the token using window.location = "/"but I need to insert the token in the header and this my problem I found that's possible in angular using $httpProvider.interceptors that will intercept every request and set its header.
Is there any way that I can do that without angular?
This is normally good concept when using an API and then a web app in front of it.
Basically you have to save your token and send it with every request, if you have it.
What I normally do is when I do the /login I store the token in the localStorage of the browser, you can use this library to use it https://github.com/julien-maurel/jQuery-Storage-API
Once you have the token in your localStorage, when you do a call to the API you check if there's the token in the localStorage, if there's add a header.
Here's an example using jQuery ajax:
$.ajax({
url: '/data',
headers: {
'Authorization':'Bearer ' + localStorage.get('token')
},
method: 'POST',
dataType: 'json',
data: {},
success: function(data){
console.log('succes: '+data);
}
});
I have an Angular.js application and I am trying to implement authentication to my PHP backend using a JWT.
I have the app setup to set the token on login and send the token with every request if it exits. I was following the information here, though it is for Node.js not PHP: https://auth0.com/blog/2014/01/07/angularjs-authentication-with-cookies-vs-token/.
The information there was extremely helpful, but I do not understand why the token should be in the Authorization header with the text 'Bearer ' before the token. Could I just put the token there without 'Bearer '? Is there a recommended method for where the token should go in the request?
My other issue is where to store the token on the front end. The website recommended using $window.sessionStorage which doesn't seem to work well for my case because it seems to prevent someone from using multiple tabs which isn't very intuitive.
My question really comes down to:
Where do I put the token in the request header?
How should I store the token on the front end?
The use of the Bearer keyword is recommended in the RFC6750 - section Authorization Request Header Field:
Clients SHOULD make authenticated requests with a bearer token using
the "Authorization" request header field with the "Bearer" HTTP
authorization scheme. Resource servers MUST support this method
The libraries I've been working with always require it before the token itself. So the request header should be as follows:
Authorization: Bearer your_token
Regarding the storage I have seen it in $window.sessionStorage too