Develop Reference

Call a router WITHIN Nodejs after a route has been called

I am using Expressjs and the Auth0 API for authentication and ReactJs for client side.
Because of the limitations of the Auth0 API (spoke with their team) I am sending updated user details to my backend and then using app.set() to be able to use the req.body in another route.
I need to call the app.patch() route automatically after the app.post() route has been hit.
The end goal is that the users data will be updated and shown client side.
const express = require('express');
const cors = require('cors');
const path = require('path');
const app = express();
require('dotenv').config()
const { auth } = require("express-openid-connect");
app.use(express.json());
app.use(cors());
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'build')));
app.use(
auth({
issuerBaseURL: process.env.AUTH0_ISSUER_BASE_URL,
baseURL: process.env.BASE_URL,
clientID: process.env.AUTH0_CLIENT_ID,
secret: process.env.SESSION_SECRET,
authRequired: false,
auth0Logout: true,
})
);
app.get('/', async (req, res) => {
res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, 'build', 'index.html'));
});
app.get('/api', async (req, res) => {
const stripe = require('stripe')(`${process.env.REACT_APP_Stripe_Live}`);
const invoice = await stripe.invoices.list({
limit: 3,
});
res.json(invoice);
});
app.post('/updateuser', (req, ) => {
app.set('data', req.body);
})
app.patch(`https://${process.env.AUTH0_ISSUER_BASE_URL}/api/v2/users/:id`,(req,res) => {
let val = app.get('data');
req.params = {id: val.id};
console.log(req.params);
})
app.listen(process.env.PORT || 8080, () => {
console.log(`Server listening on 8080`);
});

I'd suggest you just take the code from inside of app.patch() and make it into a reusable function. Then it can be called from either the app.patch() route directly or from your other route that wants to do the same funtionality. Just decide what interface for that function will work for both, make it a separate function and then you can call it from both places.
For some reason (which I don't really understand, but seems to happen to lots of people), people forget that the code inside of routes can also be put into functions and shared just like any other Javascript code. I guess people seems to think of a route as a fixed unit by itself and forget that it can still be broken down into components and those components shared with other code.
Warning. On another point. This comment of yours sounds very wrong:
and then using app.set() to be able to use the req.body in another route
req.body belongs to one particular user. app.set() is global to your server (all user's requests access it). So, you're trying to store temporary state for one single user in essentially a global. That means that multiple user's request that happen to be in the process of doing something similar will trounce/overwrite each other's data. Or worse, one user's data will accidentally become some other user's data. You cannot program a multi-user server this way at all.
The usual way around this is to either 1) redesign the process so you don't have to save state on the server (stateless operations are generally better, if possible) or 2) Use a user-specific session (like with express-session) and save the temporary state in the user's session. Then, it is saved separately for each user and one user's state won't overwrite anothers.
If this usage of app.set() was to solve the original problem of executing a .patch() route, then the problem is solved by just calling a shared function and passing the req.body data directly to that shared function. Then, you don't have to stuff it away somewhere so a later route can use it. You just execute the functionality you want and pass it the desired data.

