NodeJS and Express -- How to mock token authentication middleware for testing? - node.js

I'm making an REST API that uses JWTs for authentication, but to test my endpoints I want to mock the middleware that verifys the JWTs.
I've defined a middleware for checking the token:
// middlewares/auth.js
nJwt = require('njwt');
nconf = require('nconf');
module.exports = {
verifyToken: function(req, res, next) {
// check header or url parameters or post parameters for token
var token = req.body.token || req.query.token || req.headers['x-access-token'];
// decode token
if (token) {
// verifies secret and checks exp
nJwt.verify(token, nconf.get("auth:secret"), function(err, verifiedJwt) {
if (err) {
return res.json({ success: false, message: 'Failed to authenticate token.' });
} else {
// if everything is good, save to request for use in other routes
req.userId = verifiedJwt.body.sub;
next();
}
});
} else {
// if there is no token
// return an error
return res.status(403).send({
success: false,
message: 'No token provided.'
});
}
}
}
Then in my routers I can import and use this middleware on protected endpoints
// routes/someRoutes.js
var router = require('express').Router();
var verifyToken = require('../middlewares/auth').verifyToken;
router.use(verifyToken);
// define routes
Now I want to mock this middleware out so that I can test the endpoints without need a valid token. I've tried doing using chai/mocha/sinon but don't have much luck
// tests/someRoutes.js
var auth = require('../middlewares/auth');
var sinon = require('sinon');
describe('someRoute', function() {
var verifyTokenStub;
before(function (done) {
verifyTokenStub = sinon.stub(auth, 'verifyToken', function(req, res, next) {
req.userId='test-id';
next();
});
});
});
But this is still calling the original verifyToken method. Any help is much appreciated!

Change your middlewares/auth.js file check process.env.NODE_ENV.
Example:
// middlewares/auth.js
...
// decode token
if (token || process.env.NODE_ENV === 'test') {//Changes in this string
// verifies secret and checks exp
nJwt.verify(token, nconf.get("auth:secret"), function(err, verifiedJwt) {
...
If you use supertest or package with same functionality, the run mocha with environment variable - NODE_ENV=test mocha.
If testing your application with full run, then you should start it with environment variable - NODE_ENV=test npm start.
It's not mocking, but I hope it will help you.

Related

Unable to get decoded payload of JWT from auth0/express-jwt library

I'm trying to obtain the decoded JWT payload using the express-jwt from auth0 as a middleware in my expressjs application. For the token to be used for authentication, I have to use a custom async function to process the token first before providing it to express-jwt. I understand that I can write a custom function under the getToken parameter as documented in express-jwt as shown below, but it does not work with async function.
const jwt = require("express-jwt");
const checkJwt = jwt({
secret: 'hello world !',
algorithms: ['HS256'],
credentialsRequired: false,
getToken: function fromHeaderOrQuerystring (req) {
if (req.headers.authorization && req.headers.authorization.split(' ')[0] === 'Bearer') {
return req.headers.authorization.split(' ')[1];
} else if (req.query && req.query.token) {
return req.query.token;
}
return null;
}
});
module.exports = checkJwt;
To overcome this limitation, I included the jwt() as part of a larger middleware function that first process the token, and then providing it to jwt(). The unprocessed token is attached to my headers. My code structure is as follows:
const myMiddleware = async (req, res, next) => {
// Process Token First
const processedToken = await functionToProcessToken(req.headers.tokenLocation);
// Jwt Authentication
jwt({
secret: 'hello world !',
algorithms: ['HS256'],
credentialsRequired: false,
getToken: processedToken
});
next();
});
module.exports = myMiddleware;
While I'm able to authenticate my routes without any issue, I need to get the decoded JWT payload for further uses. By default, as written in the documentation, the decoded payload should have been attached to req.user, but when I try to console.log it, it shows undefined. I have also tried adding requestProperty but it does not work as well. The documentation for resultProperty is not very clear, so I could not get that to work too.
I very much appreciate if someone can point me towards right direction to help me achieve the expected outcome for my middleware. Thank you!

