I am currently working on a project composed by:
Front: Angular ; Back: NodeJS
The backend compiles angular static files with the command: response.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, 'dirname', 'index.html'));
I have stored my API keys into my backend using dotenv. Then, when i start (in main.ts file) my Angular app, i do an API call to my back to get these API keys. But the response is visible from user POV, so i encrypted it. But now, I have to hide the encryption key. That's the string I want to pass from my back to my front.
Anyone has an idea ?
There is no way to hide such information from a very experienced and determined user / attacker. All types of obfuscation can be broken because your code for de-obfuscation / decryption will run at the client side and can thus be re-enigeered, as I already stated in my comment.
To be safe you should build a proxy layer for the unprotectable keys (SendInBlue, Stripe). The proxy can be built quite lightweight by using the same routes as the actual APIs extended by some prefix like, e.g. /sendinblue. This way you can use a single request handler and just add the authorization information (code not tested, just a hint):
const axios = require('axios');
app.get('/sendinblue/:remainder', (request, response, next) => {
// I am not sure, if this takes the whole remainder or just until
// the next slash /
// If not you have to parse the url-attribute of the request object
let originalurl = request.params.remainder;
axios.get(sendinblueBaseUrl + '/' + originalurl, {
headers: {
'Authorization': // API key here
}
})
.then(result => {
response.send(result);
});
});
The code can be reduced even more by using axios interceptors.
I know, that is not satisfying but frustrating. Nonetheless, you should not try to implement some amateurish (no offense!) encryption or obfuscation.
Related
I'm working on an Ionic application.
On the one hand I have an auth basic form in which people fill in their username and password. On the other hand I'd like to implement authentification with JSON Web Tokens and Node JS.
The workflow would be this one : as soon as a user fills in his credentials, they will be sent with a POST request. If these credentials are correct, the user can access to the application and gets an access token as a response.
The thing is that I'm a little bit lost with all that concepts. I built a form and sent informations with a POST request. I managed to create some APIs with Node JS and that's ok. I see how to build a authentified webservice too (e.g : https://github.com/jkasun/stack-abuse-express-jwt/blob/master/auth.js).
But I concretely don't understand the links between the html form and the authorisation check part..
To be clearer, how is it possible to make the html part and the Node JS scripts communicate together ?
Before posting that question I made many researches and found many stuff on building an authentified API. But there was very few advice on how to make it communicate with the client part (I mean the form), which is what I have to do.
If anyone has any ressources (document, Github examples..) on that, I'll greatly appreciate. But I would be very happy too if someone try to make me understand these concepts. I guess I have to improve my knowledge on all that so that I could test some POCs.
Many thanks in advance !
JWT General flow:
1- Authenticate using a strategy (You done it)
2- Deliver an accessToken along with response (You done it)
3- The client MUST store this accessToken (LocalStorage is the best place, not cookies: They are vulnerable to csrf attacks)
4- On every request you are going to make to a protected area (where user is supposed to be authenticated and authorized), make sure to send you accessToken along with it, you can put it on Authorization header, a custom header, directly in body of the request... Basicaly just make sure to send it properly.
5- On the server receiving client requests, you NEED to verify that token (You verify it by checking the signature of the accessToken).
6- If he is authorized, great, if not, send back an HTTP Unauthorized Error.
Here is my implementation using an accessToken on a header + passportjs-jwt:
Client code
To store token:
localStorage.setItem('accessToken', myAccessToken);
To send it:
const myAccessToken = localStorage.getItem('accessToken');
{
headers: {'Authorization', `Bearer ${myAccessToken}`}
}
Server code
1- Configure passport
passport.use('jwt', new JwtStrategy({
jwtFromRequest: jwtPassport.ExtractJwt.fromAuthHeaderAsBearerToken(),
secretOrKey: myAccessTokenSecret,
passReqToCallback: true
}, (req, payload, done: (err?, user?) => void): void {
User
.findOne({where: {id: req.params.id}})
.then((user: User) => {
if (!user) {
return done(new Error(`No user found with id: ${req.params.id}`), null);
}
return done(null, user);
})
.catch((e: Error) => done(e, null));
}));
Pay attention to callback: If your callback is called, it means that passport has successfuly verified the token (It is valid). In my example, i get the user details in database and this is the user that will be returned and put in req.user object passed to my controller below:
2- Finally, the controller route (protected area):
.get('/users/:id', passport.authenticate('jwt'), (req, res, next) => {
// do stuff in protected area.