Node js authentication in cross domain

I am working on a MEAN application, I am using Angular 4 for my project. For authentication, I have implemented the Passport js Local-strategy. And I am maintaining persistent session using Express-session. Things are working fine till here.
The Problem
In the same domain session works fine and I am able to authenticate the user. But in cross-domain, I am not able to maintain the session. It generates a new session id for each new request in cross-domain.
I then tried Passport-jwt but the problem with it is I don't have the control over user session. I mean I can't logout the user from the server if he is inactive or even on server re-start also the token don't get invalid.
So in simple words, I am looking for an authentication solution in Node js (Express js) in which I can manage authentication in cross-domain.
I have already seen some blog post and SO questions like this, but it doesn't help.
Thank you.
EDIT
Should I write my own code to achieve this? If so I have a plan.
My basic plan is:
The user will send credentials with the login request.
I will check for the credentials in the database. If credentials are valid, I will generate a random token and save it to the database, in the user table and the same token I will provide to the user with success response.
Now, with each request user will send the token and I will check the token for each request in the database. If the token is valid then I will allow the user to access the API otherwise I will generate an error with 401 status code.
I am using Mongoose (MongoDB) so I will be ok to check the token in each request (performance point of view).
I think this is also a good idea. I just want some suggestions, whether I am thinking in right direction or not.
What I will get with this:
The number of logged in user in the application (active sessions).
I can logout a user if he is idle for a certain interval of time.
I can manage multiple login session of the same user (by doing an entry in the database).
I can allow the end user to clear all other login sessions (like Facebook and Gmail offers).
Any customization related to authorization.
EDIT 2
Here I am shareing my app.js code
var express = require('express');
var helmet = require('helmet');
var path = require('path');
var favicon = require('serve-favicon');
var logger = require('morgan');
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
var dotenv = require('dotenv');
var env = dotenv.load();
var mongoose = require('mongoose');
var passport = require('passport');
var flash = require('connect-flash');
var session = require('express-session');
var cors = require('cors');
var databaseUrl = require('./config/database.js')[process.env.NODE_ENV || 'development'];
// configuration
mongoose.connect(databaseUrl); // connect to our database
var app = express();
// app.use(helmet());
// required for passport
app.use(function(req, res, next) {
res.header('Access-Control-Allow-Credentials', true);
res.header('Access-Control-Allow-Origin', req.headers.origin);
res.header('Access-Control-Allow-Methods', 'GET,PUT,POST,DELETE');
res.header('Access-Control-Allow-Headers', 'X-Requested-With, X-HTTP-Method-Override, Content-Type, Accept');
if ('OPTIONS' == req.method) {
res.send(200);
} else {
next();
}
});
app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(session({
secret: 'ilovescotchscotchyscotchscotch', // session secret
resave: true,
saveUninitialized: true,
name: 'Session-Id',
cookie: {
secure: false,
httpOnly: false
}
}));
require('./config/passport')(passport); // pass passport for configuration
var index = require('./routes/index');
var users = require('./routes/user.route');
var seeders = require('./routes/seeder.route');
var branches = require('./routes/branch.route');
var companies = require('./routes/company.route');
var dashboard = require('./routes/dashboard.route');
var navigation = require('./routes/navigation.route');
var roles = require('./routes/role.route');
var services = require('./routes/services.route');
// view engine setup
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'));
app.set('view engine', 'jade');
// uncomment after placing your favicon in /public
//app.use(favicon(path.join(__dirname, 'public', 'favicon.ico')));
app.use(logger('dev'));
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true }));
// app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session()); // persistent login sessions
app.use(flash()); // use connect-flash for flash messages stored in session
require('./routes/auth.route')(app, passport);
app.use('/', index);
app.use('/users', users);
app.use('/seed', seeders);
app.use('/branches', branches);
app.use('/companies', companies);
app.use('/dashboard', dashboard);
app.use('/navigation', navigation);
app.use('/roles', roles);
app.use('/services', services);
// catch 404 and forward to error handler
app.use(function(req, res, next) {
res.status(404).send({ status: 'NOT_FOUND', message: 'This resource is not available.'});
});
// error handler
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
// set locals, only providing error in development
res.locals.message = err.message;
res.locals.error = req.app.get('env') === 'development' ? err : {};
// render the error page
let errorObj = {
status: 'INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR',
message: 'Something went wrong.',
error: err.message
};
res.status(err.status || 500).send(errorObj);
});
module.exports = app;
EDIT 3
For those who don't understand my problem. Explaining the problem in
simple words:
My Express server is running on port 3000.
In order to consume any API from the server, a user must be logged in.
When a user gets logged in from localhost:3000, the server checks the credentials(using Passport-local) and returns a token in the response header.
Now after login, when a user hits any API from localhost:3000, a predefined Header comes with passport-session and then passport verifies the user session using req.isAuthenticated() and all the things works as expected.
When a user gets logged in from localhost:4000 and the server send a token in response header (same as localhost:3000).
When after successful login, the user hits any API from localhost:4000 the passport js function req.isAuthenticated() returns false.
This was happening because in cross-domain the cookie doesn't go to the server we need to set withCredentials header to true at the client side.
I have set withCredentials header to true but still at the server the req.isAuthenticated() is returning false.