Authentication in Express Middleware

I'm a little new to this. I have REST API made with Node.js and Express.js. Some routes have authentication middleware. To use those routes, a header has to be set with the user's auth token which gets verified. I have been doing this with no problem with static sites using local storage. I'm making my first dynamic site now (using Express) and for certain routes I have middleware that loads all the data I need to display the page. How do I access and use auth tokens now that I don't have local storage's help?
EDIT(for clarification):
So here is one of my api routes that fetches all transactions from a database(mongoDB).
app.get('/transactions', authenticate, (req, res) => {
Transaction.find().then((transaction) => {
res.send({transaction});
}, (e) => {
res.status(400).send();
});
});
This is the authentication middleware that gets run.
var authenticate = (req, res, next) => {
var token = req.header('x-auth');
User.findByToken(token).then((user) => {
if (!user) {
return Promise.reject();
}
req.user = user;
req.token = token;
next();
}).catch((e) => {
res.status(401).send();
});
};
Now on my express webserver, I have a following route, where I use getTransactions to fetch all my data. (which I display with handlebars)
router.get('/orders', getTransactions, (req, res) => {
res.render('orders.hbs', {
transaction: req.transactions.data.transaction
});
});
and this is the middleware
var getTransactions = (req, res, next) => {
axios.get('https://serene-wave-28270.herokuapp.com/transactions')
.then((response) => {
req.transactions = response;
console.log(req.transactions.data.transaction);
next();
}).catch((e) => {
console.log(e);
})
}
So when I was just making a static site without using express as a webserver, I would just have the user sign in and save the auth token in local storage. Also, I should note that the first two blocks are from my api, and the bottom two from webserver, both hosted separately on Heroku. I'm not sure if that's standard design so I thought I should mention it.
There's not a whole lot of detail in your question for exactly what you're trying to do, but I can explain the general concepts available to you in Express:
The usual scheme for Express is to authenticate the user initially and then set a session cookie that indicates that user has been authenticated. Since the cookie is automatically stored by the browser and then automatically sent from the browser to the server with every request, you will have that cookie which the server can then use to identify a server-side session and then you can use any info you want from the session (user identify or other state you store in the session object) when creating pages or responding to API requests for that user.
The NPM module express-session handles much of this work for you as it will automatically create a session object, a session cookie and hook the two together on every request.
If, on the other hand, you already have an auth token in the client and you just want that to be automatically communicated to the server with every request, then you can just put that auth token into a cookie and have the server look for it in the cookie on each request. You can even make it a bit more secure by setting the cookie to HttpOnly so that the auth token cannot be accessed from client-side Javascript (this will not affect the server's ability to access it).
There is not much detail in your question but here are a few thoughts.
You can either use cookies (as detailed by #jfriend00 below) or use the requests' headers to check for a valid authorization token (which I describe below)
In Express you can access the headers through req.headers so you can just write a middleware that you will call before your current middleware loading all the data to ensure that the user is authorized to continue (calling next() to call the next middleware) or using a custom Error type to flag the authentication error if he is not (calling next(err) to skip all the other middleware and jump to your error middleware)
For example (assuming you have a subclass of Error named AuthorizationError defined somewhere):
const express = require('express');
const AuthorizaztionError = require('<some path>');
const app = express();
function checkAuthTokenMiddleware(req, res, next) {
if (req.headers && req.headers.authorization) {
let token;
const parts = req.headers.authorization.split(' ');
if (parts.length == 2) {
const [scheme, credentials] = parts;
if (/^Bearer$/i.test(scheme)) { // or any other scheme you are using
token = credentials;
}
if (token === undefined) {
// access token - missing
return next(new AuthorizationError(
"Invalid access token.", // error_description
"invalid_token" // error
));
}
// add something here to ensure the token is valid
return next();
}
} else {
// No authorization header => invalid credentials
return next(new AuthorizationError(
"Authorization header required.", // error_description
"invalid_request" // error
));
}
}
// Add this in your route declaration
app.use(
"/auth/test",
checkAuthTokenMiddleware,
function(req, res, next) {
// do something
}
);
// this must come last
app.use(function errorMiddleware(err, req, res, next) {
// return something
if (err instanceof AuthenticationError) {
// do something for example
res.status(401).send(err.error_description);
} else {
// generic error handling, for example
res.status(500).send("Error "+err);
}
})
// ...

How to elegantly skip express-jwt middleware when running tests?

This is a small middleware that i created to skip authentication during tests on my nodejs app:
authentication(auth) {
if (process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'test') {
return jwt({
secret: new Buffer(auth.secret, 'base64'),
audience: auth.clientId
});
} else {
return (req, res, next) => { next(); };
}
}
I am not happy with the way it looks. Is there a more elegant way of accomplishing this ?
I think you are right to not be happy with the way that looks. I think what you really want to be able to do is mock out your authentication from the test code instead of inside your actual application code. One way to do this is via proxyquire.
Then a very simple test could look something like this if app.js requires authentication via var authentication = require('./lib/authentication')
var proxyquire = require('proxyquire');
var app = proxyquire('./app.js', {
'./lib/authentication': function() {
// your "test" implementation of authentication goes here
// this function replaces anywhere ./app.js requires authentication
}
});
it('does stuff', function() { ... });

