request-yourself

Middleware to add a property to a HTTP request with how the request was addressed

Suitable for

• Express version 4

Often web applications need to generate a URL to point to themselves to give to client applications. For example, in applications that use OAuth 2.0 a redirect_uri is required for the Authorisation Server to redirect the user back to the application. However, if an application is fronted by gateway or load balancer the application needs to use the public facing address of the application, not the internal address for where the application sits on the network.

This middleware adds a self property to an HTTP request containing the scheme/protocol and the hostname (and port if required) of how the end client addressed the application. It considers any X-Forwarded-Host header as well the Host details in the request.

A request handling pipeline can then dynamically create a URL that points to the same host which assists the application being portable to difference hosts/environments (for example, dev, test and prod) without any additional configuration.

Usage

$ npm install request-yourself

Express example

const middleware = require("request-yourself");
const express = require("express");
const app = express();
const port = 3000;

app.use(middleware.express());

app.get("/", (req, res) => {
  res.send(`Hello from ${req.self}`);
});

app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Example app listening on port ${port}`);
});