}
And that's it. If you want more security, check refreshTokens implementation.
I used passport because i found it relevant in my case, but you can write your own handler, by using jsonwebtoken and just calling its "verify" function.
You can find documentation of passport jwt strategy here => http://www.passportjs.org/packages/passport-jwt/
I'm attempting to use the Google Maps Embed API to embed a map matching an address that a user enters. Following the developer guide, I acquired an API Key to add to my API requests. I'm able to successfully pull up a map when I request it via the "src" attribute of an iframe in my React client, like so:
<iframe
...
src={`https://www.google.com/maps/embed/v1/${mode}?key=${apiKey}&q=${encodedAddressQuery}`}
>
But this leaves my API key exposed to the client.
In Google's API Key Best Practices, it's recommended that the API key be stored in an environment variable and that a proxy server be used to safeguard keys. However when I try proxying the request (code below), it seems to return the appropriate map for a split second, but then the iframe replaces the map with an "Oops! Something went wrong" message, and the browser console displays this error:
Google Maps JavaScript API error: UnauthorizedURLForClientIdMapError
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/error-messages#unauthorized-url-for-client-id-map-error
Your site URL to be authorized: http://127.0.0.1:3001/api/maps?parameters=[my_encoded_parameters]
I'm just developing locally at the moment, so I've tried registering http://127.0.0.1:3001/* as an authorized URL as the error documentation suggests, and I've also tried removing all website restrictions on the API key just to see if I was authorizing the wrong URL, but both of those attempts still produced the same error.
I haven't found many resources on setting up a proxy other than this Google Codelabs project, but I haven't been able to pick anything out of it to help with this issue.
Here's the code I'm using in my React front end:
<iframe
...
src={`http://127.0.0.1:3001/api/maps?parameters=${encodedAddressQuery}`}
>
And in my Express Node.js back end:
router.get('/api/maps', async (req: Request, res: Response) => {
try {
const parameters = req.query.parameters;
const map = await MapDataAccessObject.getOne(parameters);
return res.status(OK).send(map.data);
} catch (err) {
...
}
});
export class MapDataAccessObject {
public static async getOne(parameters: string) {
const apiUrl = this.getMapsEmbedUrl(parameters);
const map = await axios.get(apiUrl);
return map;
}
private static getMapsEmbedUrl(parameters: string) {
const encodedParams = encodeURI(parameters);
return `https://www.google.com/maps/embed/v1/place?key=${process.env.MAPS_API_KEY}&q=${encodedParams}`;
};
}
I'm running my React front end and my Node.js back end in Docker containers.
My best guess is that I'm missing a request header that the Maps API is expecting, but I haven't found any documentation on that, or maybe I'm misunderstanding something more fundamental. Any guidance would be very much appreciated.
There is no way to protect your google maps key on a website from being "spied on" because it is always public. The only way to protect your key from foreign usage is to restrict it's access to only the allowed domain/ip-addresses - so if it is used from someone else, it will not work or take anything from your credits (google will show an error message).
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/get-api-key
I am new to Next.js and I am struggling with the authentication system using jwt token. I want to know what is the best / standard way to store the jwt token and routing with the authentication system. I have been trying different approaches, from different tutorials/articles, but do not quite understand it. Here are what I have tried.
