bluegate

Minimalistic Web Application Framework as Promised

BlueGate is a simple framework to build web applications in NodeJS. It is build on top of the powerful Bluebird library to let you use the ease of Promises to its fullest extent.

Instead of a simple stack with middleware, BlueGate has a sophisticated request flow that fits both REST API's and complex multi-tier applications.

BlueGate can be extended with the following modules:

• class to use ES6 classes to write routes.
• csrf for CSRF protection.
• handlebars for template rendering.
• session for session support.
• static to serve static assets.

Installation

Install using npm install bluegate

Quick example

var BlueGate = require('bluegate');
 
var app = new BlueGate();
app.listen(8080); // Port or unix socket.
 
app.postvalidation('GET /user/<id:int>', (id) => {
  if (id === 123) {
    throw Error('This is not a valid user id');
  }
});
app.process('GET /user/<id:int>', (id) => {
  // Return page content or promise for content.
  return {id: id};
});
 
app.process('GET /user/<id:int>/picture', (request, id) => {
  request.mime = 'image/jpeg';
  return new Buffer('...');
);

See the Todo example for a more complete example.

Request flow

Each request follows the steps below:

• initialize can be used to register request specific handlers
• authentication should be used to identify the client
• authorisation should be used for permission checks
• prevalidation does validation before preprocessing
• preprocess does the preprocessing (e.g. parsing body)
• postvalidation does validation after preprocessing
• process will generate the output
• postprocess can alter the output (e.g. for templating)
• send response to client
• after is for additional work (e.g. statistics)

All remaining steps are skipped when an error occur before sending the response, In that case, we will arrive at the error-flow:

• error is used to generate the error response for the client
• send response to client
• aftererror is for additional work (e.g. statistics)

The name of each step is used as function name to register handlers for it. This can be done on the BlueGate instance (as shown in the example above) or on the this scope within a handler. The first argument is in the form METHOD /path and determines which requests it can handle. This argument can be omitted to enable the handler for all requests.

Writing handlers

Input

Handler functions can accept input via both function arguments and the local scope (this). The local scope is only accessible when using ES5 functions. For ES6 functions you may add the request parameter. The following examples are identical:

// ES5
app.process('GET /list', function() {
  var page = this.getQuery('page', 'int', 1);
});
// ES6
app.process('GET /list', (request) {
  var page = request.getQuery('page', 'int', 1);
});

Input from path parameters is mapped to function arguments. Function arguments that do not have a parameter will get undefined as value.

app.process('GET /user/<name:string>', function(type, name) {
  typeof type === 'undefined';
  typeof name === 'string';
});

Other input is available in the local scope (this.*) or request parameter (request.*). The table below lists all available variables and functions.

Name	Type	Example	Read only?
host	string	www.example.com	yes
path	string	/user/john	yes
method	string	GET	yes
body	*		yes
mime	string	text/html	no
status	int	200	no
query	object	['page']	yes
headers	object	{'User-Agent': '...'}	yes
cookies	object	['sessionId']	yes
ip	string	127.0.0.1	yes
date	date		yes
secure	bool	false	yes
parameters	object	{...}	yes
multipartBoundary	string		yes

The body type is dependent on the Content-Type header sent by the client.

Content-Type	Type
application/json	object
application/form-data	object
text/*	buffer
/	Readable stream

The multipartBoundary property is only set when the Content-Type header was set to multipart/*. Parsing multipart data is not done by this framework, since the application may stream the input directly to files or external storage, which is beyond the scope of BlueGate. Popular modules for parsing are busboy, multiparty and dicer. See the upload example for more information on how to handle multipart/form-data requests and file uploads.

Path parameters

Path parameters are passed as function arguments, as shown in the last code example. The following types are available:

Type	Description
alpha	Alpha characters (a-z A-Z)
alphanum	Alphanumeric characters (a-z A-Z 0-9)
bool	Boolean (matches "1", "0", "true" and "false")
float	Floats (e.g. -34.3, .3 or 63)
int	Positive integer (1..n). Does not match 0.
path	Matches all characters including forward slashes ("/")
signed	Signed integer (e.g. -123, 0 or 123)
string	Matches all characters except forward slashes ("/")
unsigned	Unsigned integer (0..n)
uuid	Matches UUID versions 1 to 5

Accepting path parameters via function arguments should be preferred above using this.parameters. The last object was added to allow abstract functions to handle multiple callbacks.

It is possible to set new parameters or override existing using setParameter inside a handler. This is illustrated in the following example:

app.initialize('GET /path/<foo:string>', function(foo) {
  this.setParameter('foo', 'bar');
});
app.process('GET /path/<foo:string>', function(foo) {
  // foo == "bar", independent from the actual path argument.
});

The setParameter function requires two arguments; name and value. The value is not casted to the type defined in the path.

Query arguments

Values from the path query ("/news?page=34") can be retreived using this.getQuery. The first argument is the name and the second is the value type. A default value can be provided as thirth argument (defaults to null). The default value is returned when the variable is missing or its value does not match the requested type.

app.process('GET /news', function() {
  var page = this.getQuery('page', 'int', 1);
});

An array of all available query variables is available in this.query. This contains a list of names only, to enforce validation when getting the value.

