Throughout this tutorial, we’ll be learning how you can create a JWT authentication server with Node.js and Express.js using some popular libraries like:
For making things simple, we’ll be using a SQLite database but this can be easily changed to use fully-fledged database management systems like MySQL.
Prerequisites
In this tutorial, you need to have:
- A development machine with a recent version of Node.js and NPM installed,
- And a basic knowledge of JavaScript.
Creating the Express.js Server
Let’s start by creating our Node project. In your terminal run the following commands to generate a package.json file inside the project’s folder:
$ mkdir express-auth-project
$ npm init -y
This command will generate an express-auth-project/package.json file with default content:
{
"name": "express-auth-project",
"version": "1.0.0",
"description": "",
"main": "index.js",
"scripts": {
"test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
},
"keywords": [],
"author": "",
"license": "ISC"
}
From the main property, you can see that we need to create an index.js file that will be the entry point of our application i.e the first file that will be executed by Node. So simply create the file in your project’s folder:
$ touch index.js
[blockquote]Note: Please note that you can use any name for your entry point file such as server.js instead of index.js but you should set that accordingly in the main property in your package.json file.[/blockquote]
Before adding any code inside the index.js file, we first need to install a bunch of packages from npm such as express, sqlite3, jsonwebtoken, bcryptjs and bodyparser.
Go to your terminal and run the following command to install the required libraries from npm:
$ npm install --save express body-parser sqlite3 bcryptjs jsonwebtoken
At the time of this writing the following versions will be installed:
bcryptjs@2.4.3
sqlite3@4.0.4
body-parser@1.1
jsonwebtoken@8.4.0
express@4.16.4
The command will create a node_modules folder inside your project’s folder where the packages and their dependencies are all installed. Since we’ve added the –save option, the command will also update the the package.json file with these dependencies which will enable anyone who cloned the project to install the same packages you’ve installed with the previous command by simply running the npm install command from the root of the project’s folder where package.json exists.
This is the content of package.json at this point:
{
"name": "express-auth-project",
"version": "1.0.0",
"description": "",
"main": "index.js",
"scripts": {
"test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
},
"keywords": [],
"author": "",
"license": "ISC",
"dependencies": {
"bcryptjs": "^2.4.3",
"body-parser": "^1.18.3",
"express": "^4.16.4",
"jsonwebtoken": "^8.4.0",
"sqlite3": "^4.0.4"
}
}
After installing the required packages, you can now proceed by creating your Express server. Open the index.js file and add the following code:
"use strict";
const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const app = express();
const router = express.Router();
router.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
router.use(bodyParser.json());
We first require the express and body-parser modules, new we create an Express application and en Express router. Finally we added body parser middlewares that will allow us to get parse JSON data from the request body.
Next let’s define two /login and /register routes which both should accept a POST request from clients:
router.post('/register', (req, res) => {
res.status(200).send({ access_token: '' });
});
router.post('/login', (req, res) => {
res.status(200).send({ access_token: '' });
});
We use the post() method of the router object to create a route that accepts a POST request. The method takes the path as the first parameter and a function to process the request as the second parameter. This function is passed two objects:
- req that represents the request sent from the client,
- res that represents the response that will be sent to the client.
Both these two objects contains values and methods to work with requests and responses.
In the body of functions, we simply set the 200 OK status on the response and send it the client with an { access_token: ‘ ‘ } body.
This will return the following HTTP response to the client:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{
“access_token”: “”
}
For now the access token is empty so we’ll next change that to actually register, login and return an actual access token that will be used to authenticate the clients.
Next, add the following code to set up the router and run Express server:
app.use(router);
const port = process.env.PORT || 3000;
const server = app.listen(port, () => {
console.log('Server listening at http://localhost:' + port);
});
At this point, you can run your server using the following command from the root of your project:
$ node index.js
In your terminal the Server listening at http://localhost:3000 will be displayed which means your server is up and running and available from the http://localhost:3000 address.
You’ll be able to send POST requests to the http://localhost:3000/register and http://localhost:3000/login endpoints to respectively register and login users.
Let’s also look at how we can create a route that accepts a GET request and returns a response to the client. In the index.js file, add the following route:
router.get('/', (req, res) => {
res.status(200).send('This is an authentication server');
});
This will allow you to visit the http://localhost:3000/ from your web browser. In your browser, you’ll see the This is an authentication server message.
Adding a SQLite Database
To be able to register and login users in our application we need a way to persist users in our database. For this matter, we’ll use SQLite, a file based database that can be quickly created without installing a database management system like MySQL.
Open the index.js file and require the sqlite3 package you’ve previously installed using the following code:
const sqlite3 = require('sqlite3').verbose();
Next create a database object using:
const database = new sqlite3.Database("./my.db");
Put this code at the beginning of your index.js file after the require method and before registering the routes.
