[node.js] nodeJS - How to create and read session with express

I want to create a user sessison when user enter the app. And read the session whenever needed. Here is my try

var io   = require('socket.io'),
    express = require('express');
    querystring = require('querystring');

var app = express.createServer();
app.get('/', function(req, res){
    var sessionVal = querystring.parse(req.url.substr(2));// sessionVal is an email for example: [email protected]
    app.use(express.cookieParser());
    app.use(express.session({ secret: sessionVal }));
});
var socket = io.listen(app);
socket.on('connection', function(client) {
    client.on('message', function(message) {
        // message will be an object {text:'user text chat blah blah', email:'[email protected]'}
        // if the seesion stored, has the same value with message.email
        // then the message will be broadcasted
            socket.broadcast(message.text);
        // else will not broadcast  
    });
});

app.listen(4000);

This question is related to node.js

The answer is


Steps I did:

  1. Include the angular-cookies.js file in the HTML!
  2. Init cookies as being NOT http-only in server-side app.'s:

    app.configure(function(){
       //a bunch of stuff
       app.use(express.cookieSession({secret: 'mySecret', store: store, cookie: cookieSettings}));```
    
  3. Then in client-side services.jss I put ['ngCookies'] in like this:

    angular.module('swrp', ['ngCookies']).//etc

  4. Then in controller.js, in my function UserLoginCtrl, I have $cookies in there with $scope at the top like so:

    function UserLoginCtrl($scope, $cookies, socket) {

  5. Lastly, to get the value of a cookie inside the controller function I did:

    var mySession = $cookies['connect.sess'];

Now you can send that back to the server from the client. Awesome. Wish they would've put this in the Angular.js documentation. I figured it out by just reading the actual code for angular-cookies.js directly.


I forgot to tell a bug when i use I use req.session.email = req.param('email'), the server error says cannot sett property email of undefined.

The reason of this error is a wrong order of app.use. You must configure express in this order:

app.use(express.cookieParser());
app.use(express.session({ secret: sessionVal }));
app.use(app.route);

Hello I am trying to add new session values in node js like

req.session.portal = false
Passport.authenticate('facebook', (req, res, next) => {
    next()
})(req, res, next)

On passport strategies I am not getting portal value in mozilla request but working fine with chrome and opera

FacebookStrategy: new PassportFacebook.Strategy({
    clientID: Configuration.SocialChannel.Facebook.AppId,
    clientSecret: Configuration.SocialChannel.Facebook.AppSecret,
    callbackURL: Configuration.SocialChannel.Facebook.CallbackURL,
    profileFields: Configuration.SocialChannel.Facebook.Fields,
    scope: Configuration.SocialChannel.Facebook.Scope,
    passReqToCallback: true
}, (req, accessToken, refreshToken, profile, done) => {
    console.log(JSON.stringify(req.session));

It is cumbersome to interoperate socket.io and connect sessions support. The problem is not because socket.io "hijacks" request somehow, but because certain socket.io transports (I think flashsockets) don't support cookies. I could be wrong with cookies, but my approach is the following:

  1. Implement a separate session store for socket.io that stores data in the same format as connect-redis
  2. Make connect session cookie not http-only so it's accessible from client JS
  3. Upon a socket.io connection, send session cookie over socket.io from browser to server
  4. Store the session id in a socket.io connection, and use it to access session data from redis.