Browser is not receiving and not sending cookies with requests - React + Nestjs - node.js

I'm generating JWT token on my Nestjs backend which then I try to send with cookie to my frontend React application in order to know which user is logged in.
Problem is that I'm not receiving this cookie in browser, and it's not automatically added to other requests.
I'm sending response inside my service like this:
async login(loginData: UserLoginInterface, res: Response) {
...
return res.status(200).cookie('jwt', token.accessToken, {
secure: false,
domain: 'localhost',
httpOnly: false,
}).json(userResponse);
}
At this point I know the token is generated, it's saved in DB.
But I can't see this cookie, or any other cookie I try in my browser:
Doesn't matter if the httpOnly flag is true or false.
And then, when I try to call action that is restricted only for logged in user, which have the jwt token in request, then Nest is throwing 401 UnauthorizedException
So at this point I know that it's not sent automatically with request as I read in other thread like this:
Why browser is not setting the cookie sent from my node js backend?
But when I make this POST request from Postman.
Then I can see that cookie is sent properly and I can read the JWT token:
Along with headers:
And also it works fine when I call the function that is restricted only to authorized users.
Here is my bootstrap in main.ts:
async function bootstrap() {
const app = await NestFactory.create(AppModule);
app.enableCors({
origin: 'http://localhost:3000'
});
app.getHttpAdapter().getInstance().disable('x-powered-by');
app.use(cookieParser());
await app.listen(process.env.PORT || 3500);
}
bootstrap();

After some time of debugging I found out that it's not the browser that is ignoring properly sent cookie, and in fact it is backend that is not sending the cookie to the browser client.
And the thing was about how the request is being send.
I've found this thread to be useful:
Express doesn't set a cookie
In my case setting flag withCredentials: true in axios was sufficient.
const API = axios.create({
baseURL: 'http://localhost:5000',
withCredentials: true,
});
EDIT
Also, seems like the way I send response also matters, the code above is not sending cookie properly to the browser for some reason, but this works fine:
res.status(200).cookie('jwt', token.accessToken);
return res.json(userResponse);

Related

Does http-proxy-middleware always forward cookies along with the request?

I was setting up a nodejs api with 2 different react front ends and found that I kept running into CORS issues.
To get around this I created 3 servers. 2 for each of the front ends and 1 for the actual api server. My thoughts were that I would authenticate on the 2 proxy servers that have the react apps on them and then forward all other requests to the api server with the cookie's info set in a json web token.
However, upon setting up http-proxy-middleware and setting changeOrigin to true I've noticed that the cookie also gets sent along with the request which is awesome. Is this what changeOrigin is meant to do and will it work for all types of requests?
This is how I'd setup my proxy options:
// routes
app.use('/api/auth', require('./routes/openRoutes/authRoutes'));
// api routes
const proxyOptions = {
target: gateway.url, // target host
changeOrigin: true,
onProxyReq: function onProxyReq(proxyReq, req, res) {
// add custom header to request
const id = req.user ? req.user.id : null;
const token = jwt.sign({
data: id
}, sessionSecret, { expiresIn: '1h' });
if (token) {
proxyReq.setHeader('authorization', `Bearer ${token}`);
}
},
logLevel: 'debug',
};
app.use('/api/admin/user', createProxyMiddleware(proxyOptions));
changeOrigin doesn't do anything to cookies or any other request header besides Host
option.changeOrigin: true/false, Default: false - changes the origin of the host header to the target URL
So if your request looks like this...
GET /api/admin/user
Host: your.frontend.domain
Cookie: connect.sid=whatever
the only thing the changeOrigin changes is Host
GET /api/admin/user
Host: your.gateway.domain
Cookie: connect.sid=whatever
Authorization: Bearer <your JWT token>
This is so the upstream service can route the request to appropriate name-based virtual host.