Output

Output is provided as return value. This can be provided as strings, buffer, readable stream or any JSON serializable value. The MIME-type defaults to "text/html" when using strings, "application/octet-stream" for buffers and stream and "application/json" for other types. JSON output is automatically encoded.

Use this.mime to set a different MIME-type.

app.process('GET /image', function() {
  this.mime = 'image/jpeg';
  return fs.createReadStream('image.jpg');
});

Cookies

Read cookies using getCookie. This is similar to getQuery. The names of all provided cookies can be found in this.cookies.

app.authentication(function() {
  var sessionId = this.getCookie('sessionId', 'alphanum');
});

Use the setCookie function to set a cookie. Arguments are:

• Name May not contain whitespace, comma, semicolon, equals sign or non-printable characters.
• Value May not contain whitespace, comma, semicolon or non-printable characters.
• Expires Given as JavaScript Date-object. Optional, defaults to not expiration date (session cookie).
• Path E.g. "/forum". Optional.
• Domain E.g. ".example.com". Optional.
• HttpOnly Set HttpOnly flag. Given as boolean. Optional, defaults to true.
• Secure Set Secure flag. Given as boolean. Optional, defaults to true when visited over SSL.

Example:

app.preprocess('POST /login', function() {
  var sessionId = '...';
  var date = new Date();
  date.setDate(date.getDate() + 14);
 
  // Set a session cookie.
  this.setCookie('sessionId', sessionId);
 
  // Expires after 2 weeks.
  this.setCookie('sessionId', sessionId, date);
 
  // Only on /forum.
  this.setCookie('sessionId', sessionId, null, '/forum');
 
  // Set for example.com and all subdomains.
  this.setCookie('sessionId', sessionId, null, null, '.example.com');
});

HTTP headers

HTTP headers can be set using the setHeader function.

app.preprocess('GET /path', function() {
  this.setHeader('X-Generator', 'CMS');
});

An optional thirth argument can be provided to append headers instead of replacing them.

app.preprocess('GET /path', function() {
  this.setHeader('Cache-Control', 'no-cache', true);
  this.setHeader('Cache-Control', 'no-store', true);
});

HTTP status code

The HTTP status code is 200 by default. This code is changed automatically when an error occurs. The HTTP status for errors is dependent on the phase in which the error occurred.

Phase	Code	Message
initialize	500	Internal server error
authentication	401	Authentication required
authorisation	403	Permission denied
prevalidation	400	Bad request
preprocess	500	Internal server error
postvalidation	400	Bad request
process	500	Internal server error
postprocess	500	Internal server error

Additionally, a 404 response ("Not found") is provided when no process handler was found. All phases before process are still executed, because it is possible that those will register a process handler.

It is possible to override the status code from within a handler using this.status.

app.process('POST /object', function() {
  this.status = 201;
  return {messages: ['Created']);
});

Logging

BlueGate will log requests to console by default. You can change this behaviour in the constructor options.

var server = new BlueGate({
  log: false, // or:
  log: function(message) { ... }
});

The format of the log messages is:

2015-05-26T21:15:05 127.0.0.1 "GET /host-test" 200 16 143
 \- Start of request  |           |            |  |   |
                      \ Client IP |            |  |   |
                                  \ Request    |  |   |
                                 Response code /  |   |
                           Response size (bytes)  /   |
                                  Response time (ms)  /

No settings are available to change this format. You can disable logging and register an after / aftererror handler for custom logging.

Security

Running behind a proxy server

When you are running behind a proxy server, you should set the trustedProxies option. This contains a list of IP-addresses used by your proxy servers. The default value for this list is 127.0.0.1. All proxies must add the IP-address to the X-Forwarded-For header. The this.ip variable used in handlers will contain the client IP, even when the client tries to spoof the IP-address by sending a false X-Forwarded-For header.

var app = new BlueGate({
  trustedProxies: ['192.168.1.10', '192.168.1.11']
});

Running behind SSL

The this.secure variable in handles indicates if the client is using HTTPS for this request. This flag relies on the X-Forwarded-Proto header, which should be set by reverse proxies (which may require extra configuration). This value can be spoofed by the client.

Cookies are set with the Secure flag by default when running behind SSL. It's possible to remove it by setting the 7th argument of setCookie to false.

Clickjacking

All HTML responses will include the HTTP-header X-Frame-Options: deny to prevent clickjacking attacks. It is set to the most strict setting by default. You can change its setting in the constructor when you use iframes. Strings are used as header value. Use false to completely remove this header.

var app = new BlueGate({
  clickjacking: 'sameorigin'
});

MIME-sniffing

All responses will include the header X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff by default. This helps to prevent MIME-sniffing attacks. You should leave this header in and make sure that the MIME-type is set correctly. However, you can disable this feature in the constructor.

var app = new BlueGate({
  noMimeSniffing: false
});

Maximum input size

A maxInputSize option is available. This limits the number of bytes accepted in the request body. The default value is 1048576 (1MB). You should lower this value if large requests aren't used to avoid DoS attacks.

var app = new BlueGate({
  maxInputSize: 1024 * 64 // 64 KB
});

The maximum input size does not apply to posted streams (e.g. multipart data). A process function can stop the upload by sending a response, ignoring the stream.