Is it possible to get an express session by sessionID? - javascript

I have a NodeJS Express app that uses express-session. This works great, as long as session cookies are supported.
Unfortunately it also needs to work with a PhoneGap app that does not support cookies of any kind.
I am wondering: Is it possible to get an express session and access the data in that session, using the sessionID?
I am thinking I could append the sessionID as a querystring parameter for every request sent by the PhoneGap app like so:
https://endpoint.com/dostuff?sessionID=whatever
But I don't know how to tell express to retrieve the session.

You can certainly create an express route/middleware that tricks express-session that the incoming request contains the session cookie. Place something like this before the session middleware:
app.use(function getSessionViaQuerystring(req, res, next) {
var sessionId = req.query.sessionId;
if (!sessionId) return res.send(401); // Or whatever
// Trick the session middleware that you have the cookie;
// Make sure you configure the cookie name, and set 'secure' to false
// in https://github.com/expressjs/session#cookie-options
req.cookies['connect.sid'] = req.query.sessionId;
next();
});

Seems like req.cookies isn't accessible in my case. Here's another solution that recreates the session using the 'x-connect.sid' header (you may use any name or even a query param if you like).
Put this middleware after the session middleware
// FIRST you set up your default session like: app.use(session(options));
// THEN you recreate it using your/custom session ID
app.use(function(req, res, next){
var sessionId = req.header('x-connect.sid');
function makeNew(next){
if (req.sessionStore){
req.sessionStore.get(sessionId, function(err, session){
if (err){
console.error("error while restoring a session by id", err);
}
if (session){
req.sessionStore.createSession(req, session);
}
next();
});
} else {
console.error("req.sessionStore isn't available");
next();
}
}
if (sessionId) {
if (req.session){
req.session.destroy(function(err){
if (err) {
console.error('error while destroying initial session', err);
}
makeNew(next);
});
} else {
makeNew(next);
}
} else {
next();
}
});

Related

How to save JWT token recieved from auth0 login securely (nodejs express)

I am new to Auth0 and trying to implement it in my regular express web application. I need to protect/validate the user before they access some of my endpoints. My understanding is that i can do this with the JWT that is returned from the login callback. I have gotten that far, but when I login, it redirects, and I'm unsure of how to pass in the access token/store it securely on the client side.
this is what my callback endpoint looks like after logging in. It returns the authorization code but I am lost from here.
https://auth0.com/docs/api-auth/tutorials/authorization-code-grant
I return this on login:
/callback?code=oi9-ZTieXo0hYL6A&state=sMJAUK4QVs7jziJ7lXvwmGKF
// Perform the final stage of authentication and redirect to previously requested URL or '/user'
router.get('/callback', function (req, res, next) {
passport.authenticate('auth0', function (err, user, info) {
if (err) { return next(err); }
if (!user) { return res.redirect('/login'); }
req.logIn(user, function (err) {
if (err) { return next(err); }
const returnTo = req.session.returnTo;
delete req.session.returnTo;
res.redirect('/user);
});
})(req, res, next);
});
where do i go from here?
Auth0 does not recommend storing tokens in browser storage (session/local storage). For client side applications, tokens should be short lived and renewed when necessary via silent authentication (renewed via a cookie session with the auth server in a hidded iframe).
This is outlined here:
https://auth0.com/docs/security/store-tokens
If you have a backend, then handle the tokens there, if you are using a SPA + API then use the strategy outlined in the link.

