Travis Tidwell

Web technology, software, and everything else that bores my wife..

Authenticating Flatiron.js With Passport.js

So, I have fallen in love with Flatiron.js. For those who are not familiar with this framework, it is basically an application framework for Node.js. Obviously, it isn’t the only framework out there, but I would like to argue that it is THE ONLY framework doing things right with JavaScript on the server side. My reasons for this statement are backed by how it utilizes RVP instead of MVC considering the isomorphic nature of Server-side to Client-side libraries. For more foundation to this statement, please read Scaling Isomorphic Javascript Code; it is a fantastic read.

Regardless, one of my major complaints with Flatiron.js was that it lacks in OAuth. Looking around the Node.js community, there is a clear winner when it comes to OAuth, which is Passport.js. But, there is a problem… Passport.js was built on top of the Express.js applicaton framework and not Flatiron.js. Although, Express.js libraries are Connect.js compatible, and Flatiron.js is also Connect.js compatible, this isn’t enough to provide a clean integration between Passport.js and Flatiron.js. So, to solve this issue, I created a library that takes care of the integration work for you. It is called Flatiron Passport, and I would love for you to check it out…

Here is the readme from this library…

Passport.js integration for FlatIron web framework.

This package allows Flatiron.js applications to easily use the Passport.js authentication framework.

There are only two things that are different between using this API and using the regular Passport API.

1.) Instead of calling…

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var express = require('express');
var passport = require('passport');
var app = express();
// ... BOILERPLATE SETUP CODE GOES HERE ...
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());

You simply need to call…

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var flatiron =      require('flatiron');
var fipassport =    require('flatiron-passport');
var app =           flatiron.app;
// ... BOILERPLATE SETUP CODE GOES HERE ...
app.use(fipassport);

2.) Now anywhere you would use the variable passport, you replace that with fipassport in your app, like so…

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passport.use(new LocalStrategy(function(username, password, done) {
  ...
  ...
});

passport.serializeUser(function(user, done) {
  ...
  ...
});

passport.deserializeUser(function(id, done) {
  ...
  ...
});

passport.authenticate(.....)

You simply call this instead…

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fipassport.use(new LocalStrategy(function(username, password, done) {
  ...
  ...
});

fipassport.serializeUser(function(user, done) {
  ...
  ...
});

fipassport.deserializeUser(function(id, done) {
  ...
  ...
});

fipassport.authenticate(.....)

Please refer to the included example to get a better idea….

Install

npm install flatiron-passport

Example: From the example folder…

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var fs =            require('fs')
var flatiron =      require('flatiron');
var LocalStrategy = require('passport-local').Strategy
var fipassport =    require('flatiron-passport');
var app =           flatiron.app;

// You would not usually have these lines...
// This is just to store the username in memory.
var global_user = '';
var global_pass = '';

// Use the passport strategy.
fipassport.use(new LocalStrategy(function(username, password, done) {

  // You would not normally have these lines...
  // This is just to store it in memory for use later.
  global_user = username;
  global_pass = password;

  // Use this as you normally would in Passport.js.
  // But for now just
  // hard-code the user object.
  done(null, {
    id: 1234,
    username: username,
    password: password
  });
}));

// Serialize based on the user ID.
fipassport.serializeUser(function(user, done) {

  // @todo: Save your user to the database using the ID as a key.
  done(null, user.id);
});

// Load the user and return it to passport.
fipassport.deserializeUser(function(id, done) {

  // @todo:  Load your user here based off of the ID, and call done with
  // that user object.
  done(null, {
    id:id,
    username:global_user,
    password:global_pass
  });
});

// Use http and flatiron-passport.
app.use(flatiron.plugins.http);
app.use(fipassport);

// Get the front page.
app.router.get('/', function() {
  if (this.req.isAuthenticated()) {
    this.res.end('Hello ' + this.req.user.username);
  }
  else {
    fs.readFile('index.html', (function(self) {
      return function(err, data) {
        if(err) {
          self.res.writeHead(404);
          self.res.end();
          return;
        }
        self.res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/html'});
        self.res.end(data);
      };
    })(this));
  }
});

/**
 * Here the API to fipassport.authenticate is the exact same as it would
 * be fore passport.authenticate.  It is just a simple wrapper around that
 * function.
 */
app.router.post('/login', fipassport.authenticate('local', {
  successRedirect: '/',
  failureRedirect: '/login'
}));

// Start our server at port 3000.
app.start(3000, function(){
  console.log('HTTP Server started on port 3000');
});

Happy Authenticating…

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