CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jssessioncookiesclient
Imtiaz Chowdhury
Imtiaz Chowdhury

Reputation: 171

Store session in client's browser using raw node.js and cookie without express

I am trying to store client session using raw node.js without express.

When a user logs in I have the username and password. Now, how to store a session in client browser using cookie. And how to identify the user when they refresh the tab or goes to another link.I don't want to use client-sessions module as I want to understand the approach.

any help will be appreciated.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 2376

Answers (1)

user8377060
user8377060

Reputation:

First of all, I suggest you to watch everything about authentication in NodeJS It explains cookies in a part very well.

You have to give the browser some data to hold for it to use later, which being cookies. Browser uses this data to show the server what kind of authentications it has processed before for the server and the user to proceed without repetition.

In node.js, using client-sessions module, you can set a cookie by calling 

app.post('/login', function(req,res){
 User.findOne({password: req.body.userPassword}, function(err, user){

 if(user){
    req.session.user = user; //here you are setting the cookie for the client,
  }
})
})

You could also specify what kind of cookie you want to set by just adding it a property

 req.session.userEmail = user.email;

Now let's check how the server uses authentication

app.get('/someUrl', function(req,res){

  if(req.session.user){
   console.log("user exists!");
  }

})

You can check what the client sends you by using session property of req object => req.session

To bind it with database you need to do,

  if(req.session.user){
     User.findOne({email: req.session.user.email}, func...)
  }

So basically, with each request that client sends, this procedure is used by the server to identify the cookies and to make the web-app user-friendly with no repetition.

It is like giving every student an ID in a school for authentication.

Security

For security, the node module cookie-sessions encrypt data automatically when we add secret attribute in app.use() function. Please see using secret in client-sessions module

Upvotes: 3

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