Basic HTTP authentication with Node and Express 4

Question

It looks like implementing basic HTTP authentication with Express v3 was trivial   app use express basicAuth  username    password       Version 4  I m using 4 2  removed the basicAuth middleware  though  so I m a little stuck  I have the following code  but it doesn t cause the browser to prompt the user for credentials  which is what I d like  and what I imagine the old method did    app use function req  res  next        var user   auth req        if  user     undefined    user  name        username     user  pass        password             res writeHead 401   Access invalid for user     Content-Type     text plain             res end  Invalid credentials          else           next

User · Answer

Express has removed this functionality and now recommends you use the basic-auth library.

Here's an example of how to use:

var http = require('http')
var auth = require('basic-auth')

// Create server
var server = http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  var credentials = auth(req)

  if (!credentials || credentials.name !== 'aladdin' || credentials.pass !== 'opensesame') {
    res.statusCode = 401
    res.setHeader('WWW-Authenticate', 'Basic realm="example"')
    res.end('Access denied')
  } else {
    res.end('Access granted')
  }
})

// Listen
server.listen(3000)

To send a request to this route you need to include an Authorization header formatted for basic auth.

Sending a curl request first you must take the base64 encoding of name:pass or in this case aladdin:opensesame which is equal to YWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuc2VzYW1l

Your curl request will then look like:

 curl -H "Authorization: Basic YWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuc2VzYW1l" http://localhost:3000/

User · Answer

TL DR    express basicAuth is gone  basic-auth-connect is deprecated  basic-auth doesn t have any logic  http-auth is an overkill  express-basic-auth is what you want More info  Since you re using Express then you can use the express-basic-auth middleware  See the docs   https   www npmjs com package express-basic-auth  Example  const app   require  express      const basicAuth   require  express-basic-auth      app use basicAuth       users    admin   supersecret123         challenge  true     lt --- needed to actually show the login dialog

User · Answer

There seems to be multiple modules to do that  some are deprecated   This one looks active  https   github com jshttp basic-auth  Here s a use example      auth js  var auth   require  basic-auth     var admins        art vandelay-ind org     password   pa  w0rd           module exports   function req  res  next       var user   auth req     if   user     admins user name     admins user name  password     user pass        res set  WWW-Authenticate    Basic realm  example         return res status 401  send          return next              app js  var auth   require    auth    var express   require  express     var app   express            some not authenticated middlewares  app use auth           some authenticated middlewares   Make sure you put the auth middleware in the correct place  any middleware before that will not be authenticated

User · Answer

We can implement the basic authorization without needing any module    1  var http   require  http       2  var credentials         userName   vikas kohli       password   vikas123     var realm    Basic Authentication      3  function authenticationStatus resp        resp writeHead 401     WWW-Authenticate    Basic realm      realm               resp end  Authorization is needed           4  var server   http createServer function  request  response        var authentication  loginInfo         5      if   request headers authorization            authenticationStatus  response           return               6      authentication   request headers authorization replace   Basic               7      authentication    new Buffer authentication   base64    toString  utf8           8      loginInfo   authentication split              9      if  loginInfo 0      credentials userName  amp  amp  loginInfo 1      credentials password            response end  Great You are Authenticated                   now you call url by commenting the above line and pass the next   function      else       authenticationStatus  response            server listen 5050     Source - http   www dotnetcurry com nodejs 1231 basic-authentication-using-nodejs

User · Answer

Simple Basic Auth with vanilla JavaScript  ES6   app use  req  res  next    gt          -----------------------------------------------------------------------      authentication middleware    const auth    login   yourlogin   password   yourpassword      change this       parse login and password from headers   const b64auth    req headers authorization        split      1          const  login  password    Buffer from b64auth   base64   toString   split            Verify login and password are set and correct   if  login  amp  amp  password  amp  amp  login     auth login  amp  amp  password     auth password           Access granted        return next             Access denied      res set  WWW-Authenticate    Basic realm  401       change this   res status 401  send  Authentication required       custom message       -----------------------------------------------------------------------       note  This  middleware  can be used in any handler  Just remove next   and reverse the logic   See the 1-statement example below  or the edit history of this answer   Why    req headers authorization contains the value  Basic  lt base64 string gt    but it can also be empty and we don t want it to fail  hence the weird combo of         Node doesn t know atob   and btoa    hence the Buffer   ES6 -  ES5  const is just var    sort of  x  y    gt        is just function x  y        const  login  password       split   is just two var assignments in one  source of inspiration  uses packages    The above is a super simple example that was intended to be super short and quickly deployable to your playground server  But as was pointed out in the comments  passwords can also contain colon characters    To correctly extract it from the b64auth  you can use this        parse login and password from headers   const b64auth    req headers authorization        split      1          const strauth   Buffer from b64auth   base64   toString     const splitIndex   strauth indexOf        const login   strauth substring 0  splitIndex    const password   strauth substring splitIndex   1        using shorter regex by  adabru      const     login  password    strauth match                       Basic auth in one statement     on the other hand  if you only ever use one or very few logins  this is the bare minimum you need   you don t even need to parse the credentials at all   function  req  res      btoa  yourlogin yourpassword   - gt    eW91cmxvZ2luOnlvdXJwYXNzd29yZA      btoa  otherlogin otherpassword   - gt   b3RoZXJsb2dpbjpvdGhlcnBhc3N3b3Jk        Verify credentials   if    req headers authorization      Basic eW91cmxvZ2luOnlvdXJwYXNzd29yZA          amp  amp  req headers authorization      Basic b3RoZXJsb2dpbjpvdGhlcnBhc3N3b3Jk               return res status 401  send  Authentication required       Access denied           Access granted      res send  hello world        or call next   if you use it as middleware  as snippet  1        PS  do you need to have both  secure  and  public  paths  Consider using express router instead   var securedRoutes   require  express   Router    securedRoutes use    auth-middleware from above     securedRoutes get  path1                app use   secure   securedRoutes  app get  public                  example com public          no-auth    example com secure path1    requires auth

User · Answer

I changed in express 4 0 the basic authentication with http-auth  the code is   var auth   require  http-auth     var basic   auth basic           realm   Web          function  username  password  callback       Custom authentication method          callback username      userName   amp  amp  password      password              app get   the url   auth connect basic   routes theRoute

User · Answer

A lot of the middleware was pulled out of the Express core in v4  and put into separate modules   The basic auth module is here  https   github com expressjs basic-auth-connect  Your example would just need to change to this   var basicAuth   require  basic-auth-connect    app use basicAuth  username    password

User · Answer

I used the code for the original basicAuth to find the answer   app use function req  res  next        var user   auth req        if  user     undefined    user  name        username     user  pass        password             res statusCode   401          res setHeader  WWW-Authenticate    Basic realm  MyRealmName             res end  Unauthorized          else           next

User · Answer

function auth  req  res  next      console log req headers     var authHeader   req headers authorization    if   authHeader          var err   new Error  You are not authenticated           res setHeader  WWW-Authenticate    Basic          err status   401        next err         return        var auth   new Buffer from authHeader split      1    base64   toString   split         var user   auth 0     var pass   auth 1     if  user     admin   amp  amp  pass     password           next       authorized     else         var err   new Error  You are not authenticated           res setHeader  WWW-Authenticate    Basic                err status   401        next err         app use auth

[node.js] Basic HTTP authentication with Node and Express 4

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