CORS origin problems while setting origin to '*' with cookies

I am developping a reactjs front end app with a nodejs/express backend.
Before, react side, I was accessing my nodejs through the address localhost:5000 but since I want to try it from my mobile device, I naively changed localhost to my #ip 192.168.X.X and as the title says, it does not work.
I am sharing an example of what I tried with the login feature since the server is supposed to send back a cookie.
Front end I use axios :
const result = await axios({
method:'post',
url:'http://192.168.X.X:5000/api/user/login',
data:{
"emailLogin":login,
"password":password
},
withCredentials:true,
headers: { crossDomain: true, 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
});
Backend I tried this :
const corsConfig = {
credentials:true,
origin:true,
}
app.use(cors(corsConfig));
This first configuration send me back a 200 http code but without any cookie.
I also tried this as backend :
const corsConfig = {
credentials:true,
origin:"*",
}
app.use(cors(corsConfig));
and this time, frontend side, I get the well known Access to XMLHttpRequest error.
I have read somewhere on stackoverflow that when origin is set to '*' credential is supposed to be set to false.
Also I would love to have a complete documentation about cors, react and nodejs but to be honest I couldn't find any that fix my problem.
To sum my problem up :
My reactjs frontend that will deployed on several devices with unknown addresses is supposed to send a POST request to a nodejs backend that will send back a cookie.
I went with the same issue. When my backend is myserver.com and frontend is myclient.com
BackEnd Configuration:
enbling CORS with exact origin instead of "*"
app.use(cors({
origin: [
'http://localhost:4200',
'https://dev.myclient.com',
'https://staging.myclient.com',
'https://www.myclient.com',
],
credentials: true
}))
Setting Cookie with SameSite="None" and Backend Enabled with HTTPS.
res.cookie('access_token', token, {
expires: new Date(Date.now() + (3600 * 1000 * 24 * 180 * 1)), //second min hour days year
secure: true, // set to true - samesite none only works with https
httpOnly: true, // backend only
sameSite: 'none'
});
As your frontend and backend is on different domain. You must specify sameSite attribute to 'none'
Your backend must enabled with HTTPS as samSite='none' only works with HTTPS or else your cookie will be blocked by browser. Check samesite attribute in cookie link.
Enable SSL certificate for your backend myserver.com

Set HttpOnly Cookies while developing Web App locally

I am developing a web app with angular + nebular auth. Nebular auth is working and I get a JWT token from our auth server. The auth server is made with Node and sets also an HTTPOnly cookie for the refresh token. I want this token to be send along every request.
The login response has indeed the Set-Cookie header, but the cookie is never set. I have read a lot of answers in Stack Overflow but everything I tried did not work.
The auth server is in a Cloud server, while I am developing the app locally. This maybe can be a problem already.
Anyway, here's what I have done till now:
Node.js
I am using an HTTP server, and setting the cookie with cookie-parser with:
res.cookie("refresh_token", token, {httpOnly: true, maxAge: ....});
I set the core options in app.js like this:
app.use(cors({
credentials: true,
origin: ["http://localhost:4200", "http://127.0.0.1:4200"]
exposedHeaders = ["Content-Length", .....],
allowedHeaders = ["Content-Type", "Authorization", "Set-Cookie", ....],
}));
When I get the response of the Login, I do get the Set-Cookie header but I cannot see the cookie in the Cookies tab of my browser console.
I tried to send a request from Angular anyway, with { headers: headers, withCredentials: true } but obviously when I check the cookie in Node there's nothing.
So I am going crazy... it's probably a problem with CORS, because I am developing from localhost and the server is up on the cloud?
How can I make this work?
So the initial solution I have found was just simply running the Node server on localhost. The server was pretty light so no problem but it wasn't the best solution.
I solved the problem with a simple local proxy in Angular:
I created proxy.json on the root of the workdir
{
"/api": {
"target": "http://<server_ip>:3000",
"secure": false
}
}
Then added this line on angular.json
"serve": {
"builder": "#angular-devkit/build-angular:dev-server",
"options": {
"proxyConfig": "proxy.json", // Added this
"ssl": false
},
...
I also needed to create an HttpInterceptor to intercept http requests and add the Access-Control-Allow-Credentials header to every one of them. Usually I use an Interceptor also to add custom headers I need for my project, handle authorization headers and also call the refresh token API when auth tokens are expired. Anyway the simplest Interceptor is this:
import { Injectable } from '#angular/core';
import {
HttpEvent, HttpInterceptor, HttpHandler, HttpRequest
} from '#angular/common/http';
import { Observable } from 'rxjs';
/** Inject With Credentials into the request */
#Injectable()
export class HttpRequestInterceptor implements HttpInterceptor {
intercept(req: HttpRequest<any>, next: HttpHandler):
Observable<HttpEvent<any>> {
req = req.clone({
withCredentials: true
});
return next.handle(req);
}
}
Finally on my environment.ts
export const environment = {
app_name: "<app_name_dev>",
production: false,
api_path: 'http://localhost:4200/api',
};
So now using environment.api_path as base path to call my authentication APIs works correctly with CORS and I get my HTTP Only Cookie.

cookie session is not working on CodeSandbox and Repl?

