passport-http-custom-bearer

HTTP Bearer authentication strategy for Passport using a custom header field.

This module lets you authenticate HTTP requests using bearer tokens, as specified by RFC 6750, in your Node.js applications, using either the recommended Authorization header name or a custom name. Bearer tokens are typically used protect API endpoints, and are often issued using OAuth 2.0.

By plugging into Passport, bearer token support can be easily and unobtrusively integrated into any application or framework that supports Connect-style middleware, including Express.

Install

$ npm install passport-http-custom-bearer

Usage

Configure Strategy

The HTTP Bearer authentication strategy authenticates users using a bearer token. The strategy requires a verify callback, which accepts that credential and calls done providing a user. Optional info can be passed, typically including associated scope, which will be set by Passport at req.authInfo to be used by later middleware for authorization and access control.

For example, to authenticate using a custom header X-APIAuth (the recommended X- prefix is automatically added), or a custom body field api_token, or a custom query parameter api_token:

var CustomBearerStrategy = require('passport-http-custom-bearer');
passport.use('api-bearer', new CustomBearerStrategy(
  { headerName: 'APIAuth',
    bodyName: 'api_token',
    queryName: 'api_token'
  },
  function(token, done) {
    User.findOne({ token: token }, function (err, user) {
      if (err) { return done(err); }
      if (!user) { return done(null, false); }
      return done(null, user, { scope: 'all' });
    });
  }
));

Authenticate Requests

Use passport.authenticate(), specifying the 'custom-bearer' strategy (or your named strategy), to authenticate requests. Requests containing bearer tokens do not require session support, so the session option can be set to false.

For example, as route middleware in an Express application for the above example strategy:

app.get('/profile', 
  passport.authenticate('api-bearer', { session: false }),
    function(req, res) {
      res.json(req.user);
  });

As a policy in Sails, using the above example strategy:

var passport = require('passport');

module.exports = function(req, res, next) {

  passport.authenticate(
    'api-bearer',
    function(err, user, info)
    {
      console.log("Authentication via API Bearer", info);
      if ((err) || (!user)) {
        res.send(401);
        return;
      }
      if (info && info.queryName && info.queryName.length) delete req.query[info.queryName];
      else delete req.query.access_token;
      req.user = user;
      return next();
    }
  )(req, res);
};

Issuing Tokens

Bearer tokens are typically issued using OAuth 2.0. OAuth2orize is a toolkit for implementing OAuth 2.0 servers and issuing bearer tokens. Once issued, this module can be used to authenticate tokens as described above.

Examples

For a complete, working example using the defaults, refer to the Bearer example.

Related Modules

• OAuth2orize — OAuth 2.0 authorization server toolkit

Tests

$ npm install
$ npm test

Credits

• Jared Hanson
• Jason McInerney

License

The MIT License

Copyright (c) 2011-2013 Jared Hanson <http://jaredhanson.net/>