Authentication using JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) Module Project

Introduction

In this project we'll implement a full authentication workflow (register/login/logout/restrict endpoint) using Node.js, Express, SQLite and JSON Web Tokens on the server.

Instructions

Task 1: Set Up The Project With Git

Follow these steps to set up and work on your project:

  • Create a forked copy of this project.
  • Clone your OWN version of the repository (Not Lambda's by mistake!).
  • Create a new branch: git checkout -b <firstName-lastName>.
  • Implement the project on your newly created <firstName-lastName> branch, committing changes regularly.
  • Push commits: git push origin <firstName-lastName>.

Task 2: Minimum Viable Product

Use Node.js, Express and Knex to build an API that provides Authentication functionality using SQLite to store User information.

The user schema should include: username, password and department. The department should be a string used to group the users. No need for a departments table or setting up relationships.

Use JSON Web Tokens to keep users authenticated across requests.

Design and build the following endpoints

Method Endpoint Description
POST /api/register Creates a user using the information sent inside the body of the request. Hash the password before saving the user to the database.
POST /api/login Use the credentials sent inside the body to authenticate the user. On successful login, create a new JWT with the user id as the subject and send it back to the client. If login fails, respond with the correct status code and the message: 'You shall not pass!'
GET /api/users If the user is logged in, respond with an array of all the users contained in the database. If the user is not logged in respond with the correct status code and the message: 'You shall not pass!'.

Task 3: Stretch Goals

  • add the code necessary so that when a client makes a GET request to /api/users the server only returns documents with the same department as the logged in user. For example if the logged in user belongs to the finance department, then only users with the finance department should be returned; if the logged in user is in sales only users on the sales department should be returned.
  • implement a React client:
    • use create-react-app to generate a application to server as the client for the Web API.
    • inside the React application add client-side routes and components for signup, signin and showing the list of users stored in the database.
    • the /signup route should provide a form to gather username, password and department for the user and make a POST request to the /api/register route on the API. If the user is created successfully, take the returned token, save it to the browser's local storage and redirect the user to the /users route, where they should see the list of users.
    • the /signin route should provide a form to gather username and password for the user and make a POST request to the /api/login route on the API. Upon successful login, persist the returned token to the browser's local storage and redirect the user to the /users route.
    • the /users route should read the token from local storage and make a GET request to the /api/users route on the API attaching the token as the value of the Authorization header.
    • provide a button to sign out that will remove the token from local storage.
  • add any extra functionality to make the application more user friendly like showing a message and redirecting to /signin if an unauthenticated user tries to access the list of users in the /users route.

Submission format

Follow these steps for completing your project.

  • Submit a pull request to merge <firstName-lastName> Branch into main (student's Repo). Please don't merge your own pull request