Express send information to user with a page

I have the following code
var user = function(req,res,next) {
db.findOne({ username: req.params.uid }, function (err, docs) {
//error handaling
if(err){console.log(err)}
//check if user is real
if(docs === null){
res.end('404 user not found');
}else{
//IMPORTANT PART res.sendFile(__dirname + '/frontend/user.html');
}
});
}
app.get('/user/:uid',user);
Don't worry about the database stuff.
I want to know how to get req.params.uid sent to the client side and how to get it from there.
Thanks so much.
If your user is configured correctly every request will have a user:
var user = function(req,res) {
db.User.findOne({ _id: req.user._id }, function (err, docs) {
//error handaling
if(err){console.log(err)}
//check if user is real
if(docs === null){
res.end('404 user not found');
}else{
res.json(docs)
}
});
and then your api endpoint is just '/user/
In your client just make a GET request to this endpoint (maybe using AJAX) and your response will be any user that makes that given request.
Note: You don't need to pass in next unless you are defining middleware.
This is just a more complete answer based on my comment.
If you want to store a string of information about the user with each request they make, then you want to use cookies.
When the user first makes a request to the page, you would set the cookie via the res.cookie. So, in your code, the final if statement would look something like:
if(docs === null) {
res.end('404 user not found');
} else {
res.cookie('uid', req.params.uid, { httpOnly: true });
//IMPORTANT PART res.sendFile(__dirname + '/frontend/user.html');
}
Then, in the next request, and futures requests before the cookie expires, you can access it using:
req.cookies.uid
However, you need the cookie-parser middleware somewhere in your app beforehand:
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
app.use(cookieParser());
If you need to access the value of uid on the clientside, you could either use a template, or set the httpOnly value to false when setting it using res.cookie. Then you could access the cookie using document.cookies.
Check out this W3Schools page for accessing cookies on the clientside.

Unexpected behavior when validating a session token using parse.com

I'm trying to build a simple application with parse.com as my user manager.
I would like to make a login call to parse.com from my client side, and call my node.js server with the user's session token (I'll add it as a cookie). In the server side, I'll validate the session (using https://parse.com/docs/rest#users-validating) and allow access only if the session is valid.
For example (in my server):
app.get('/api', function(req, res, next) {
var token = getTokenFromRequest(req);
if(tokenIsValid(token)) {
next();
} else { // Redirect... }
});
app.get('/api/doSomething', function(req, res) {
// Do something....
});
the tokenIsValid(token) function should be implemented using https://parse.com/docs/rest#users-validating.
However, it seems that the REST API user validation returns the user even if the user is logged out (expected to return 'invalid session').
Is this a bug in the REST API user validation? What am I doing wrong? Is there a better way for doing that?
Thanks!
Via REST there's no concept of sessions really. REST calls are meant to be stateless meaning that the (current) user at /me will be serialized from the token provided. If the token is associated to a user it will return the JSON representation of that user otherwise in returns an error.
One way or another that call is asynchronous so you can't really use it in and if statement.
You can do:
app.get('/api', function(req, res, next) {
var token = getTokenFromRequest(req);
serializeUserFromToken(token,function(err,parseResponse) {
if(err) return next(err)
if(parseResponse.code && parseResponse.code === 101){
// called to parse succedded but the token is not valid
return next(parseResponse);
}
// parseResponse is the current User.
next();
});
});
Where serializeUserFromToken makes a request to Parse with the token in the X-Parse-Session-Token header field.

Node.js Express disable automatic session creation

If I enable the session feature of express via app.use(express.session({secret: "12345"})); the session cookie is set when the user first hits a page.
How can I disable this behavior and decide manually when to create a cookie, for example after a successful login? I am aware that I could just construct a cookie-header manually, but I would like to stay with express.session.
Define the session support as middleware, but don't use use:
var sessions = express.session({
// etc
});
...
app.get('/', function (req, resp) {
// No session
});
app.post('/user', sessions, function (req, resp) {
// Has sessions
I'm not sure if this option existed when this question was originally was posted but I was able to set the saveUninitialized option as false to do this.
https://github.com/expressjs/session#saveuninitialized
Imagine you have a login method... I SUPPOSE you could do like that.
var sessionMW = express.session({secret:"12345"});
function login(req, res, next){
//...
if(success){
return expressMW(req, res, next);
}
}

