http-authentication

HTTP Basic and Digest authentication. Setting up Digest authentication with protection against replay attacks can be as easy as:

var express = require('express');
var authentication = require('http-authentication');

var app = express();

var users = {
  'John': { password: 'password' }
};

app.use(authentication(function (user, done) {
  done(null, users[user] && users[user].password);
}).connect());

app.get('/', function (req, res) {
  res.end('Successfully authenticated!');
});

app.listen(3000);

Configuration

The module provides an authenticator object creation function which can be called as follows:

var auth = require('http-authentication');

var authenticator = auth([options,] callback);

The options argument is optional and can be used to configure the authenticator object. It should be an object containing any of the parameters below.

Option	Type	Possible values
method	String	Either 'basic' or 'digest', default value is 'digest'.
timeout	Number	A timeout can be specified for digest authentication and should be a positive integer value. It specifies the time in seconds after which a nonce provided by the server can no longer be used for authentication. If this value is set to zero, the nonces will never expire.

These authenticator objects cannot be used directly but can be used to create listeners or middlewares through methods defined on the authenticator object:

Method	Return value type	Possible values
listener	Function (req, res)	A general purpose listener accepting a request/response pair.
connect	Function (req, res, next)	A connect middleware.
passport	Authenticator	An object that is compatible with passport.Strategy.

For usage examples see the section on middlewares.

Two alternative constructors are provided for the basic and digest method respectively. They can be called as follows:

var auth = require('http-authentication');

var authenticator = auth.basic(callback);
var authenticator = auth.digest([options,] callback);

Replay protection

Protection against replay attacks is provided by the ReplayDetector class and is included with each middleware. This class also handles expiration of server provided nonces. It only keeps track of non-expired nonces, expired nonces are automatically discarded.

Middleware

Middleware can be created for various frameworks. They can optionally be configured using any of the parameters below:

Option	Type	Possible values
realm	String	The name of the realm to be used for authentication.

http.Server

var auth = require('http-authentication');

var authenticator = auth(options, callback);

// Authenticate another listener.
var privateListener = authenticator.listener([options,] listener);

http.createServer(privateListener);

Express

var auth = require('http-authentication');

var authenticator = auth(options, callback);

// Obtain a connect middleware.
var connect = authenticator.connect([options]);

app.use(connect);

Passport

var auth = require('http-authentication');

var authenticator = auth(options, callback);

// Obtain a passport strategy. Options can be passed to
// passport itself.
var strategy = authenticator.strategy();

passport.use(strategy);