I love coding on CodeSandbox for client and Repl for server.
I am learning create an auth microservices to handle twitter login recently.
I followed this tutorial
https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-set-up-twitter-oauth-using-passport-js-and-reactjs-9ffa6f49ef0/
and setup the client on CodeSandbox and Server on Repl
https://codesandbox.io/s/passport-pratice-twitter-p1ql3?file=/src/index.js
_handleSignInClick = () => {
// Authenticate using via passport api in the backend
// Open Twitter login page
// Upon successful login, a cookie session will be stored in the client
//let url = "https://Passport-pratice-twitter.chikarau.repl.co/auth/twitter";
let url = "http://localhost:4000/auth/twitter";
window.open(url, "_self");
};
https://repl.it/#chiKaRau/Passport-pratice-twitter#index.js
app.use(
cookieSession({
name: "session",
keys: [keys.COOKIE_KEY],
maxAge: 24 * 60 * 60 * 100
})
);
// parse cookies
app.use(cookieParser());
// initalize passport
app.use(passport.initialize());
// deserialize cookie from the browser
app.use(passport.session());
// set up cors to allow us to accept requests from our client
app.use(
cors({
//origin: "https://p1ql3.csb.app", // allow to server to accept request from different origin
origin: "http://localhost:3000",
methods: "GET,HEAD,PUT,PATCH,POST,DELETE",
credentials: true // allow session cookie from browser to pass through
})
);
If I test them on localhost, they works perfectly (It displays login successfully)
However, testing them on CodeSandBox and Repl won't work because of req.user is undefined. The passport.session supposes to store the user session/cookie into req as req.user, and it will check whether the req.user exist and send a response back to client.
router.get("/login/success", (req, res) => {
if (req.user) {
res.json({
success: true,
message: "user has successfully authenticated",
user: req.user,
cookies: req.cookies
});
}
});
I also tested on both localhost and browser and set the appropriate domain
Client (PC) and Server (PC) - Working
Client (PC) and Server (REPL) - not Working
Client (CodeSandBox) and Server (PC) - not Working
Client (CodeSandBox) and Server (REPL) - not Working
My Question are why the cookie session is not working on online IDE such as CodeSandBox or Repl?
Is there any solution to get around this and run on CodeSandBox or Repl? If deploy both client and server on a server like heroku or digital ocean, would it gonna works as localhost?
Thanks

