Express JWT Implementation

Server Side

In this section we will show you how to implement JSON Web Token (JWT) using Node Express framework.

First, Open the isomorphic-express folder in your favorite editor. where you will find the below folder structure

You can see we have provided and extra server folder where we have implemented our Express JWT Authentication.

To Run the Server follow the below steps,

i) Run yarn at the terminal in the isomorphic-express->server directory. (This will bring all the necessary node modules)

ii) Then Run the yarn start command

if you have done the above steps correctly than you will see the below screen,

ok, now our server is running successfully at 9000 port,

Lets see what's inside the server folder & what's happening there:

From the above snap you can see that theres a server.js & `middlewire.js file where we have implemented the necessary server & middleware coding for the JWT implementation.

If you open the server.js file in the first part you will see we have declared some necessary requirement,

at line 5 & 6 we have required the configuration from the config.js file where have declared the port,secret key, expiration time & middleware.js file where we have implemented the Token Authorization, Token Expiration and Error checking.

let's have a look at the middleware.js file

The authenticate function checks the token authorization & token expiration. while the authError function is doing the error checking if something went wrong.

From the server.js line no 13 you can see that the two middlewere authenticate & authError is used by our app at the \api route. so whenever you want to access this route you have to generate the valid token.

Now, let's have a look at the later part of the of the server.js file

you can see here we have implemented the/login related functionality at the beginning of this part and later we have created a

demo testing post request at /api/demoTesting/ route.

Let's see what we have done at the /login

Here we have generated the token in the response when the login is successful.

Client Side

For the client part if you are already familiar with our Isomorphic codebase than all you have to do is to check the below file,

isomorphic-express/src/helpers/authHelper.js file,

where you can find the necessary client side coding,

you can also check the,

isomorphic-express/src/redux

where we have done the reducer & saga related code for the jwt authentication.

If you are not familiar with the Isomorphic codebase than we suggest you to check our previous section of this documentation.