passport-jwt

What is passport-jwt?

The passport-jwt npm package is a Passport strategy for authenticating with JSON Web Tokens (JWT). It allows you to secure your endpoints and authenticate requests using JWTs, which are often used in stateless authentication mechanisms.

What are passport-jwt's main functionalities?

JWT Authentication Strategy

This feature allows you to set up a JWT authentication strategy using Passport. The code sample demonstrates how to configure the strategy with options such as extracting the JWT from the authorization header and specifying the secret key. The strategy then verifies the token and retrieves the user information.

const passport = require('passport');
const { Strategy: JwtStrategy, ExtractJwt } = require('passport-jwt');

const opts = {
  jwtFromRequest: ExtractJwt.fromAuthHeaderAsBearerToken(),
  secretOrKey: 'your_jwt_secret'
};

passport.use(new JwtStrategy(opts, (jwt_payload, done) => {
  User.findById(jwt_payload.sub, (err, user) => {
    if (err) {
      return done(err, false);
    }
    if (user) {
      return done(null, user);
    } else {
      return done(null, false);
    }
  });
}));

Protecting Routes

This feature allows you to protect specific routes in your application. The code sample shows how to use the `passport.authenticate` middleware to secure the `/protected` route, ensuring that only authenticated users with a valid JWT can access it.

const express = require('express');
const passport = require('passport');

const app = express();

app.get('/protected', passport.authenticate('jwt', { session: false }), (req, res) => {
  res.json({ message: 'You have accessed a protected route!', user: req.user });
});

Other packages similar to passport-jwt

jsonwebtoken

The jsonwebtoken package is a popular library for creating and verifying JSON Web Tokens. Unlike passport-jwt, it does not provide a Passport strategy but focuses on the core functionality of JWT handling. It can be used in conjunction with other authentication strategies or frameworks.

express-jwt

The express-jwt package is a middleware for Express that validates JWTs and sets `req.user` if the token is valid. It is similar to passport-jwt but is more lightweight and does not require Passport. It is ideal for applications that do not need the full Passport ecosystem.

koa-jwt

The koa-jwt package is a middleware for Koa that validates JWTs and sets `ctx.state.user` if the token is valid. It is similar to express-jwt but designed specifically for Koa applications. It provides a straightforward way to secure Koa routes with JWT authentication.

README

passport-jwt

A Passport strategy for authenticating with a JSON Web Token.

This module lets you authenticate endpoints using a JSON web token. It is intended to be used to secure RESTful endpoints without sessions.

Install

npm install passport-jwt

Usage

Configure Strategy

The JWT authentication strategy is constructed as follows:

new JwtStrategy(options, verify)

options is an object literal containing options to control how the token is extracted from the request or verified.

• secretOrKey is a REQUIRED string or buffer containing the secret (symmetric) or PEM-encoded public key (asymmetric) for verifying the token's signature.

• jwtFromRequest (REQUIRED) Function that accepts a request as the only parameter and returns either the JWT as a string or null. See Extracting the JWT from the request for more details.

• issuer: If defined the token issuer (iss) will be verified against this value.

• audience: If defined, the token audience (aud) will be verified against this value.

• algorithms: List of strings with the names of the allowed algorithms. For instance, ["HS256", "HS384"].

• ignoreExpiration: if true do not validate the expiration of the token.

• passReqToCallback: If true the request will be passed to the verify callback. i.e. verify(request, jwt_payload, done_callback).

verify is a function with the parameters verify(jwt_payload, done)

• jwt_payload is an object literal containing the decoded JWT payload.
• done is a passport error first callback accepting arguments done(error, user, info)

An example configuration which reads the JWT from the http Authorization header with the scheme 'JWT':

var JwtStrategy = require('passport-jwt').Strategy,
    ExtractJwt = require('passport-jwt').ExtractJwt;
var opts = {}
opts.jwtFromRequest = ExtractJwt.fromAuthHeader();
opts.secretOrKey = 'secret';
opts.issuer = "accounts.examplesoft.com";
opts.audience = "yoursite.net";
passport.use(new JwtStrategy(opts, function(jwt_payload, done) {
    User.findOne({id: jwt_payload.sub}, function(err, user) {
        if (err) {
            return done(err, false);
        }
        if (user) {
            done(null, user);
        } else {
            done(null, false);
            // or you could create a new account
        }
    });
}));

Extracting the JWT from the request

There are a number of ways the JWT may be included in a request. In order to remain as flexible as possible the JWT is parsed from the request by a user-supplied callback passed in as the jwtFromRequest parameter. This callback, from now on referred to as an extractor, accepts a request object as an argument and returns the encoded JWT string or null.