When the user login, it sends username/password to a separated API server (ex. new project that handles backend stuff), the server will respond with the access-token, then in Next.js project, I set the cookie with that received token. In Next.js project, protected routes will be wrapped with a withAuth hoc, which will check for the token in a cookie. The problem with this approach is that it is vulnerable to XSS because the cookie has no httpOnly flag.
This is similar to 1.) but using localStorage, the problem is access-token could not be sent to the server on the first request. (This one I'm not sure, but in my understanding, in every HTTP request, I must stick my access-token manually, so what about requests that I have no control over? ex. first request or using <a> tag).
I wrote authentication backend inside Next.js server (custom express server). When the user login, the server will validate it and then set an httpOnly cookie. Then the problem is, with client-side routing (go to URL using Next.js Router), it could not check for token. For example, if a page is wrapped with withAuth hoc, but it cannot access the token inside cookies with javascript.
And I've seen a lot of people, in getInitialProps of the protected route, they only check for existence token in cookie / localStorage, then what if the token is being revoked or blacklisted, how do they handle it because they did not send the token to the server? Or do I have to send the token to the server in every client-side page change?
Since we are on quarantine I have enough time to answer this question. It will be a long answer.
Next.js uses the App component to initialize the pages. _app page is responsible for rendering our pages. We authenticate users on _app.js because anything that we return from getInitialProps can be accessed by all of the other pages. We authenticate user here, authentication decision will be passed to pages, from pages to header, so each page can decide if the user is authenticated or not. (Note that it could be done with redux without prop drilling but it would make the answer more complex)
static async getInitialProps({ Component, router, ctx }) {
let pageProps = {};
const user = process.browser
? await auth0.clientAuth()
: await auth0.serverAuth(ctx.req); // I explain down below
//this will be sent to all the components
const auth = { user, isAuthenticated: !!user };
if (Component.getInitialProps) {
pageProps = await Component.getInitialProps(ctx);
}
return { pageProps, auth };
}
render() {
const { Component, pageProps, auth } = this.props;
return <Component {...pageProps} auth={auth} />;
}
}
If we are on the browser and need to check if a user is authenticated, we just retrieve the cookie from the browser, which is easy. But we always have to verify the token. It is the same process used by browser and server. I will explain down below. But if we are on the server. we have no access to the cookies in the browser. But we can read from the "req" object because cookies are attached to the req.header.cookie. this is how we access to cookies on the server.
async serverAuth(req) {
// console.log(req.headers.cookie) to check
if (req.headers.cookie) {
const token = getCookieFromReq(req, "jwt");
const verifiedToken = await this.verifyToken(token);
return verifiedToken;
}
return undefined;
}
here is getCookieFromReq(). remember we have to think functional.
const getCookieFromReq = (req, cookieKey) => {
const cookie = req.headers.cookie
.split(";")
.find((c) => c.trim().startsWith(`${cookieKey}=`));
if (!cookie) return undefined;
return cookie.split("=")[1];
};
Once we get the cookie, we have to decode it, extract the expiration time to see if it is valid or not. this part is easy. Another thing we have to check is if the signature of the jwt is valid. Symmetric or asymmetric algorithms are used to sign the jwt. You have to use private keys to validate the signature of symmetric algorithms. RS256 is the default asymmetric algorithms for APIs. Servers that use RS256, provide you with a link to get jwt to use the keys to validate the signature. You can either use [jwks-rsa][1] or you can do on your own. You have to create a certificate and then verify if the token is valid.
Assume that our user authenticated now. You said, "And I've seen a lot of people, in getInitialProps of the protected route, they only check for existence token in cookie / localStorage,". We use protected routes to give access only to the authorized users. In order to access those routes, users have to show their jwt tokens and express.js uses middlewares to check if the user's token is valid. Since you have seen a lot of examples, I will skip this part.