Why is PassportJS in Node not removing session on logout

I am having trouble getting my system to log out with PassportJS. It seems the logout route is being called, but its not removing the session. I want it to return 401, if the user is not logged in in specific route. I call authenticateUser to check if user is logged in.
Thanks a lot!
/******* This in index.js *********/
// setup passport for username & passport authentication
adminToolsSetup.setup(passport);
// admin tool login/logout logic
app.post("/adminTool/login",
passport.authenticate('local', {
successRedirect: '/adminTool/index.html',
failureRedirect: '/',
failureFlash: false })
);
app.get('/adminTool/logout', adminToolsSetup.authenticateUser, function(req, res){
console.log("logging out");
console.log(res.user);
req.logout();
res.redirect('/');
});
// ******* This is in adminToolSetup ********
// Setting up user authentication to be using user name and passport as authentication method,
// this function will fetch the user information from the user name, and compare the password for authentication
exports.setup = function(passport) {
setupLocalStrategy(passport);
setupSerialization(passport);
}
function setupLocalStrategy(passport) {
passport.use(new LocalStrategy(
function(username, password, done) {
console.log('validating user login');
dao.retrieveAdminbyName(username, function(err, user) {
if (err) { return done(err); }
if (!user) {
return done(null, false, { message: 'Incorrect username.' });
}
// has password then compare password
var hashedPassword = crypto.createHash('md5').update(password).digest("hex");
if (user.adminPassword != hashedPassword) {
console.log('incorrect password');
return done(null, false, { message: 'Incorrect password.' });
}
console.log('user validated');
return done(null, user);
});
}
));
}
function setupSerialization(passport) {
// serialization
passport.serializeUser(function(user, done) {
console.log("serialize user");
done(null, user.adminId);
});
// de-serialization
passport.deserializeUser(function(id, done) {
dao.retrieveUserById(id, function(err, user) {
console.log("de-serialize user");
done(err, user);
});
});
}
// authenticating the user as needed
exports.authenticateUser = function(req, res, next) {
console.log(req.user);
if (!req.user) {
return res.send("401 unauthorized", 401);
}
next();
}
Brice’s answer is great, but I still noticed an important distinction to make; the Passport guide suggests using .logout() (also aliased as .logOut()) as such:
app.get('/logout', function(req, res){
req.logout();
res.redirect('/'); //Can fire before session is destroyed?
});
But as mentioned above, this is unreliable. I found it behaved as expected when implementing Brice’s suggestion like this:
app.get('/logout', function (req, res){
req.session.destroy(function (err) {
res.redirect('/'); //Inside a callback… bulletproof!
});
});
Hope this helps!
Ran into the same issue. Using req.session.destroy(); instead of req.logout(); works, but I don't know if this is the best practice.
session.destroy may be insufficient, to make sure the user is fully logged out you have to clear session cookie as well.
The issue here is that if your application is also used as an API for a single page app (not recommended but quite common) then there can be some request(s) being processed by express that started before logout and end after logout. If this were the case then this longer running request will restore the session in redis after it was deleted. And because the browser still has the same cookie the next time you open the page you will be successfully logged in.
req.session.destroy(function() {
res.clearCookie('connect.sid');
res.redirect('/');
});
That's the what maybe happening otherwise:
Req 1 (any request) is received
Req 1 loads session from redis to memory
Logout req received
Logout req loads session
Logout req destroys session
Logout req sends redirect to the browser (cookie is not removed)
Req 1 completes processing
Req 1 saves the session from memory to redis
User opens the page without login dialog because both the cookie and the session are in place
Ideally you need to use token authentication for api calls and only use sessions in web app that only loads pages, but even if your web app is only used to obtain api tokens this race condition is still possible.
I was having the same issue, and it turned out to not be a problem with Passport functions at all, but rather in the way I was calling my /logout route. I used fetch to call the route:
(Bad)
fetch('/auth/logout')
.then([other stuff]);
Turns out doing that doesn't send cookies so the session isn't continued and I guess the res.logout() gets applied to a different session? At any rate, doing the following fixes it right up:
(Good)
fetch('/auth/logout', { credentials: 'same-origin' })
.then([other stuff]);
I was having the same issues, capital O fixed it;
app.get('/logout', function (req, res){
req.logOut() // <-- not req.logout();
res.redirect('/')
});
Edit: this is no longer an issue.
I used both req.logout() and req.session.destroy() and works fine.
server.get('/logout', (req, res) => {
