auth-and-auth-part1.md

Authentication and Authorization Part 1 Instructor Notes

Objectives

• Walk through the process of creating a user
• Create a user
• Explain what Authentication is
• Walk through the process of authenticating (logging in) a user
• Explain how to use .env
• Login a user

Resources

• https://github.com/rogerwschmidt/auth-example-backendh <- I know about the typo
• Install application
• Start server

Helpful commands

psql auth_example_dev -c 'SELECT * FROM users;'

Walk through the process of creating a user

• What path does the code take when running the following command

http POST :3000/users username="student" password="student"

• What is in the body of the response?
• What gets stored in the database while creating a user?
• What happens if you try to create a user with a duplicate user name?
• What new libraries are used that you have not seen before?
  • What are those libraries doing?

Create a user

• Switch branches git checkout user_model_create_removed
• Complete the model so that a user can be created.
• The following command

http POST :3000/users username="student" password="student"

Should:

• Make sure that the user does not exists in the database?
• Hash the password
• Return the new user without the hashed password

Make sure to commit your changes

Explain what Authentication is

• With your table, create a definition of what authentication is. Be prepared to share your definition.
• Why would Authentication be useful in a web application?

Walk through the process of authenticating (logging in) a user

• On your master branch
• What path does the code take when running the following command

http POST :3000/auth/toke username="student" password="student"

• What is in the body of the response?
• What happens if the user does not exists?
• What happens when when the password does match?
• What happens when when the password does not match?
• What is process.env.SECRET used for?
• What new libraries are used that you have not seen before?
  • What are those libraries doing?

Explain how to use .env

• What is .env is used for?
• What package loads the contents of the .env into process.env?

Login a user

• Switch branches git checkout auth_model_login_removed
• Complete the controller and model for auth
• The following command

http POST :3000/auth/token username="student" password="student"

Should

• Return an appropriate error
• Return a token when authentication is successful

Commit all your changes

Notes - Install modules

bcrypt-as-promised

Hashing algorithm

npm install --python=python2.7 bcrypt-as-promised

jsonwebtoken

Token creation and validation library

npm instal jsonwebtoken

dotenv

Environement management tool

npm install --save-dev dotenv