One possible solution to get around CORS/cookie/same-domain problems is to create proxy server that will mirror all requests from localhost:3000/api to localhost:4000, and then use localhost:3000/api to access the API instead of localhost:4000.
Best way for production deployment is to do it on your web server (nginx/apache).
You can also do it in node via express and request modules, or use some ready made middleware like this one:
https://github.com/villadora/express-http-proxy
Solution with this middleware is pretty straightforward:
var proxy = require('express-http-proxy');
var app = require('express')();
app.use('/api', proxy('localhost:4000'));

If you want to use sessions (ie. instead of jwt, etc) I think by default they are just in-memory so it will not work as your application scales to multiple hosts. It is easy to configure them to persist though.
See
https://github.com/expressjs/session#compatible-session-stores

You might have tried with passport-jwt. It generates tokens as per the JWT protocol on login. Your requirement is to blacklist the generated token when you logout. To achieve that, you can create a collection in mongodb named "BlacklistToken" with fields userid and token. When the user logs out, you can insert the token and userid in the collection. Then write a middleware to check whether the token is blacklisted or not. if it is redirect to login page.

did you already take a look here:
In this case, responses can be sent back based on some considerations.
If the resource in question is meant to be widely accessed (just like any HTTP resource accessed by GET), then sending back the Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * header will be sufficient,[...]
You may try this (allow any public IP) :
app.use(function(req, res, next) {
res.header('Access-Control-Allow-Credentials', true);
res.header('Access-Control-Allow-Origin', '*'); // add this line
// res.header('Access-Control-Allow-Origin', req.headers.origin);
res.header('Access-Control-Allow-Methods', 'GET,PUT,POST,DELETE');
It is normal that the second server re-create a new session, because assuming that you use Express-session, and according to the documentation:
Session data is not saved in the cookie itself, just the session ID. Session data is stored server-side.
Which mean that you need to find a way to synchronize servers session data ...
Assuming that you find a method to do that, when you will try to connect, both server will retrieve the same user session data and the second will not have to create a new session...

If I understand the problem correctly here, you want the user's session to be stateless on the server. So that whenever the user logs in, the session can be re-used in any instance of the server when you scale your application, or even if you were to just reboot your application.
To achieve this, what you need is to configure the express-session with a database solution. You can do this with mongo using this package https://github.com/jdesboeufs/connect-mongo.
However, best practice is to use something a bit more robust for this sort of use-case, like redis using this package https://github.com/tj/connect-redis.

Maintain sessions in Node.js

How can I maintain my SESSIONS in Node.js?
For example, I want to store UserID in SESSION using Node.js. How can I do that in Node.js? And can I use that Node.js SESSION in PHP too?
I want the following in Node.js:
<?php $_SESSION['user'] = $userId; ?>

First install the session package
npm install express-session --save
Initialization of the session on your server page
var express = require('express');
var session = require('express-session');
var app = express();
app.use(session({secret: 'ssshhhhh', saveUninitialized: true, resave: true}));
Store session
sess = req.session;
var user_id = 1;
sess.user_id = user_id;
Access the session
sess = req.session;
sess.user_id

Let me divide your question in two parts.
How can I maintain my SESSIONS in Node.js?
Answer: Use express-session middleware for maintaining SESSIONS
Can I use that a Node.js SESSION in PHP too?
Answer:
Yes, you can use that session in PHP too, but keep in mind you have to store that session in the database.

ExpressJS has official session middleware, and it is also the current de-facto standard web framework for Node.js.
If you wish to implement session support on your own, this is how the implementation is normally done, upon every request:
Check if the cookie contains a session ID
If not, create a session object that is either stored in memory, on file, or in a database (or a combination of those), and set the session id in the response cookie to match this object's identifier.
If the cookie does contain a session ID, locate the session object by the ID.
Provide the obtained/created object from step 1 as the persisted session object for the request.
You will also have to implement some timeout mechanism, so that after a while the session objects are deleted, at least from memory.

You could use the express-session middleware.
Combine it with connect-redis or connect-mongo to store your sessions inside a database and save memory if memory is valuable to you (like in a cloud setup).
express-sessions (npm)
If you store it in, say, MongoDB, use the PHP MongoDB driver to pick it up from there.

You don't need to do it by yourself. There are some amazing modules in Node.js that handle this kind of things for you.
You can use session middleware from Express.js, as suggested before.
However, I'd recommend you to use Passport.js. This module does the authentication part for you, has a lot of strategies that you could integrate in your website (log in with Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc.), and deals with all the session stuff automatically, using serializeUser() and deserializeUser() functions whenever you need to.
You can take a look at this here, within the "Sessions" section: Configure Passport.js

Session that gives access/permission to view a user's area, as well as it's a credential, so we can use it over the application.
I used jsonwebtoken to make a token which will has the user's details with time after a successful login attempt by the user. I stored it in Redis, and it can be used for a pre-declared time limit.