req.logout();
req.session.destroy(()=>{
res.redirect('/');
});
});
Just to mention, i use Redis as session store.
I was recently having this same issue and none of the answers fixed the issue for me. Could be wrong but it does seem to have to do with a race condition.
Changing the session details to the options below seems to have fixed the issue for me. I have tested it about 10 times or so now and everything seems to be working correctly.
app.use(session({
secret: 'secret',
saveUninitialized: false,
resave: false
}));
Basically I just changed saveUninitialized and resave from true to false. That seems to have fixed the issue.
Just for reference I'm using the standard req.logout(); method in my logout path. I'm not using the session destroy like other people have mentioned.
app.get('/logout', function(req, res) {
req.logout();
res.redirect('/');
});
None of the answers worked for me so I will share mine
app.use(session({
secret: 'some_secret',
resave: false,
saveUninitialized: false,
cookie: {maxAge: 1000} // this is the key
}))
and
router.get('/logout', (req, res, next) => {
req.logOut()
req.redirect('/')
})
Destroying session by yourself looks weird.
I faced with this issue having next configuration:
"express": "^4.12.3",
"passport": "^0.2.1",
"passport-local": "^1.0.0",
I should say that this configuration works well.
The reason of my issue was in custom sessionStore that I defined here:
app.use(expressSession({
...
store: dbSessionStore,
...
}));
To be sure that your issue here too just comment store line and run without session persisting. If it will work you should dig into your custom session store. In my case set method was defined wrong. When you use req.logout() session store destroy() method not invoked as I thought before. Instead invoked set method with updated session.
Good luck, I hope this answer will help you.
I got an experience that, sometime it's doesn't work because you fail to to setup passport properly.
For example, I do vhost, but on main app I setup passport like this which is wrong.
app.js (why wrong ? please see blockqoute below)
require('./modules/middleware.bodyparser')(app);
require('./modules/middleware.passport')(app);
require('./modules/middleware.session')(app);
require('./modules/app.config.default.js')(app, express);
// default router across domain
app.use('/login', require('./controllers/loginController'));
app.get('/logout', function (req, res) {
req.logout();
res.redirect('/');
});
// vhost setup
app.use(vhost('sub1.somehost.dev', require('./app.host.sub1.js')));
app.use(vhost('somehost.dev', require('./app.host.main.js')));
actually, it must not be able to login, but I manage to do that because, I continue to do more mistake. by putting another passport setup here, so session form app.js available to app.host.sub1.js
app.host.sub1.js
// default app configuration
require('./modules/middleware.passport')(app);
require('./modules/app.config.default.js')(app, express);
So, when I want to logout... it's not work because app.js was do something wrong by start initialize passport.js before express-session.js, which is wrong !!.
However, this code can solved the issues anyway as others mention.
app.js
app.get('/logout', function (req, res) {
req.logout();
req.session.destroy(function (err) {
if (err) {
return next(err);
}
// destroy session data
req.session = null;
// redirect to homepage
res.redirect('/');
});
});
But in my case the correct way is... swap the express-session.js before passport.js
document also mention
Note that enabling session support is entirely optional, though it is
recommended for most applications. If enabled, be sure to use
express.session() before passport.session() to ensure that the login
session is restored in the correct order.
So, resolved logout issue on my case by..
app.js
require('./modules/middleware.bodyparser')(app);
require('./modules/middleware.session')(app);
require('./modules/middleware.passport')(app);
require('./modules/app.config.default.js')(app, express);
// default router across domain
app.use('/login', require('./controllers/loginController'));
app.get('/logout', function (req, res) {
req.logout();
res.redirect('/');
});
app.host.sub1.js
// default app configuration
require('./modules/app.config.default.js')(app, express);
and now req.logout(); is work now.
Apparently there are multiple possible causes of this issue. In my case the problem was wrong order of declarations i.e. the logout endpoint was declared before passport initialization. The right order is:
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());
app.get('/logout', function(req, res) {
req.logout();
res.redirect('/');
});
simply adding req.logOut(); solved this issue ; "O" should be capitalized
I was having the same issue. Turned out that my version of passport wasn't compatible with Express 4.0. Just need to install an older version.
npm install --save express#3.0.0
This worked for me:
app.get('/user', restrictRoute, function (req, res) {
res.header('Cache-Control', 'no-cache, private, no-store, must-revalidate,
max-stale=0, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