"then what if the token is being revoked or blacklisted, how do they handle it because they did not send the token to the server? Or do I have to send the token to a server in every client-side page changing?"
with verifying token process we are 100% sure if the token is valid or not. When a client asks the server to access some secret data, the client has to send the token to the server. Imagine when you mount the component, component asks the server to get some data from the protected routes. The server will extract the req object, take the jwt and use it to fetch data from the protected routes. Implementation of the fetching data for browser and server are different. And if the browser makes a request, it just needs the relative path but the server needs an absolute path. As you should know fetching data is done getInitialProps() of the component and this function executed on both client and server. here is how you should implement it. I just attached the getInitialProps() part.
MyComponent.getInitialProps = async (ctx) => {
const another = await getSecretData(ctx.req);
//reuslt of fetching data is passed to component as props
return { superValue: another };
};
const getCookieFromReq = (req, cookieKey) => {
const cookie = req.headers.cookie
.split(";")
.find((c) => c.trim().startsWith(`${cookieKey}=`));
if (!cookie) return undefined;
return cookie.split("=")[1];
};
const setAuthHeader = (req) => {
const token = req ? getCookieFromReq(req, "jwt") : Cookies.getJSON("jwt");
if (token) {
return {
headers: { authorization: `Bearer ${token}` },
};
}
return undefined;
};
export const getSecretData = async (req) => {
const url = req ? "http://localhost:3000/api/v1/secret" : "/api/v1/secret";
return await axios.get(url, setAuthHeader(req)).then((res) => res.data);
};
[1]: https://www.npmjs.com/package/jwks-rsa
With the introduction of Next.JS v8, there are examples placed in the NextJS example page. The basic idea to follow is:
JWT
Using cookies to store the token (you may choose to further encrypt it or not)
Sending the cookies as authorization headers
OAuth
Using a third-party authentication service such as OAuth2.0
Using Passport
This question might need an updated answer, now middlewares are there in Next.js 12 (october 2021): https://nextjs.org/docs/middleware
I am drafting a comprehensive answer to explain auth in Next.js more deeply, you can follow the progress there on GitHub
Here I'll try to propose a summary for Next.js, using middlewares.
Verifying the token after auth and redirecting accordingly
Most of the answer from #Yilmaz from april 2020 is still relevant. However, previously, we had to use getInitialProps in _app to process the request OR a custom server.
This is no longer the case.. Using a middleware let's you achieve a similar purpose, with cleaner code. Because middleware are specifically designed for such use cases.
Here, I suppose you get a JWT access token using an asymetrical algorithm like RS256, exactly like in this previous answer.
Here is a possible implementation:
import { NextFetchEvent, NextRequest, NextResponse } from "next/server";
const removeCookie = (res: NextResponse, cookieName: string) => {
res.headers.append("Set-Cookie", `${cookieName}=; Max-Age=-1; Path=/`);
return res;
};
export default async function middleware(
req: NextRequest,
ev: NextFetchEvent
) {
const { pathname } = req.nextUrl;
const isPublic = isPublicRoute(pathname);
if (isPublic) {
return NextResponse.next();
}
const accessToken = req.cookies[TOKEN_PATH];
if (!accessToken) {
return NextResponse.redirect(LOGIN_HREF);
}
const isValidToken = await checkAccessToken(accessToken);
if (!isValidToken) {
let res = NextResponse.redirect(LOGIN_HREF);
res = removeCookie(res, TOKEN_PATH);
return res;
}
return NextResponse.next();
}
How to verify the token
In my example, the checkAccessToken should verify the token (not decode, verify the signature).
This is where things are the most complicated imo.
When using the RSA256 algorithm
You also get a PUBLIC certificate (in addition to the SECRET key that must be... kept secret). Eventhough you do the check in the middleware, which is private and server-only code, that's good news because it means you could even use it in the browser, in theory.
So, you can either fetch the token validation endpoint provided by your auth server, or verify the token yourself.
Fetching is not the recommended option because it might break Vercel/Next edge capabilities and add latency, according to the documentation.
