Expiring routes generation NodeJS - node.js

Question

I want to setup temporary routes with a unique random string path on ExpressJS. These routes should be dynamically created and should give a 404 if somebody tries to use ie: http://example.com/login/a434bcd34d920bdfe 30 min after that uniqueid was created.
Any ideas on how to do that? I'm pretty new to NodeJS but judging from what I've seen there should be a library that does that :)
Something like this maybe?
// =========== app.js ============
app.get('/generate_url', function(req, res) {
// random string: "a434bcd34d920bdfe"
var extension = randomstring.generate();
var dynamicController = require('./login/'+extension);
dynamicController.init(app);
// Should expire in 20 minutes
dynamicController.expire(20*60)
res.status(200).send();
}
// =========== login.js ============
login.post('/login/:uniqueid', function(req, res) {
// uniqueid should match the extension generated before
var uniqueid = req.query.unique;
var username = req.body.username;
// Do something with this info
}
I think this is far from working fine but at least maybe somebody who's done

Answer 1

You asking two question:
How to create the route.
How to save the data about expired links.
1. How to create the Route:
You have to create a route that receieve the traffic from all the users, and check that the specific URL is valid.
First you create a route that get traffic from all the users.
app.get('/myroute/:id',function(){
/* This route will get any url that start with /myroute/
For example /myroute/abc
/myroute/def
*/
// req.params.id == what the URL is entered
if (is_expired(req.params.id)) return res.end('Sorry your link has expired')
res.send('Great you logged in!')
})
app.post('/login/:uniqueid', function(req, res) {
set_expire(req.params.uniquieid,30*1000*60) //30 minutes = 30*60*1000 miliseconds.
})
2. How to save the data about expired links.
How to implement set_expire and is_expired
You need to implement is using any kind of database. Redis is very good for that. I will show you example how to do it
using setTimeout. It will work. But if the server restart, all the users will be logged out.
users={}
function is_expired(uid){
return users[uid]
}
function set_expire(uid,time){
users[uid]=true
setTimeout(function(){
delete users[uid]
},time)
}

Answer 2

Usually this is done with a generic router handler that then consults some data store to see if the ID sent in the request is valid.
Also, note that a value that comes from a route specification like '/login/:uniqueid' is found in req.params.uniqueid, not in req.query.uniqueid. req.query is for actual query parameters (things after the ? in the URL).
var validIds = {};
// =========== app.js ============
app.get('/generate_url', function(req, res) {
// generate random string: "a434bcd34d920bdfe"
// make sure it's not already in use
var extension;
do {
extension = randomstring.generate();
} while (validIds[extension]);
// save this random string as a valid ID and store the expiration time
validIds[extension] = {expiration: Date.now() + 20 * 60 * 1000};
// return the random value to the caller
res.json(extension);
}
app.post('/login/:uniqueid', function(req, res) {
// uniqueid should match the extension generated before
var uniqueid = req.params.unique;
var username = req.body.username;
// now see if the id is still valid
var idInfo = validIds[uniqueid];
if (!idInfo || idInfo.expiration < Date.now()) {
return res.sendStatus(404);
}
// id is valid, do something with this info
}
Then, you can have some interval timer that regular cleans up any expired ids. This is just housekeeping to keep the validIds object from growing forever - the actual expiration value is still checked before validating the id.
// clean up expired validIds object every 10 minutes
setInterval(function() {
var now = Date.now();
for (var id in validIds) {
if (validIds[id].expiration < now) {
delete validIds[id];
}
}
}, 10 * 60 * 1000);
Note: Since you probably want your uniqueIDs to survive a server restart, you need to regularly persist them to some sort of backing store (database, flat file, etc...) and then you need to read that data in upon server startup.
If you want any sort of user activity to "renew" the timeout on the uniqueid, you can install some middleware that resets the time at an appropriate access.