basic-auth

What is basic-auth?

The basic-auth npm package is a simple module to parse `Authorization` header for basic authentication in Node.js applications. It extracts the user credentials from the header and makes them available for authentication purposes.

What are basic-auth's main functionalities?

Parse Basic Auth Credentials

This code demonstrates how to use basic-auth to parse the `Authorization` header in an Express.js application. It checks if the credentials match a predefined username and password, and either grants access or denies it with a 401 status code.

const auth = require('basic-auth');
const express = require('express');
const app = express();

app.use((req, res) => {
  const credentials = auth(req);
  if (!credentials || credentials.name !== 'user' || credentials.pass !== 'pass') {
    res.statusCode = 401;
    res.setHeader('WWW-Authenticate', 'Basic realm="example"');
    res.end('Access denied');
  } else {
    res.end('Access granted');
  }
});

app.listen(3000);

Other packages similar to basic-auth

passport-http

Passport-http is a strategy for Passport, an authentication middleware for Node.js. It implements Basic and Digest authentication. Compared to basic-auth, passport-http is more feature-rich, allowing for integration with the broader Passport ecosystem and providing more options for authentication.

express-basic-auth

Express-basic-auth is an authentication library designed specifically for Express.js applications. It provides a simple way to protect routes with basic authentication. Unlike basic-auth, which only parses the credentials, express-basic-auth handles the full authentication process, making it easier to use but less flexible for non-Express use cases.

http-auth

Http-auth is a module that provides basic and digest authentication for HTTP and HTTPS protocols. It is similar to basic-auth but offers more features, such as integration with different types of data stores for credential checking and support for digest authentication.

README

basic-auth

Generic basic auth Authorization header field parser for whatever.

Installation

$ npm install basic-auth

Example

Pass a node request or koa Context object to the module exported. If parsing fails undefined is returned, otherwise an object with .name and .pass.

var auth = require('basic-auth');
var user = auth(req);
// => { name: 'something', pass: 'whatever' }

With vanilla node.js http server

var http = require('http')
var auth = require('basic-auth')

// Create server
var server = http.createServer(function(req, res){
  var credentials = auth(req)

  if (!credentials || credentials.name !== 'john' || credentials.pass !== 'secret') {
    res.writeHead(401, {
      'WWW-Authenticate': 'Basic realm="example"'
    })
    res.end()
  } else {
    res.end('Access granted');
  }
})

// Listen
server.listen(3000)

License

MIT