I am developing a frontend application as well as a backend API (JSON). Both are in Node/Express. In the frontend, I need to call multiple API's in the backend layer. Since both apps run on different port, AJAx calls cannot be made directly. Therefore, I have 2 options:
Frontend AJAX calls a route which initiates an HTTP request to the backend.
I allow CORS in the backend and then AJAX can call directly the backend
In option 1, I found myself creating the same code more and more. Code seems to be redundant and for every AJAX call I have an extra HTTP method in the controller. In option 2, since I am using the package "password", I am not able to pull many of the session content in the backend ince these are 2 different apps (e.g. in the frontend I can simply say "req.user.username", but I am not to do so in the backend). In addition, the user will be able to see in his developer tools the AJAX requests I am issuing to the backend along with some params, which I don't want to happen.
Do you have any comments on the above or can you guide me with some other suggestions?
Thanks
Related
I'm fairly new to the webdev. I have a React frontend built with Vite, and a Node.js backend that uses MongoDB. I finished my little project and when It came to deploy it to my Linux server, I got confused about how to handle API calls.
Is there any way to hide API URL's on frontend apps? Because everything is done in client side, and frontend is basically an interface between user and backend, that should be impossible. But how does for example, big companies like Facebook handle this? If I go to Facebook and inspect the code, can I find the exact IP and API address that facebook backend serves me the posts? Or are there any tricks to make this more secure? What are the industry standards are on this topic?
The interface between your web application in the browser and your backend service is HTTP(s). There are HTTP verbs such as GET, POST, DELETE, etc. You can pass argument or information to your backend services via query parameters which are visible in the URL, or you can send it in the body of a request. An HTTP POST, for example would have a body that is not seen or viewable unless the end user made specific effort to view it.
A novice javascript developer here!
A have a basic question on whats the best and secured way to make HTTP calls from a front application to a backend service that needs an authentication. My application is a SPA (using Vue.js) & getting data from Java services. Java services need authentication details and return sensitive user data.
I see there are a few options and I wanted to understand a better approach amongst all 3-
Making direct HTTP calls from javascript code- Concern for using this approach is, as Javascript code can also be viewed via dev tools in browser, wont it be easier for anyone to do an inspect and view all critical authentication details hence making overall integration less secure?
Making an HTTP call using Axios via Vue framework- Seems like Axios is Promise based HTTP client for the browser that lets you easily make HTTP calls without much code overhead. but is this secure? is Javascript code loaded in the browser? Or the front end code sends the request and axios makes the request from backend server where the application is hosted?
Using Node- If front end application has unique routes configured for each API call and in my application if I have a route mapping to use request module and node js backend code to make those HTTP calls, is that going to be a robust and secure way of integration?
Please let me know your thoughts and apologies if this is a dumb question!
Not dumb at all. You're just learning.
My first question to your answer 😅 will be: is your application server-side rendered or it's sap + backend?
If it's server-side rendered then I would say it's secured since Node will be sending pages with all required data. On the dev tool, you will only see static files being loaded.
However, if it's SAP, I am not sure whether there is a way to hide whatsoever you send to the server from the dev tool. The only one thing you will need to do is to make sure you encrypt whatever is sensitive to your application.
I’m planning some changes to how users interact with the data served on the front end of my web app.
This app streams news feeds from twitter. Currently the front end built with angular sends an http request that is passed to a route in my node backend. The backend uses the Twitter api to load the response. As my user base grows though the requests will be too expensive to maintain. Instead I want my backed to use a timer and make a Twitter api request, Store the data in a variable and then serve that data to the user on the front end.
What would be the method for me to do that?
Backend:
1. Node http.request to Twitter API using timer
2. Seperate route that handles the incoming request from the angular front end.
Front end:
3. Http request from front end that sends the request to the route (2) in the backend.
I thought I could use promises but i’m now sure how chaining would work here.
For your backend server I'd suggest to create an API cache with Redis to optimize the performance, due to less information about your code, I can help you with an example to create your own one by implementing it with your Angular and node due:
https://www.compose.com/articles/api-caching-with-redis-and-nodejs/
hope it help you!
I'm new at Firebase, I'm starting making a project which has to include Firebase and angular2, but I am such confused about how to implement them. I don't know if a there's the need to have a Back-end implementation (like Java or NodeJs) to handle some security issues (like form validation, authentication, routing etc), or it's enough just implementing Angular2 to handle all these issues. I would be so Thankful about any helpful advice how I could implement these both technologies to build my project successfully. Thanks
first firebase is something like your backend firebase can safe get and send request as your backend apps...
and angular js will do the rest like you just said andd all the backend stuff you can handle by firebase :)
This is my simple explanation on how this 2 works together
Always keep in mind that Angular works only in front-end. Its domain is the look and feel, application events, sending data to server and anything else that has something to do with displaying data is coded in this area.
Backend services in the other hand interacts with your database, creating business logic, handling authentications, saving / sending of data and other stuff that interacts with the database is coded from here.
Now how these two interact is done by the frontend service to send HTTP requests to the Server which is the backend service. This is done by using Angulars $http service or the so called jQuery AJAX or the infamous XMLHttpRequest JavaScript native. New technologies today utilizes Web Sockets which is being used by Firebase and some other frameworks, Web Sockets offers a faster way sending / fetching data from server.
The server then interprets the data being sent and send appropriate response. For example getting user list, saving profile, getting reports, logging in, etc.. It would work in this workflow.
1) Angular sends http request to server to get list of users.
2) Backend service installed in the server then interprets the data being sent.
3) Backend service then gets list of users from the database.
4) Backend then sends the data back to the frontend service.
5) Frontend then recieves server response and displays the data to the view.
Also these two is coded separately. To have more detailed explations research about how frontend and backend services interact you can find so much resouces in Google.
I have developed a front-end interface using Aja(AngularJS) and HTML5. Right now, I send an HTTP get request to my backend server which returns some data based on the GET parameters.
Since the URL is exposed in the Javascript file, I believe anyone could just use the URL to create there own API to fetch the data. How can I prevent such things ?
One way I could think of is that now instead of directly sending the request to the backend server, an application server could be used (hosting the HTML as well). The Ajax request would then be sent to this server (PHP script ?) which would in turn forward the request to the backend server and return the result to the UI. To prevent 3rd party services, I can disable cross origin requests on my application server.
Is this the correct way to solve my problem or are there better ways to do this? I am concerned that this would unnecessarily create another hop (internal though) for requests.
Note: The backend is running Apache Tomcat
In APIs that are not open to the world the user has to authenticate first in order to use it, see for example https://stripe.com/docs/api#authentication or http://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/web-services/ -> Authorization