I must admit that I did not succeed to verify the token yet using Next.js :) I'll update this answer if I manage to have a code sample that works.
When using a symmetrical encryption
You have only a PRIVATE secret passphrase. It means that the decoding have to happen server-side (good news, you are writing a middleware).
Login/logout
This doesn't change with middlewares. You store your access token as an httpOnly cookie. When logging out, you unset this cookie.
Managing those Set-Cookies headers are the responsibility of your auth server.
This is a basic workflow but it should work. You can then add a refresh token in the mix with a similar approach.
About token revokation
If you verify the token in your middleware, there is no immediate revokation mechanism for the access token. Because there is no call to a database.
Therefore, in this scenario, you'd want to opt-in for short lived access token (eg 5 minutes) coupled with a refresh token. You can revoke the refresh token, so basically revoking works but takes a few minutes.
If a 3rd party server verifies the token: then it could check for blacklisted tokens.
Caveats
Also, some piece of advice: most articles, tutorials etc. online are focused on server-to-server communication. Or client-to-API. They completely suck when it comes to check authentication before accessing web pages.
For instance, setting the Authorization header is not possible in the browser. It works only when communicating with an API. Cookies are mandatory for web pages.
Even then, if this API is meant to be called from a browser, it should preferably accept a cookie.
When discussing with experts on the field, you need to always clarify the Next.js use case.
Open questions: about session-based authentication
Some frameworks seem to prefer relying on the database. They store a hashed token in the db, which acts as a session. If you want to check auth, you need a server that will check the user's token against the stored token (= checking that there is an active session with this token).
I am thinking of Meteor for instance.
I couldn't find the name of this mechanism and its actual relation to JWT however. Are they simply variations of the JWT approach?
Next.js official authentication doc is not showing middlewares at the time of writing, but instead use getServerSideProps. I really don't like this pattern.
It uses a kind of session system but I am not clear about the internals of it, I am not even sure of the name (is that session-based auth?).
Vercel edge handles examples shows how to secure an API route, but not a page (at the time of writing)
[ Post has been edited: see below for answer ]
I am trying to make a Vue.js2 application using this boilerplate https://github.com/vuejs-templates/webpack
I am stuck on the Authentication process, using this library: https://github.com/websanova/vue-auth and attempting to use JWT as the authentication method. Never having rolled my own authentication before, I am slightly lost.
Packages I have installed which may be relevant: passport, passport-jwt, jsonwebtokens, passport-local, passport-local-mongoose
Looking at my logs I get a successful login response, but then it attempts to get /auth/user and responds with a 401 (unauthorized error). Perusing the auth library code, a GET req to /auth/user seems to be the expected behavior.
Here is the login code (client side):
methods: {
login() {
this.$auth.login({
body: this.data.body
success(res) {
console.log('Success: '+this.context);
this.localStorage.setItem('auth-token', res.body.token);
},
error(res) {
console.log("Error: " + this.context);
this.error = res.data;
},
rememberMe: true,
fetchUser: true
});
}
}
And here is the appropriate code server-side:
Removed Link | See Edits Section *
What I am sure of is this:
the server does in fact create a JWT which is valid (checked on jwt.io) during the login request. It does not appear to be set anywhere afterwards. It just sits there and then dies. There are mentions of an Authorization Bearer header in the response, which I am certain is not being set. Nor do I understand where or how to do this. There is no token set in localStorage after the login request. I'm not sure if this should exist, but think it likely that it should. In my console, searching local storage yields some strings and large integers, but no mention of a token in it.
Edits (8+ months later)
Gist to Solution here (slashes replaced by dashes in filenames):
https://gist.github.com/wcarron27/b0db7a16df9ceff924d4a75050093c55
The reason my login method originally did not work was that the localStorage token was not set correctly, and thus failed to pass the getData method on the client-side redirect. vue-auth does this by default. By editing the url it hits in the vue-auth config, I was able to direct it to the proper route(BUT only after I properly set the localstorage token. Use Vue.http.options.rootUrl (or something, it's in the main.js file in the gist) to set the Authorization header.
