Hello Service (With Custom Authentication)

In this example we show usage of custom authentication by subclassing the Authenticator class. We implement a custom authenticate method which checks for the presence of a valid JSON Web Token (JWT). Let's take a look at how the Service is structured:

• lib/HelloService.js: Defines the basic Service
• lib/UsersEndpoint.js: Defines the collection for managing users. Creating new users does not require authentication.
• lib/HelloEndpoint.js: Defines a GET method for the /hello path. This simply returns "Hello World". It requires authentication.
• lib/AuthenticateEndpoint.js: Defines a POST method for /authenticate endpoint. Returns a JWT when it receives a valid email and password.
• lib/JWTAuthenticator.js: Defines the custom authenticator. Checks for a valid JWT.

Authentication

This service has an authenticator defined that authenticates users based on a JSON Web Token.

o({
  _type: _o('./JWTAuthenticator'),
  secret: "mySecret"
}),

This authenticator ensures that a JWT is presented for each request to the service and that the supplied JWT key matches a user in the system. The authenticated user is then attached to the request object as a field called user so that it may be used by the request downstream.

Making a Custom Authenticator

The custom authenticator is defined in lib/JWTAuthenticator. It is a subclass of carbon.carbond.security.Authenticator. When creating a custom authenticator, you must define the authenticate method. This method takes in the request object and should return a user object or undefined.

class JWTAuthenticator extends carbon.carbond.security.Authenticator {

  constructor() {
    super()

    /*************************************************************************
    * secret
    */
    this.secret = null
  }

  /***************************************************************************
  * authenticate
  */
  authenticate(req) {
    // Check the Authorization header is present
    if (req.headers && req.headers.authorization) {
      let parts = req.headers.authorization.split(' ');

      // Check the Authorization Header is well formed
      if (parts.length === 2 && parts[0] === 'Bearer') {
        let token = parts[1];

        try {
          // verify JWT and find user in database
          let jwtbody = jwt.verify(token, this.secret)
          let user = this.service.db.getCollection('users').findOne({ _id: jwtbody._id })
          return user
        } catch (e) {
          this.throwUnauthenticated(`${e.name}: ${e.message}`)
        }

      } else {
        this.throwUnauthenticated('Invalid Authorization Header')
      }

    } else {
      this.throwUnauthenticated('No Authorization Header')
    }
  }

}

Access Control

Once we have authenticated users, we can then use access control lists (ACLs) to control what operations users can perform.

The hello endpoint defines an ACL that lets any user access it as long as they are authenticated.

o({
  _type: carbon.carbond.security.EndpointAcl,

  entries: [
    {
      // All users
      user: '*',
      permissions: {
        '*': true
      }
    }
  ]
})

Installing the service

We encourage you to clone the git repository so you can play around with the code.

$ git clone -b carbon-0.7 [email protected]:carbon-io-examples/example__hello-world-custom-auth.git
$ cd example__hello-world-custom-auth
$ npm install

Setting up your environment

This example expects a running MongoDB database. The code will honor a MONGODB_URI environment variable. The default URI is mongodb://localhost:27017/hello-world.

To set the environment variable to point the app at a database different from the default (on Mac):

$ export MONGODB_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/mydb

Running the service

To run the service:

$ node lib/HelloService

For cmdline help:

$ node lib/HelloService -h

Accessing the service

You can interact with the service via HTTP. To test authentication and access control, you'll need to first POST a new user to the service. Here is an example using curl:

$ curl localhost:8888/users -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"email": "[email protected]", "password": "baz"}'

Once you have a user, you can request a JWT using

$ curl localhost:8888/authenticate -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"email": "[email protected]", "password": "baz"}'

This should return a JWT which will look similar to this:

eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJfaWQiOiI1OWU1MGRmNTg2ZDRhODQwZjA1ODU3ZTAiLCJpYXQiOjE1MDgxODM1NjJ9.x3rTX9Z6pWlEeFiKWILaeBSyJISsOTxofOp1ytqE-Rk

You can now access the /hello route using the JWT you received:

$ curl localhost:8888/hello -H "Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJfaWQiOiI1OWU1MGRmNTg2ZDRhODQwZjA1ODU3ZTAiLCJpYXQiOjE1MDgxODM1NjJ9.x3rTX9Z6pWlEeFiKWILaeBSyJISsOTxofOp1ytqE-Rk"

Running the unit tests

This example comes with a simple unit test written in Carbon.io's test framework called TestTube. It is located in the test directory.

$ node test/HelloServiceTest

or

$ npm test

Generating API documentation (aglio flavor)

To generate documentation using aglio, install it as a devDependency:

$ npm install -D --no-optional aglio

Using --no-optional speeds up aglio's install time significantly. Then generate the docs using this command:

$ node lib/HelloService gen-static-docs --flavor aglio --out docs/index.html

• View current documentation