node-authify

Authentication Library for MERN Stack

This is a simple library for implementing user authentication in a MERN (MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js) stack. It uses JWT (JSON Web Tokens) for authentication and authorization.

Integration

Secure your React.js application with ease using react-authify, a library that provides ready-to-use authentication components.

Installation

To install the library, use npm or yarn:

npm install node-authify

yarn add node-authify

Usage

Step 1: Create a .env file and add secretkey for JWT token. Ex. SECRETKEY = SOMERANDOMEKEYHARDTOGUESS

Login

When generating the token during the login process, make sure to use the same secret key that is specified in the .env file. This is important because the checkAuth function uses this secret key to verify the authenticity of the token during subsequent requests. If a different secret key is used, the token will not be verified successfully and the request will be rejected.

exports.login = async (req, res) => {
  const { email, password } = req.body; // Check if email and password are present
  if (!email || !password) {
    return res.status(422).json({ message: 'Email and password are required' });
  }

  // rest of your code

  // If the email and password are correct, create a JWT token
  // Make sure to use same SECRETKEY in this function
  const token = jwt.sign({ user: foundUser }, process.env.SECRETKEY, {
    expiresIn: '12h',
  });

  res.status(201).json({ user: foundUser, token: token });
};

Middleware

Step 2: Pass this SECRETKEY in checkAuth(process.env.SECRETKEY) middleware

// routes.js
const express = require('express');
const router = express.Router();
const checkAuth = require('node-authify');

router.use(checkAuth('secret-key'));

router.delete('/delete/:id', deleteUserById);

// OR you can use like this

router.delete('/delete/:id', checkAuth('secret-key'), deleteUserById);

After succesfull verification you can access users information. You can perform authorization task based on this.

Usage Note

Another point to mention in the library overview would be that upon successful verification of the JWT token, the checkAuth middleware adds the decoded token as a property user to the req object. This allows the user's information to be accessed in subsequent middleware or route handlers, enabling the implementation of role-based access control or other forms of user authentication.

const userId = req.user.userId;
if (todo.user.toString() !== userId) {
  return res.status(401).json({ message: 'Unauthorized' });
}

Feedback

Node-Authify is actively under development to add more features, improve performance, and address any issues reported during testing. Feedback from users testing the library is appreciated.