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

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();
    }
});

Simple Basic Auth with vanilla JavaScript (ES6)

app.use((req, res, next) => {

  // -----------------------------------------------------------------------
  // 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 && password && login === auth.login && 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 <base64 string>", 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) => {...} 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') -> "eW91cmxvZ2luOnlvdXJwYXNzd29yZA=="
//btoa('otherlogin:otherpassword') -> "b3RoZXJsb2dpbjpvdGhlcnBhc3N3b3Jk"

  // Verify credentials
  if (  req.headers.authorization !== 'Basic eW91cmxvZ2luOnlvdXJwYXNzd29yZA=='
     && 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

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/

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 = {
  '[email protected]': { 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.

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'));

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 // <--- needed to actually show the login dialog!
}));

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' && 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);

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 && 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

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" && password === "password");
    }
);

app.get('/the_url', auth.connect(basic), routes.theRoute);