In the code, You must register vue-auth on the client side main.js, and call to it in the Login.vue "login" method. The client side config directs the http calls to the specified route in main.js. In the callback, the user and tokens are set in localStorage and the Vuex store.
The Http reqs go the the API side and hit the route in accounts.js. That route uses a passport strategy defined in ./util/passport.js, as well as a setJWT function defined in ./util/jwtLib.js.
After this, the client is redirected to a route of my choice, and data is populated by my store and ajax calls. Keep in mind, that while this should solve logins, i have not verified code correctness, as basically I would have needed to post the whole of two separate codebases.
Additionally, this does not account for refresh errors. State is dropped on refresh, so do not rely on vuex for persistence. A combination of localStorage and vuex does the trick, though.
I didn't verify this but, does remove the 'this' from your code on line 7 do the magic?
methods: {
login() {
this.$auth.login({
body: this.data.body
success(res) {
console.log('Success: '+this.context);
// original code here --> this.localStorage.setItem('auth-token', res.body.token);
localStorage.setItem('auth-token', res.body.token);
},
error(res) {
console.log("Error: " + this.context);
this.error = res.data;
},
rememberMe: true,
fetchUser: true
});
}
}
I'm coding my first "solo" nodejs webapp. Its based on a previous app (that I coded by following some kind of tutorial/course) which was an Express REST API that allows you to add/remove/update/list a Todo list. I've also implemented user authentication using jwt/bcrypt. All this is stored in a MongoDB database.
Also note that all the endpoints return JSON.
I'm now trying to add a front-end to the app. The API endpoints are at /api/endpoint1, /api/endpoint2, etc., and the views are rendered on /view1, /view2, etc. I'm doing this on purpose so that I can get the responses in plain JSON from the API, or show it in a webpage rendered.
I started by using jQuery's ajax to make the calls but I realized this was not the way I wanted to do this. I removed all the js scripts on my webpage and started working directly on the server, rendering the pages with the info fetched from the api.
This is what I have now:
server.js (main file) [sample]
// RENDER 'GET TODOs'
app.get('/todos', authenticate, (req, res) => {
let auth = req.cookies['x-auth'];
request({
url: 'http://localhost:3000/api/todos',
headers: {
'x-auth': auth
}
}, function (error, response, body) {
if (error || response.statusCode !== 200) {
return res.status(response.statusCode || 500).send('Error'); // TODO
}
let bodyJSON = JSON.parse(body);
res.render('todos', {
title: 'Todo App - Todos',
todos: bodyJSON.todos
});
});
});
// API endpoint to 'GET TODOs' (JSON)
app.get('/api/todos', authenticate, (req, res) => {
Todo.find({
_creator: req.user._id
}).then((todos) => {
res.send({todos});
}, (err) => {
res.status(400).send(err);
});
});
I don't know why, but all this looks weird to me. I'm wondering if this is how I'm supposed to do this. I mean, is this a good approach/practice on making a API+front-end node app ?
Also, I'm using an auth middleware twice: in the views and in the API itself. I guess this is OK?
It would probably be better to use React/Angular but this is such a small app and I just wanted to make a really simple front-end.
Just keep things simple.
If you go with server-side HTML rendering, you don't need a REST API, just drop it. You need an API in case of an ajax frontend or mobile app.
If you needed a combined approach (server-side rendering + mobile app or server side rendering with some ajax), at the very first step you would want to isolate your database querying code into a separate module (which is actually always a good idea) and use the module from your API and from your views directly, avoiding API usage from server-side views.
This way you will eliminate excessive auth and make debugging much easier, also your code will become cleaner, thus more maintainable.
Also, React is not that complex, i would definitely give it a shot :)