14

Is it possible to do basic auth in Node.js just like in Apache?

http://doc.norang.ca/apache-basic-auth.html

I know that if using Express or Connect I can add middle-ware functionality and do user verification, but I'm trying to restrict the whole area (I don't need to authenticate users from a database just a couple of defined users) - I'm using Ubuntu.

https://github.com/kaero/node-http-digest

That's something I can do, but I'm not sure if "exposing" or directly writing the user and password in the code is secure enough.

Many thanks.

4 Answers 4

18

Passport provides a clean mechanism to implement basic auth. I use it in my Node.js Express app to protect both my Angularjs-based UI as well as my RESTful API. To get passport up and running in your app do the following:

  • npm install passport

  • npm install passport-http (contains "BasicStrategy" object for basic auth)

  • Open up your app.js and add the following:

    var passport = require('passport')    
    var BasicStrategy = require('passport-http').BasicStrategy
    
    passport.use(new BasicStrategy(
      function(username, password, done) {
        if (username.valueOf() === 'yourusername' &&
          password.valueOf() === 'yourpassword')
          return done(null, true);
        else
          return done(null, false);
      }
    ));
    
    // Express-specific configuration section
    // *IMPORTANT*
    //   Note the order of WHERE passport is initialized
    //   in the configure section--it will throw an error
    //   if app.use(passport.initialize()) is called after
    //   app.use(app.router) 
    app.configure(function(){
      app.use(express.cookieParser());
      app.use(express.session({secret:'123abc',key:'express.sid'}));
      app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
      app.set('view engine', 'jade');
      app.set('view options', {
        layout: false
      });
      app.use(express.bodyParser());
      app.use(express.methodOverride());
      app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
      app.use(passport.initialize());
      app.use(app.router);
      app.use(logger);
    });
    
    // Routes
    
    app.get('/', passport.authenticate('basic', { session: false }), routes.index);
    app.get('/partials/:name', routes.partials);
    
    // JSON API
    
    app.get('/api/posts', passport.authenticate('basic', { session: false }), api.posts);
    app.get('/api/post/:id', passport.authenticate('basic', { session: false }), api.post)
    // --Repeat for every API call you want to protect with basic auth--
    
    app.get('*', passport.authenticate('basic', { session: false }), routes.index);
    
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Comments

13

Put this

app.use(express.basicAuth(function(user, pass) {
  return user === 'test' && pass === 'test';
}));

before the line to

app.use(app.router);

to protect all routes with http basic auth

Comments

3

Have a look at: user authentication libraries for node.js?

It does not answer your question 100% - but maybe it helps.

1 Comment

Hi @nivoc, thanks for replying, yeah probably middle-ware is the way to go, I have not seen any other solution for this case scenario.
3

I think good choice could be http-auth module

// Authentication module.
var auth = require('http-auth');
var basic = auth.basic({
    realm: "Simon Area.",
    file: __dirname + "/../data/users.htpasswd" // gevorg:gpass, Sarah:testpass ...
});

// Application setup.
var app = express();
app.use(auth.connect(basic));

// Setup route.
app.get('/', function(req, res){
  res.send("Hello from express - " + req.user + "!");
});

1 Comment

I think a disclaimer that you are the maintainer of http-auth would be appropriate here.

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