Simple Basic Auth with vanilla JavaScript (ES6)
app.use((req, res, next) => {
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------
// authentication middleware
const auth = {login: 'yourlogin', password: 'yourpassword'} // change this
// parse login and password from headers
const b64auth = (req.headers.authorization || '').split(' ')[1] || ''
const [login, password] = Buffer.from(b64auth, 'base64').toString().split(':')
// Verify login and password are set and correct
if (login && password && login === auth.login && password === auth.password) {
// Access granted...
return next()
}
// Access denied...
res.set('WWW-Authenticate', 'Basic realm="401"') // change this
res.status(401).send('Authentication required.') // custom message
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------
})
note: This "middleware" can be used in any handler. Just remove next() and reverse the logic. See the 1-statement example below, or the edit history of this answer.
Why?
req.headers.authorization contains the value "Basic <base64 string>", but it can also be empty and we don't want it to fail, hence the weird combo of || '' - Node doesn't know
atob() and btoa(), hence the Buffer
ES6 -> ES5
const is just var .. sort of
(x, y) => {...} is just function(x, y) {...}
const [login, password] = ...split() is just two var assignments in one
source of inspiration (uses packages)
The above is a
super simple example that was intended to be
super short and quickly deployable to your playground server. But as was pointed out in the comments, passwords can also contain colon characters
:. To correctly extract it from the
b64auth, you can use this.
// parse login and password from headers
const b64auth = (req.headers.authorization || '').split(' ')[1] || ''
const strauth = Buffer.from(b64auth, 'base64').toString()
const splitIndex = strauth.indexOf(':')
const login = strauth.substring(0, splitIndex)
const password = strauth.substring(splitIndex + 1)
// using shorter regex by @adabru
// const [_, login, password] = strauth.match(/(.*?):(.*)/) || []
Basic auth in one statement
...on the other hand, if you only ever use one or very few logins, this is the bare minimum you need: (you don't even need to parse the credentials at all)
function (req, res) {
//btoa('yourlogin:yourpassword') -> "eW91cmxvZ2luOnlvdXJwYXNzd29yZA=="
//btoa('otherlogin:otherpassword') -> "b3RoZXJsb2dpbjpvdGhlcnBhc3N3b3Jk"
// Verify credentials
if ( req.headers.authorization !== 'Basic eW91cmxvZ2luOnlvdXJwYXNzd29yZA=='
&& req.headers.authorization !== 'Basic b3RoZXJsb2dpbjpvdGhlcnBhc3N3b3Jk')
return res.status(401).send('Authentication required.') // Access denied.
// Access granted...
res.send('hello world')
// or call next() if you use it as middleware (as snippet #1)
}
PS: do you need to have both "secure" and "public" paths? Consider using express.router instead.
var securedRoutes = require('express').Router()
securedRoutes.use(/* auth-middleware from above */)
securedRoutes.get('path1', /* ... */)
app.use('/secure', securedRoutes)
app.get('public', /* ... */)
// example.com/public // no-auth
// example.com/secure/path1 // requires auth
express-basic-authhow to apply it to just one route.