Express doesn't set a cookie

I have problem with setting a cookies via express. I'm using Este.js dev stack and I try to set a cookie in API auth /login route. Here is the code that I use in /api/v1/auth/login route
res.cookie('token', jwt.token, {expires: new Date(Date.now() + 9999999)});
res.status(200).send({user, token: jwt.token});
In src/server/main.js I have registered cookie-parser as first middleware
app.use(cookieParser());
The response header for /api/v1/auth/login route contains
Set-Cookie:token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiJ9.eyJ..
but the cookie isn't saved in browser (document.cookie is empty, also Resources - Cookies tab in develepoers tools is empty) :(
EDIT:
I'm found that when I call this in /api/v1/auth/login (without call res.send or res.json)
res.cookie('token', jwt.token, {expires: new Date(Date.now() + 9999999), httpOnly: false});
next();
then the cookie is set AND response header has set X-Powered-By:Este.js ... this sets esteMiddleware in expres frontend rendering part.
When I use res.send
res.cookie('token', jwt.token, {expires: new Date(Date.now() + 9999999), httpOnly: false}).send({user, token: jwt.token});`
next();
then I get error Can't set headers after they are sent. because send method is used, so frontend render throw this error.
But I have to send a data from API, so how I can deal with this?
I had the same issue. The server response comes with cookie set:
Set-Cookie:my_cookie=HelloWorld; Path=/; Expires=Wed, 15 Mar 2017 15:59:59 GMT
But the cookie was not saved by a browser.
This is how I solved it.
I use fetch in a client-side code. If you do not specify credentials: 'include' in fetch options, cookies are neither sent to server nor saved by a browser, although the server response sets cookies.
Example:
var headers = new Headers();
headers.append('Content-Type', 'application/json');
headers.append('Accept', 'application/json');
return fetch('/your/server_endpoint', {
method: 'POST',
mode: 'same-origin',
redirect: 'follow',
credentials: 'include', // Don't forget to specify this if you need cookies
headers: headers,
body: JSON.stringify({
first_name: 'John',
last_name: 'Doe'
})
})
Struggling with this for a 3h, and finally realized, with axios, I should set withCredentials to true, even though I am only receiving cookies.
axios.defaults.withCredentials = true;
I work with express 4 and node 7.4 and Angular, I had the same problem this helped me:
a) server side: in file app.js I give headers to all responses like:
app.use(function(req, res, next) {
res.header('Access-Control-Allow-Origin', req.headers.origin);
res.header("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept");
next();
});
This must have before all routers.
I saw a lot of added this header:
res.header("Access-Control-Allow-Headers","*");
res.header('Access-Control-Allow-Credentials', true);
res.header('Access-Control-Allow-Methods', 'GET,PUT,POST,DELETE');
but I don't need that.
b) when you define cookie you need to add httpOnly: false, like:
res.cookie( key, value,{ maxAge: 1000 * 60 * 10, httpOnly: false });
c) client side: in send ajax you need to add: withCredentials: true, like:
$http({
method: 'POST',
url: 'url',
withCredentials: true,
data : {}
}).then(function(response){
// do something
}, function (response) {
// do something else
});
There's a few issues:
a cookie that isn't explicitly set with httpOnly : false will not be accessible through document.cookie in the browser. It will still be sent with HTTP requests, and if you check your browsers' dev tools you will most likely find the cookie there (in Chrome they can be found in the Resources tab of the dev tools);
the next() that you're calling should only be used if you want to defer sending back a response to some other part of your application, which—judging by your code—is not what you want.
So, it seems to me that this should solve your problems:
res.cookie('token', jwt.token, {
expires : new Date(Date.now() + 9999999),
httpOnly : false
});
res.status(200).send({ user, token: jwt.token });
As a side note: there's a reason for httpOnly defaulting to true (to prevent malicious XSS scripts from accessing session cookies and the like). If you don't have a very good reason to be able to access the cookie through client-side JS, don't set it to false.
I had the same issue with cross origin requests, here is how I fixed it. You need to specifically tell browser to allow credentials. With axios, you can specify it to allow credentials on every request like
axios.defaults.withCredentials = true
however this will be blocked by CORS policy and you need to specify credentials is true on your api like
const corsOptions = {
credentials: true,
///..other options
};
app.use(cors(corsOptions));
Update: this only work on localhost
For detail answer on issues in production environment, see my answer here
I was also going through the same issue.
Did code changes at two place :
At client side :
const apiData = await fetch("http://localhost:5000/user/login",
{
method: "POST",
body: JSON.stringify(this.state),
credentials: "include", // added this part
headers: {
"Content-Type": "application/json",
},
})
And at back end:
const corsOptions = {
origin: true, //included origin as true
credentials: true, //included credentials as true
};
app.use(cors(corsOptions));
Double check the size of your cookie.
For me, the way I was generating an auth token to store in my cookie, was causing the size of the cookie to increase with subsequent login attempts, eventually causing the browser to not set the cookie because it's too big.
Browser cookie size cheat sheet
There is no problem to set "httpOnly" to true in a cookie.
I am using "request-promise" for requests and the client is a "React" app, but the technology doesn't matter. The request is:
var options = {
uri: 'http://localhost:4000/some-route',
method: 'POST',
withCredentials: true
}
request(options)
.then(function (response) {
console.log(response)
})
.catch(function (err) {
console.log(err)
});
The response on the node.js (express) server is:
var token=JSON.stringify({
"token":"some token content"
});
res.header('Access-Control-Allow-Origin', "http://127.0.0.1:3000");
