Passport.js: how to access user object after authentication? - node.js

Question

I'm using Passport.js to login a user with username and password. I'm essentially using the sample code from the Passport site. Here are the relevant parts (I think) of my code:
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());
passport.serializeUser(function(user, done) {
done(null, user);
});
passport.deserializeUser(function(obj, done) {
done(null, obj);
});
passport.use(new LocalStrategy(function(username, password, done) {
User.findOne({ username: username }, function(err, user) {
if (err) {
return done(err);
}
if (!user) {
return done(null, false, { message: 'Incorrect username.' });
}
if (!user.validPassword(password)) {
return done(null, false, { message: 'Incorrect password.' });
}
return done(null, user);
});
}
));
app.post('/login',
passport.authenticate('local', { failureRedirect: '/login/fail', failureFlash: false }),
function(req, res) {
// Successful login
//console.log("Login successful.");
// I CAN ACCESS req.user here
});
This seems to login correctly. However, I would like to be able to access the login user's information in other parts of the code, such as:
app.get('/test', function(req, res){
// How can I get the user's login info here?
console.log(req.user); // <------ this outputs undefined
});
I have checked other questions on SO, but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here. Thank you!

Answer 1

Late to the party but found this unanswered after googling the answer myself.
Inside the request will be a req.user object that you can work withr.
Routes like so:
app.get('/api/portfolio', passport.authenticate('jwt', { session: false }), stocks.buy);
Controller like this:
buy: function(req, res) {
console.log(req.body);
//res.json({lel: req.user._id});
res.json({lel: req.user});
}

Answer 2

In reference to the Passport documentation, the user object is contained in req.user. See below.
app.post('/login',
passport.authenticate('local'),function(req, res) {
// If this function gets called, authentication was successful.
// `req.user` contains the authenticated user.
res.redirect('/users/' + req.user.username);
});
That way, you can access your user object from the page you redirect to.
In case you get stuck, you can refer to my Github project where I implemented it clearly.

Answer 3

I'm pretty new to javascript but as I understand it from the tutorials you have to implement some session middleware first as indicated by 250R.
const session = require('express-session')
const app = express()
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false }))
app.use(bodyParser.json())
let sess = {
genid: (req) => {
console.log('Inside the session middleware')
console.log(req.sessionID)
return uuid()
},
store: new FileStore(),
secret: 'keyboard cat', // password from environment
resave: false,
rolling: true,
saveUninitialized: true,
cookie: {
HttpOnly: true,
maxAge: 30 * 60 * 1000 // 30 minutes
}
}
app.use(session(sess))
// call passport after configuring the session with express-session
// as it rides on top of it
app.use(passport.initialize())
app.use(passport.session())
// then you will be able to use the 'user' property on the `req` object
// containing all your session details
app.get('/test', function (req, res) {
console.log(req.user)
})

Answer 4

res.render accepts an optional parameter that is an object containing local variables for the view.
If you use passport and already authenticated the user then req.user contains the authenticated user.
// app.js
app.get('/dashboard', (req, res) => {
res.render('./dashboard', { user: req.user })
})
// index.ejs
<%= user.name %>

Answer 5

You can define your route this way as follows.
router.post('/login',
passport.authenticate('local' , {failureRedirect:'/login', failureFlash: true}),
function(req, res) {
res.redirect('/home?' + req.user.username);
});
In the above code snippet, you can access and pass any field of the user object as "req.user.field_name" to the page you want to redirect. One thing to note here is that the base url of the page you want to redirect to should be followed by a question mark.

Answer 6

late to party but this worked for me
use this in your app.js
app.use(function(req,res,next){
res.locals.currentUser = req.user;
next();
})
get current user details in client side like ejs
<%= locals.currentUser.[parameter like name || email] %>

Answer 7

Solution for those using Next.js:
Oddly, —> the solution <— comes from a recently removed part of the README of next-connect, but works just as it should. You can ignore the typescript parts if you're using plain JS.
The key part is the getServerSideProps function in ./src/pages/index (or whichever file you want to get the user object for).
// —> ./src/authMiddleware.ts
// You'll need your session, initialised passport and passport with the session,
// so here's an example of how we've got ours setup, yours may be different
//
// Create the Passport middleware for SAML auth.
//
export const ppinit = passport.initialize();
//
// Set up Passport to work with expressjs sessions.
//
export const ppsession = passport.session();
//
// Set up expressjs session handling middleware
//
export const sess = session({
secret: process.env.sessionSecret as string,
resave: true,
saveUninitialized: true,
store: sessionStore,
});
// —> ./src/pages/index.ts
// update your user interface to match yours
export interface User {
id: string;
name: string;
}
interface ExtendedReq extends NextApiRequest {
user: User;
}
interface ServerProps {
req: ExtendedReq;
res: NextApiResponse;
}
interface ServerPropsReturn {
user?: User;
}
export async function getServerSideProps({ req, res }: ServerProps) {
const middleware = nc()
.use(sess, ppinit, ppsession)
.get((req: Express.Request, res: NextApiResponse, next) => {
next();
});
try {
await middleware.run(req, res);
} catch (e) {
// handle the error
}
const props: ServerPropsReturn = {};
if (req.user) props.user = req.user;
return { props };
}
interface Props {
user?: User;
}
//
// A trivial Home page - it should show minimal info if the user is not authenticated.
//
export default function Home({ user }: Props) {
return (
<>
<Head>
<title>My app</title>
<link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" />
</Head>
<main>
<h1>Welcome to My App {user?.name}</h1>
</main>
</>
);
}

Answer 8

You'll need to make sure that you register a middleware that populates req.session before registering the passport middlewares.
For example the following uses express cookieSession middleware
app.configure(function() {
// some code ...
app.use(express.cookieParser());
app.use(express.bodyParser());
app.use(express.cookieSession()); // Express cookie session middleware
app.use(passport.initialize()); // passport initialize middleware
app.use(passport.session()); // passport session middleware
// more code ...
});