});
It makes sure that your page won't get stored in cache
I'm working with a programmer, that suggests to remove user of req:
app.get('/logout', function (req, res){
req.session.destroy(function (err) {
req.user = null;
res.redirect('/'); //Inside a callback… bulletproof!
});
});
Reason:
we need to remove from req(passportjs also doing this but async way) because there is no use of user data after logout
even this will save memory and also might be passportjs found user data and may create new session and redirect(but not yet happen)
By the ways, this is our responsibility to remove irrelevant thing. PassportJS assign data into req.user after login and also remove if we use req.logout() but it may not works properly some times as NodeJS Asynchronous in nature
I faced the similar problem with Passport 0.3.2.
When I use Custom Callback for the passport login and signup the problem persisted.
The problem was solved by upgrading to Passport 0.4.0 and adding the lines
app.get('/logout', function(req, res) {
req.logOut();
res.redirect('/');
});
Since you are using passport authentication which uses it's own session via the connect.sid cookie this simplest way of dealing with logging out is letting passport handle the session.
app.get('/logout', function(req, res){
if (req.isAuthenticated()) {
req.logOut()
return res.redirect('/') // Handle valid logout
}
return res.status(401) // Handle unauthenticated response
})
All examples here do a redirect after the req.session.destroy.
But do realise that Express will create a new session instantly for the page you are redirecting to.
In combination with Postman I found the strange behaviour that doing a Passport-Login right after the logout gives the effect that Passport is successful but cannot store the user id to the session file. The reason is that Postman needs to update the cookie in all requests for this group, and this takes a while.
Also the redirect in the callback of the destroy does not help.
I solved it by not doing a redirect but just returning a json message.
This is still an issue.
What I did was to use req.session.destroy(function (err) {}); on the server side and on the client side, whenever they logout:
const logout = () => {
const url = '/users/logout'
fetch(url)
setTimeout(function () {
location.reload(); }, 500);
That way, when refreshing the page, the user is without session. Just make sure you are redirecting to the correct page if no one is authenticated.
Not the best approach, perhaps, but it works.
You can try manually regenerating the session:
app.get('/logout', (req, res) => {
req.logOut();
req.session.regenerate(err => {
err && console.log(err);
});
res.redirect('/');
});
This does not remove other data (like passport) from the session.
Try this
app.get('/logout', (req, res) => {
req.logout();
req.session.destroy();
res.redirect('/');
}
I solved this problem by setting the withCredentials: true on my axios.post request to the logout route. I guess the required credentials to identify the session weren't being sent over so the req.logOut() had no effect (I also noticed that req.user was undefined on the log out route, which was a big clue)
I managed to resolve a similar problem by changing the code in my client where I made the request, replacing the following:
const res = await axios.get("http://localhost:4000/auth/logout");
with this:
window.open("http://localhost:4000/auth/logout", "_self");
For me req.logout worked but I don't why req.logout() not working. How function call is not working
I do this
window.open(http://localhost:4000/auth/logout, "_self");
in the function before window.open call to e.preventDefault()
this is recommended because when you do click in log out Button you refresh the page, and the function isn't call it
function logout(e) {
e.preventDefault()
window.open(http://localhost:4000/auth/logout, "_self");
}
3 January 2022
You shoulde be using req.logout() to destroy the session in the browser.
app.get('/logout', function(req, res) {
req.logout();
res.redirect('/'); // whatever the route to your default page is
});
I don't know how but ng-href="/signout" solved my problem. Previously I have used service to logout, but instead I've used it directly.
In my case, using a callback passed to req.session.destroy helped only some of the time and I had to resort to this hack:
req.session.destroy();
setTimeout(function() {
res.redirect "/";
}, 2000);
I don't know why that's the only solution that I've been able to get to work, but unfortunately #JulianLloyd's answer did not work for me consistently.
It may have something to do with the fact that my live login page uses SSL (I haven't been able to reproduce the issue on the staging site or my localhost). There may be something else going on in my app too; I'm using the derby-passport module since my app is using the Derby framework, so it's difficult to isolate the problem.
It's clearly a timing issue because I first tried a timeout of 100 ms, which wasn't sufficient.
Unfortunately I haven't yet found a better solution.

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