socket.io connect role authentication - node.js

Question

I was thinking to implement a role/auth model on top of socket.io connections. There is a lot out there about this, especially for token authentication. But what about what I am attaching below? What would be wrong with this approach?
The idea with the code below is to give access to socket.io connections only to specific roles.
var role = true;
module.exports = function (io) {
if (role == true){
'use strict';
io.on('connection', function (socket) {
socket.on('chat message', function(msg){
io.emit('chat message', msg);
});
});
};
};

Answer 1

You can use Passport.socketio to authentify your socket connections. It works really well with express. Here is a sample app :
var express = require('express');
var passport = require('passport');
var passportSocketIo = require("passport.socketio");
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
var session = require('express-session');
var app = express();
var RedisStore = require('connect-redis')(session);
var sessionStore = new RedisStore({
host: 'localhost',
port: 6379,
db: 2,
});
app.use(session({
store: sessionStore,
secret: 'YOUR_SECRET_HERE'
}));
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());
var io = require('socket.io').listen(http.createServer(app).listen(app.get('port'), function(){
console.log('Express server listening on port ' + app.get('port'));
}));
io.use(passportSocketIo.authorize({
cookieParser: cookieParser,
secret: 'YOUR_SECRET_HERE',
store: sessionStore,
}));
In your case, you'd have to add the roles to your passport users. The user info can then be accessed in socket.request.user
io.sockets.on('connection', function(socket) {
var user = socket.request.user;
if (user.role == true){
//do something
}
});
Please note that you have to use a sessionStore, local storage doesn't work with passport. Refer to the Git page above for different possibilities.