How to unit test express route with passport authenticate

How can one unit test an express router that is dependent on passport authentication to call the helper methods?
I'm new to express unit testing and I've seen a lot of code that actually hits the server to call the method. But would that not make it an integration test? This ultimately comes down to my lack of understanding on the best practices on express unit testing.
I've tried to just mock out the passport but that didn't work because I need to get to the callbacks. I've also tried using rewire and just try to test the helper methods and that didn't seem to work either, I think, because file is wrapped in module.export.
Any help here would be much appreciated.
File I'm trying to unit test:
module.exports = function (inject) {
var router = require('express').Router();
var app = inject.app;
return router.get('/', app.passport.authenticate('bearer', { session: false }), [editContentCheck, getUser]);
function editContentCheck(req,res,next) {
if(req.authInfo.scope.indexOf('readOwnUser') == -1) {
res.statusCode = 403;
return res.end('Forbidden');
}
return next();
}
function getUser(req, res) {
var authHeader = req.headers.authorization.split(' ');
var token = authHeader[1];
var models = require('../models');
models.AccessToken.getAccessToken(token,function(err,tokenObj) {
models.User.getUser(tokenObj.userId, function(err, user) {
if (err) { return done(err); }
if (!user) { return done(null, false); }
res.send(JSON.stringify(user));
});
});
}
};
Check this repository, it has all You want: https://github.com/num8er/alttab-nodejs-challenge
Also a look at example and implement it as You wish:
1)server.js :
var
http = require('http'),
app = require('./app'); // app.js file
http.createServer(app).listen(8080);
2)app.js :
var
express = require('express'),
app = express();
app.use(require('./routes')); // routes.js file
module.exports = app;
3)routes.js :
var router = require('express').Router();
function editContentCheck(req,res,next) {}
function getUser(req, res) {}
router.get('/posts', app.passport.authenticate('bearer', { session: false }), [editContentCheck, getUser]);
module.exports = router;
4)spec/AppSpec.js :
var
request = require('supertest-as-promised'), // npm i --save-dev supertest-as-promised
app = require('./../app');
var token = "some token here";
describe('App', function() {
describe("Posts", function() {
it('should pass auth check and get posts', function() {
return request(app)
.get('/posts')
.set('Authorization', 'Bearer ' + token)
.expect(200);
});
});
});
p.s. I'm using jasmine as testing framework, but even with mocha it's same style. Because of it's using supertest-as-promised that gets app module and calls the route without creating http object.
p.s.2. it's not unit testing, You're testing the feature, so it's more an integration test to check if all chains of code is properly integrated.

How to set authorization headers with nodejs and express

I am setting up a site with nodejs, express, mongoose and swig template following this tutorial :
Authenticate a Node.js API with JSON Web Tokens
In this tutorial the author uses Postman to set the token in the header.
I have googled for days to find out how I can set the jwt token in the header of my site, but it is not working for me.
If you want the client to include the token in it's request headers, you can use a cookie parser with express. (HTML5 Web Storage is another option). About Cookies:
Express can set the response headers to tell the client "add the token to a cookie".
Once the client sets the cookie with the token, the token will be in the client's request headers for each request. Let's get to baking with a little
npm install cookie-parser
Sprinkle on some
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser')
app.use(cookieParser())
Access and set a cookie:
app.use(function (req, res, next) {
var cookie = req.cookies.jwtToken;
if (!cookie) {
res.cookie('jwtToken', theJwtTokenValue, { maxAge: 900000, httpOnly: true });
} else {
console.log('let's check that this is a valid cookie');
// send cookie along to the validation functions...
}
next();
});
You will probably want to do these things with the cookies (or whatever method you go with in the end):
set the cookie to hold the token when a user is authenticated.
check the cookie header value before allowing access to protected
routes.
send back an unauthorized status if a user doesn't have their token
when they are trying to access api routes that require a token.
May help someone in future...
Storing token in cookie with httpOnly:true flag is pretty secure from XSS attack but it can be vulnerable to CSRF attack.
Adding custom request headers for all routes in express using a middleware might be a feasible solution like that:
var token;
//asign 'accessToken' to 'token' in app.post('/login')
token=accessToken;
app.all('*' , (req, res, next) => {
if (!token) {
console.log('token: undefined');
} else {
req.headers.authorization = 'Bearer ' + token;
}
next();
});
this will add authorization=Bearer <token> header in each and every get request coming from browser. Now verify token in each secure route by adding this middleware:
let in app.get('/dashboard')
const authenticateToken=(req, res, next)=>{
var authHeader=req.headers['authorization'];
var token=authHeader && authHeader.split(' ')[1];
if(token==null){
return res.sendStatus(401);
}
jwt.verify(token, process.env.JWT_ACCESS_TOKEN, (err, user)=>{
if(err){
return res.sendStatus(403);
}
req.user=user;
next();
})
}
//in app.get(...)
app.get('/dashboard', authenticateToken ,()=>{
//stuff for authorized user
})
In case if you defined app.post('/login') in another file then,
export addHeader middleware as under:
//var to access token outside app.post('/login') route
var token;
app.post('/login' , (req , res)=>{
//authenticate the user
//create token
const accessToken=jwt.sign(user, secretKey);
//assign 'accessToken' to 'token' var
token=accessToken
//redirect to secure route
res.redirect('dashboard');
}
//middleware to add in your 'index.js' or 'app.js' file.
//export it only if you define app.post('/login') in another file
exports.addHeader = (req, res, next) => {
if (!token) {
console.log('token: undefined');
} else {
req.headers.authorization = 'Bearer ' + token;
}
next();
}
In index.js or app.js
//import file in which app.post('/login') is defined. let it is defined in controller/auth
const authController=require('./controller/auth');
//to add custom header in all routes
app.all('*', authController.addHeader);

Resources