express-persona

Mozilla Persona integration for Express. express-persona is designed to quickly get Persona authentication working in your Express application, while following Persona security best practices.

Quick start

Install using npm: npm install express-persona

Include the module inside your Express application:

var express = require("express"),
    app = express();
 
app.use(express.json())
  .use(express.urlencoded())
  .use(express.cookieParser())
  .use(express.session({
  	secret: "mozillapersona"
  }));
 
require("express-persona")(app, {
  audience: "http://localhost:8888" // Must match your browser's address bar
});

Include the Persona library in your web page:

<script src="https://login.persona.org/include.js"></script>

Add login and logout functionality to your buttons:

document.querySelector("#login").addEventListener("click", function() {
  navigator.id.request();
}, false);
 
document.querySelector("#logout").addEventListener("click", function() {
  navigator.id.logout();
}, false);

Watch for login and logout actions:

navigator.id.watch({
  onlogin: function(assertion) {
    var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
    xhr.open("POST", "/persona/verify", true);
    xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");
    xhr.addEventListener("loadend", function(e) {
      var data = JSON.parse(this.responseText);
      if (data && data.status === "okay") {
        console.log("You have been logged in as: " + data.email);
      }
    }, false);
 
    xhr.send(JSON.stringify({
      assertion: assertion
    }));
  },
  onlogout: function() {
    var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
    xhr.open("POST", "/persona/logout", true);
    xhr.addEventListener("loadend", function(e) {
      console.log("You have been logged out");
    });
    xhr.send();
  }
});

By default, express-persona adds the users email address to req.session.email when their email is validated.

This library will handle 3 of 4 essential practices for Persona security considerations but you should implement CSRF protection as well. I recommend the built-in express csrf middleware.

You can view and run complete examples in the examples directory.

Documentation

API

• require('express-persona') returns function(express, options)
  • express is an instance of the express server that you want to add routes to
  • options is an object. It has one required parameter, audience.

Required options

• audience - The URL of your express app when viewed in a browser. Must include the protocol, hostname, and port.
  • Example: http://example.org:80, https://example.org:443

Optional options

• verifyPath - The URL that clients use to verify credentials.
  • Default: /persona/verify
  • Examples: /browserid/verify, /api/verify
• logoutPath - The URL that clients use to logout.
  • Default: /persona/logout
  • Examples: /browserid/logout, /api/logout
• sessionKey - The session key to store the validated email in.
  • Default: email
  • Example: user, username
• verifierURI - The URI of the Persona Remote Verification API
  • Default: https://verifier.login.persona.org/verify
  • You probably don't want to touch this unless you have a good reason, like testing.
• verifyResponse(error, req, res, email) - Function to generate response for verify route
  • Default: see Verify route, below, for successess and failure responses
  • error will be a string suitable for display (the "reason" attribute in the default implementation), if an error occurs
  • req, res are the request and response objects
  • email is a string containing the email, and will exist if there is not an error
• logoutResponse(error, req, res) - Function to generate response for logout route
  • Default: see Logout route, below, for response
  • error will be a string suitable for display, if an error occurs
  • req, res are the request and response objects
• middleware(req, res, next) - Custom middleware for logout/login routes
  • Default: none
  • req, res are the request and response objects
  • next points to the next middleware function in the chain

Verify route

• On success:

{
  "status": "okay"
  "email": "[e-mail]"
}

• On failure

{
  "status": "failure"
  "reason": "request failed"
}

Logout route

• Always returns:

{
  "status": "okay"
}

Tests

Running Tests

Run tests using npm test from the root of the repository.