Next, add three methods to create the users table where users are persisted, create a user in the database and find a user by its email in the database:
const createUsersTable = () => {
const sqlQuery = '
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS users (
id integer PRIMARY KEY,
name text,
email text UNIQUE,
password text)';
return database.run(sqlQuery);
}
const findUserByEmail = (email, cb) => {
return database.get(`SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = ?`, [email], (err, row) => {
cb(err, row)
});
}
const createUser = (user, cb) => {
return database.run('INSERT INTO users (name, email, password) VALUES (?,?,?)', user, (err) => {
cb(err)
});
}
After defining these methods to create and work with the database, let’s create the users table by calling the createUsersTable() right after the definition of the methods:
createUsersTable();
Stop and run your server—you should see a my.db database file created in the root of your project.
Configuring the jsonwebtoken & bcryptjs Modules
Before implementing our authentication flow, we need to setup the jsonwebtoken and bcryptjs modules that are respectively used to create JSON tokens and encrypt passwords before storing them in the database.
First in the index.js file and require jsonwebtoken and bcryptjs:
const jwt = require('jsonwebtoken');
const bcrypt = require('bcryptjs');
Also add a secret key that will be used to sign the payloads to create JSON tokens:
const SECRET_KEY = "secretkey23456";
Implementing the Register Route
Now, let’s implement the register route. In the index.js file, add the following code to your register route:
router.post('/register', (req, res) => {
const name = req.body.name;
const email = req.body.email;
const password = bcrypt.hashSync(req.body.password);
createUser([name, email, password], (err) => {
if (err) return res.status(500).send("Server error!");
findUserByEmail(email, (err, user) => {
if (err) return res.status(500).send('Server error!');
const expiresIn = 24 * 60 * 60;
const accessToken = jwt.sign({ id: user.id }, SECRET_KEY, {
expiresIn: expiresIn
});
res.status(200).send({
"user": user, "access_token": accessToken, "expires_in": expiresIn
});
});
});
});
We first extract the name, email and password from the request body. Next, we call the createUser() method by passing the extracted credentials for the new user to be created.
In the callback function of the method:
- We check if we have an error, in that case we return a 500 HTTP response with the Server error! message,
- Otherwise, we generate an access token based on the user ID (generated automatically in the database), a secret key and an expires in value (in seconds) using the sign() method of jsonwebtoken,
- We finally return a 200 response with a body containing the user, access token and the expires in value.
Stop and run your server again—If you now send a POST request with the following body:
{
"email": "test@mail.com",
"name": "test",
"password": "test001"
}
You should get a 200 response similar to the following:
The response contains the created user information (the password is encrypted using bcrypt), an access_token and expires_in value (one day).
Implementing the Login Route
After implementing the logic for registering users let’s now implement the login route. In the index.js file, add the following code:
router.post('/login', (req, res) => {
const email = req.body.email;
const password = req.body.password;
findUserByEmail(email, (err, user) => {
if (err) return res.status(500).send('Server error!');
if (!user) return res.status(404).send('User not found!');
const result = bcrypt.compareSync(password, user.password);
if (!result) return res.status(401).send('Password not valid!');
const expiresIn = 24 * 60 * 60;
const accessToken = jwt.sign({ id: user.id }, SECRET_KEY, {
expiresIn: expiresIn
});
res.status(200).send({ "user": user, "access_token": accessToken, "expires_in": expiresIn });
});
});
We first extract the login credentials i.e the email and password from the body of the request.
Next, we call the findUserByEmail() method to search for the user with the passed credentials in the SQLite database.
In the callback of the method:
- We check of there is an error, in that case we return a 500 response,
- Next, we check if the user exists in the database and returns a 404 response if it doesn’t,
- Next, we check if the passed password matches the database user’s password using the bcrypt.compareSync() method and returns a 401 response if not.
- Finally we generate a token using the sign() method of jsonwebtoken and return a 200 response with the user, access token and an expiration value.
Again stop and run your server—you should be able to login using the previously created user by sending the following data with a POST request to the /login endpoint:
{
"email": "test@mail.com",
"password": "test001"
}
This should return a 200 HTTP response with a user object, access_token and expires_in properties.
Conclusion
In this tutorial, we’ve used Node, Express, body-parser, jsonwebtoken, sqlite3 and bcrypt libraries and packages to create a simple REST server for JWT authentication.
Arif Khoja is a Developer. He is a Javascript Enthusiatic who loves logical programming and has first hand experience in building a cutting edge internet product using Angular. He is also an open source freak and keen about learning and sharing. He writes Javascript both frontend and backend. He loves learning and sharing tech all the time. He also has a hands on experience in SEO and writes articles about latest emerging technologies.