Included extractors

A number of extractor factory functions are provided in passport-jwt.ExtractJwt. These factory functions return a new extractor configured with the given parameters.

• fromHeader(header_name) creates a new extractor that looks for the JWT in the given http header
• fromBodyField(field_name) creates a new extractor that looks for the JWT in the given body field. You must have a body parser configured in order to use this method.
• fromUrlQueryParameter(param_name) creates a new extractor that looks for the JWT in the given URL query parameter.
• fromAuthHeaderWithScheme(auth_scheme) creates a new extractor that looks for the JWT in the authorization header, expecting the scheme to match auth_scheme.
• fromAuthHeader() creates a new extractor that looks for the JWT in the authorization header with the scheme 'JWT'
• fromExtractors([array of extractor functions]) creates a new extractor using an array of extractors provided. Each extractor is attempted in order until one returns a token.

Writing a custom extractor function

If the supplied extractors don't meet your needs you can easily provide your own callback. For example, if you are using the cookie-parser middleware and want to extract the JWT in a cookie you could use the following function as the argument to the jwtFromRequest option:

var cookieExtractor = function(req) {
    var token = null;
    if (req && req.cookies)
    {
        token = req.cookies['jwt'];
    }
    return token;
};

Authenticate requests

Use passport.authenticate() specifying 'JWT' as the strategy.

app.post('/profile', passport.authenticate('jwt', { session: false}),
    function(req, res) {
        res.send(req.user.profile);
    }
);

Include the JWT in requests

The strategy will first check the request for the standard Authorization header. If this header is present and the scheme matches options.authScheme or 'JWT' if no auth scheme was specified then the token will be retrieved from it. e.g.

Authorization: JWT JSON_WEB_TOKEN_STRING.....

If the authorization header with the expected scheme is not found, the request body will be checked for a field matching either options.tokenBodyField or auth_token if the option was not specified.

Finally, the URL query parameters will be checked for a field matching either options.tokenQueryParameterName or auth_token if the option was not specified.

Migrating from version 1.x.x to 2.x.x

The v2 API is not backwards compatible with v1, specifically with regards to the introduction of the concept of JWT extractor functions. If you require the legacy behavior in v1 you can use the extractor function versionOneCompatibility(options)

options is an object with any of the three custom JWT extraction options present in the v1 constructor:

• tokenBodyField: Field in a request body to search for the JWT. Default is auth_token.
• tokenQueryParameterName: Query parameter name containing the token. Default is auth_token.
• authScheme: Expected authorization scheme if token is submitted through the HTTP Authorization header. Defaults to JWT

If in v1 you constructed the strategy like this:

var JwtStrategy = require('passport-jwt').Strategy;
var opts = {}
opts.tokenBodyField = "MY_CUSTOM_BODY_FIELD";
opts.secretOrKey = 'secret';
opts.issuer = "accounts.examplesoft.com";
opts.audience = "yoursite.net";
passport.use(new JwtStrategy(opts, verifyFunction));

Identical behavior can be achieved under v2 with the versionOneCompatibility extractor:

var JwtStrategy = require('passport-jwt').Strategy,
    ExtractJwt = require('passport-jwt').ExtractJwt;
var opts = {}
opts.jwtFromRequest = ExtractJwt.versionOneCompatibility({ tokenBodyField = "MY_CUSTOM_BODY_FIELD" });
opts.opts.secretOrKey = 'secret';
opts.issuer = "accounts.examplesoft.com";
opts.audience = "yoursite.net";
passport.use(new JwtStrategy(opts, verifyFunction));

Tests

npm install
npm test

To generate test-coverage reports:

npm install -g istanbul
npm run-script testcov
istanbul report

License

The MIT License

Copyright (c) 2015 Mike Nicholson