Hi everyone,

I recently received an email from Atul Thakre, a fellow developer from Nagpur, who encountered an issue while integrating Passport-Local with a React application. In this blog post, I'll address the problem and provide a solution that can help Atul and others who might be facing similar challenges.

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Understanding the Problem

Atul's React application uses Passport-Local for authentication, with a login component that sends requests to the server using React Query and Axios. While the user is being created and a cookie token is generated, the passport.deserializeUser function is not being called, leading to issues with session handling.

Setting Up Passport-Local

First, let's ensure the middleware setup is correct. The order of middleware initialization is crucial for Passport-Local to function properly.

Express Middleware Setup

const express = require('express');
const session = require('express-session');
const passport = require('passport');
const LocalStrategy = require('passport-local').Strategy;

const app = express();

// Session middleware
app.use(session({
  secret: 'your_secret_key',
  resave: false,
  saveUninitialized: true
}));

// Passport middleware
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());

// Local Strategy
passport.use(new LocalStrategy(
  function(username, password, done) {
    // Replace with your user authentication logic
    User.findOne({ username: username }, function (err, user) {
      if (err) { return done(err); }
      if (!user) { return done(null, false); }
      if (!user.verifyPassword(password)) { return done(null, false); }
      return done(null, user);
    });
  }
));

// Serialize user
passport.serializeUser(function(user, done) {
  done(null, user.id);
});

// Deserialize user
passport.deserializeUser(function(id, done) {
  User.findById(id, function (err, user) {
    done(err, user);
  });
});

// Define routes here
app.post('/login', passport.authenticate('local'), (req, res) => {
  res.send('Logged in');
});

app.get('/auth', (req, res) => {
  if (req.isAuthenticated()) {
    res.json({ isAuthenticated: true });
  } else {
    res.json({ isAuthenticated: false });
  }
});

app.listen(3000, () => {
  console.log('Server is running on port 3000');
});

Handling Authentication Requests in React

To handle authentication requests in React, we can use React Query along with Axios. Here’s how you can structure your authentication logic:

React Query for Authentication

import { useQuery, useMutation, queryClient } from 'react-query';
import axios from 'axios';

// Function to fetch authentication status
const fetchAuthStatus = async () => {
  const response = await axios.get('/auth');
  return response.data;
};

// Function to login
const loginUser = async (credentials) => {
  const response = await axios.post('/login', credentials);
  return response.data;
};

// Component to display authentication status
const AuthStatus = () => {
  const { data, error, isLoading } = useQuery('authStatus', fetchAuthStatus);

  if (isLoading) return <div>Loading...</div>;
  if (error) return <div>Error: {error.message}</div>;

  return (
    <div>
      {data.isAuthenticated ? 'Welcome back!' : 'Please log in.'}
    </div>
  );
};

// Component to handle login form
const LoginForm = () => {
  const mutation = useMutation(loginUser, {
    onSuccess: () => {
      // Invalidate and refetch
      queryClient.invalidateQueries('authStatus');
    }
  });

  const handleLogin = (event) => {
    event.preventDefault();
    const { username, password } = event.target.elements;
    mutation.mutate({ username: username.value, password: password.value });
  };

  return (
    <form onSubmit={handleLogin}>
      <input name="username" type="text" placeholder="Username" required />
      <input name="password" type="password" placeholder="Password" required />
      <button type="submit">Login</button>
    </form>
  );
};

export default function App() {
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>React App with Passport-Local Authentication</h1>
      <LoginForm />
      <AuthStatus />
    </div>
  );
}

Conclusion

By ensuring that the middleware is correctly set up and handling authentication requests properly in React, you can resolve issues related to Passport-Local integration. Atul, I hope this helps you solve the problem you were facing. If you have any further questions or need more assistance, feel free to reach out.

Stay tuned for more posts on similar topics!

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Resolving Passport-Local Integration Issues in Your React App

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