To maintain a session is now older, and you should try with using JWT token. It is very effective and easy. But still to maintain the session in Node.js:
In your Express.js configuration:
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
var session = require('express-session');
app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(session({
secret: 'secret',
resave: true,
saveUninitialized: true,
rolling: true,
cookie: {
path: '/',
maxAge: 60000 * 1000
},
name: 'SID'
}));
Store session after Login:
var session = req.session;
if (user) {
session.user = user._id;
session.save();
console.log(session);
}
Check Session from middleware:
var session = req.session;
if (session.user) {
req.userid = session.user;
next();
} else {
return res.status(401).send({
code: 401,
message: Constant.authentication_fails
});
}

Follow the below steps:
npm install express-session --save
Write the below code:
var express = require('express');
var session = require('express-session');
var app = express();
app.use(session({secret: 'your secret key', saveUninitialized: true, resave: true}));
var userId = 1234;
app.get('/', function (req, res, next) {
req.session.userId = userId;
});

Storing a session in Node.js is fairly easy but you need to understands its step, you could handle this manually, also you can use few NPM modules. Passport can help you to authenticate and login and store the session i would recommend you to read its documentation, Passport allow you to authenticate user with different other platform like Google, github many more.
If you are going to use passport use these below NPM module
Passport
Passport Local
Express-flash
Express-session
2 -Import these modules in your main app.js:
const flash = require('express-flash')
const session = require('express-session')
const passport = require('passport')
app.use(session({
secret:'secret',
resave:false,
saveUninitialized:false
}))
app.use(flash())
app.use(passport.initialize())
app.use(passport.session())
3- Create the passport.js file. You can name anything. So basic understanding behind this is that you have to check the valid user coming from your input form, and you have to compare the email id with your model. If it is valid, check the password and then return the user. Once that is done, serialize and deserialize your user data to store in the session..
I would recommend to check this part in the documentation for more clear understanding: Overview
const localStrategy = require('passport-local').Strategy
const bycrypt = require('bcrypt')
const User = require('../model/User')
const initalize = function(passport) {
const auth = async(email, password, done) => {
try {
const user = await User.findOne({email:email})
if(!user) {
throw new Error("Incorrect Email ..!")
}
const match = await bycrypt.compare(password, user.password)
if(!match) {
throw new Error('Incorrect Password..!')
}
return done(null, user)
}
catch (error) {
console.log(error)
done(null,false,error)
}
}
passport.use(new localStrategy({usernameField:'email'}, auth))
passport.serializeUser(function(user, done) {
done(null, user.id);
});
passport.deserializeUser(function(id, done) {
User.findById(id, function(err, user) {
done(err, user);
});
});
}
module.exports = initalize
4 - Now go to your login router and use the below code
const passport = require('passport')
require('../passport/passport')(passport)
routes.get('/signin', (req,res) => {
res.render('signin', {
pageTitle: 'sign in'
})
})
routes.post('/signin', passport.authenticate('local', {
successRedirect: '/welcome',
failureRedirect: '/',
failureFlash: true
}))

You can use sessions in Node.js by using the 'express-session' package in Node.js.
You have to install express and express-session in your application:
const express = require('express');
const session = require('express-session');
const app = express();
"secret" is used for the cookie, and we have to add some secret for managing a session.
"request" we use as a request variable as we use $_SESSION in PHP.
var sess;
app.get('/',function(req,res){ // Get request from the app side
sess = req.session;
sess.email; // Equivalent to $_SESSION['email'] in PHP.
sess.username; // Equivalent to $_SESSION['username'] in PHP.
});
Here is full documentation in Code for Geek about the session in Node.js if you want to learn in detail about the session in Node.js.

You can handle the session in two ways.
Using express-session
Using JWT web token and handle your own session (token-based session handling).
I think token-based session handling is more important rather than using express-session. You will get a problem when you scale your server and also a problem with some single device login situation.
For checking I have a token-based session handling Node.js folder structure. You can check it, and it may be helpful.