res.header("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept");
res.header( 'Access-Control-Allow-Credentials',true);
var date = new Date();
var tokenExpire = date.setTime(date.getTime() + (360 * 1000));
res.status(201)
.cookie('token', token, { maxAge: tokenExpire, httpOnly: true })
.send();
The client make a request, the server set the cookie , the browser (client) receive it (you can see it in "Application tab on the dev tools") and then I again launch a request to the server and the cookie is located in the request: "req.headers.cookie" so accessible by the server for verifying.
I had same problem in Angular application. The cookies was not set in browser although I used
res.cookie("auth", token, {
httpOnly: true,
sameSite: true,
signed: true,
maxAge: 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000,
});
To solve this issue, I added app.use(cors({ origin:true, credentials:true })); in app.js file of server side
And in my order service of Angular client side, I added {withCredentials: true} as a second parameter when http methods are called like following the code
getMyOrders() {
return this.http
.get<IOrderResponse[]>(this.SERVER_URL + '/orders/user/my-orders', {withCredentials: true})
.toPromise();}
vue axios + node express 2023
server.ts (backend)
const corsOptions = {
origin:'your_domain',
credentials: true,
optionSuccessStatus: 200,
}
auth.ts (backend)
res.cookie('token', JSON.stringify(jwtToken), {
secure: true,
httpOnly: true,
expires: dayjs().add(30, "days").toDate(),
sameSite: 'none'
})
authService.ts (frontend)
export class AuthService {
INSTANCE = axios.create({
withCredentials: true,
baseURL: 'your_base_url'
})
public Login = async (value: any): Promise<void> => {
try {
await this.INSTANCE.post('login', { data: value })
console.log('success')
} catch (error) {
console.log(error)
}
}
it works for me, the cookie is set, it is visible from fn+F12 / Application / Cookies and it is inaccessible with javascript and the document.cookie function. Screenshot Cookies Browser
One of the main features is to set header correctly.
For nginx:
add-header Access-Control-Allow-Origin' 'domain.com';
add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Credentials' 'true';
Add this to your web server.
Then form cookie like this:
"cookie": {
"secure": true,
"path": "/",
"httpOnly": true,
"hostOnly": true,
"sameSite": false,
"domain" : "domain.com"
}
The best approach to get cookie from express is to use cookie-parser.
A cookie can't be set if the client and server are on different domains. Different sub-domains is doable but not different domains and not different ports.
If using Angular as your frontend you can simply send all requests to the same domain as your Angular app (so the app is sending all API requests to itself) and stick an /api/ in every HTTP API request URL - usually configured in your environment.ts file:
export const environment = {
production: false,
httpPhp: 'http://localhost:4200/api'
}
Then all HTTP requests will use environment.httpPhp + '/rest/of/path'
Then you can proxy those requests by creating proxy.conf.json as follows:
{
"/api/*": {
"target": "http://localhost:5200",
"secure": false,
"changeOrigin": true,
"pathRewrite": {
"^/api": ""
}
}
}
Then add this to ng serve:
ng serve -o --proxy-config proxy.conf.json
Then restart your app and it should all work, assuming that your server is actually using Set-Cookie in the HTTP response headers. (Note, on a diff domain you won't even see the Set-Cookie response header, even if the server is configured correctly).
Most of these answers provided are corrections, but either of the configuration you made, cookies won't easily be set from different domain. In this answer am assuming that you are still in local development.
To set a cookie, you can easily use any of the above configurations or
res.setHeader('Set-Cookie', ['foo=bar', 'bar=baz']); // setting multiple cookies or
res.cookie('token', { maxAge: 5666666, httpOnly: true })
Both of the will set your cookie while to accessing your cookie from incoming request req.headers.
In my case, my cookie were not setting because my server was running on http://localhost:7000/ while the frontend was running on http://127.0.0.1:3000/ so the simple fix was made by making the frontend run on http://localhost:3000 instead.
I struggle with it a lot so follow below solution to get through this
1 check if you are getting token with response with postmen in my case i was getting token in postmen but it wasn't being saved in cookies.
I was using a custom publicRequest which looks like below
try {
const response = await publicRequest.post("/auth/login", user, {withCredentials: true});
dispatch(loginSuccess(response.data));
} catch (error) {
dispatch(loginFail());
dispatch(reset());
}
I was using this method in other file to handle login
I added {withCredentials: true} in both methods as option and it worked for me.
I am late to the party but nothing fixed it for me. This is what I was missing (and yeah, it's stupid):
I had to add res.send() after res.cookie() - so apperently sending a cookie is not enough to send a response to the browser.
res.cookie("testcookie", "text", cookieOptions);
res.send();
You have to combine:
including credentials on the request with, for example withCredentials: true when using axios.
including credentials on the api with, for example credentials: true when using cors() mw.
including the origin of your request on the api, for example origin: http://localhost:3000 when using cors() mw.
app.post('/api/user/login',(req,res)=>{
User.findOne({'email':req.body.email},(err,user)=>{
if(!user) res.json({message: 'Auth failed, user not found'})
user.comparePassword(req.body.password,(err,isMatch)=>{
if(err) throw err;
if(!isMatch) return res.status(400).json({
message:'Wrong password'
});
user.generateToken((err,user)=>{
if(err) return res.status(400).send(err);
res.cookie('auth',user.token).send('ok')
})
})
})
});
response
res.cookie('auth',user.token).send('ok')
server gives response ok but the cookie is not stored in the browser
Solution :
Add Postman Interceptor Extension to chrome which allows postman to store cookie in browser and get back useing requests.

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