Can't get Express session ID from cookies w/ Socket.IO

I have a typical web application in Node that is utilizing the Express framework and the session middleware. I am also using Socket.io for certain dynamic parts of my application (currently, this is a chat mechanism, but that's tangential). I've been able to successfully set up sessions and socket.io on their own, but would like to combine them (EG: to associate socket chat messages with user accounts without hitting the database).
It should be noted (and I can see this being a possible issue point), I am running two express servers on different ports: one for regular HTTP traffic, and one for HTTPS traffic. However, I am having both servers undergo an idential configuration and share the same session store. Sessions do persist for me between http and https pages. The session is being set initially via a page served from HTTPS and the socket.io page is vanilla HTTP.
I'm following the guide located here to achieve what I am looking for regarding integrating socket.io and sessions. However, within the authorization function, data.headers.cookie is never set, despite the session-based portions of my application working as expected. What's more strange is that after setting a session, if I do a console.log(document.cookie) from within the browser, I get an empty string, but when I look at my cookies with the Firefox developer toolbar, there is an SID cookie for both express and connect.
Here is the relevant portion of the server code:
var config = {
ip : "127.0.0.1",
httpPort : 2031,
httpsPort : 2032
};
var utils = require("./utils"),
express = require('express'),
fs = require('fs'),
parseCookie = require('./node_modules/express/node_modules/connect').utils.parseCookie,
routes = require('./routes')(config);
var httpsOpts = {
key : fs.readFileSync("cert/server-key.pem").toString(),
cert: fs.readFileSync("cert/server-cert.pem").toString()
};
var app = express.createServer(),
https = express.createServer(httpsOpts),
io = require("socket.io").listen(app, { log: false}),
helpers = require("./helpers.js"),
session = new express.session.MemoryStore(),
sessionConfig = express.session({
store : session,
secret : 'secret',
key : 'express.sid',
cookie : {maxAge : 60 * 60 * 1000}
}); //share this across http and https
configServer(app);
configServer(https);
//get SID for using sessions with sockets
io.set('authorization', function(data, accept){
if(data.headers.cookie){
data.cookie = parseCookie(data.headers.cookie);
data.sessionID = data.cookie['express.sid'];
} else {
return accept("No cookie transmitted", false);
}
accept(null, true);
});
io.sockets.on('connection', function(socket){
//pull out session information in here
});
function configServer(server) {
server.configure(function(){
server.dynamicHelpers(helpers.dynamicHelpers);
server.helpers(helpers.staticHelpers);
server.set('view options', { layout: false });
server.set('view engine', 'mustache');
server.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
server.register(".mustache", require('stache'));
server.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
server.use(express.bodyParser());
server.use(express.cookieParser());
server.use(sessionConfig);
});
}
And here's the relevant code on the client:
<script src="/socket.io/socket.io.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
var socket = io.connect('http://127.0.0.1'); //make sure this isn't localhost!
socket.on('server', function(data){
//socket logic is here
});
}
</script>
UPDATE
Even after setting a cookie manually (and not just a session variable) in the route for the page that is using SocketIO, the cookies portion of the request is still absent.

I never would have thought of this until told to look at the initialization on the client side. I changed the address from localhost to the explicit IP (127.0.0.1) and the cookies are now being sent with the header in Socket.IO. I'm not sure if this is obvious or not, as I assumed localhost was being mapped to 127.0.0.1 anyway.

How to store session values with Node.js and mongodb?

How do I get sessions working with Node.js, express#2.0.0 and mongodb? I'm now trying to use connect-mongo like this:
var config = require('../config'),
express = require('express'),
MongoStore = require('connect-mongo'),
server = express.createServer();
server.configure(function() {
server.use(express.logger());
server.use(express.methodOverride());
server.use(express.static(config.staticPath));
server.use(express.bodyParser());
server.use(express.cookieParser());
server.use(express.session({
store: new MongoStore({
db: config.db
}),
secret: config.salt
}));
});
server.configure('development', function() {
server.use(express.errorHandler({
dumpExceptions: true,
showStack: true
}));
});
server.configure('production', function() {
server.use(express.errorHandler());
});
server.set('views', __dirname + '/../views');
server.set('view engine', 'jade');
server.listen(config.port);
I'm then, in a server.get callback trying to use
req.session.test = 'hello';
to store that value in the session, but it's not stored between the requests.
It probobly takes something more that this to store session values, how? Is there a better documented module than connect-mongo?

Take a look at this series from DailyJS. It uses MongoDB and session management
http://dailyjs.com/tags.html#lmawa

I am not experienced with Node.js or Express, so I cannot immediately see what's wrong with your approach. However, I have made Express use MongoDB to store sessions for flash messages and other session stuff.
You can see my source code for a simple URL shortener here (that actually makes the URLs pretty long at the moment - it was just an exercise ;)). I use the session to store a list of URLs that the current user has shortened.
It is not pretty, but I know it works.