jsonwebtoken

An implementation of JSON Web Tokens.

This was developed against draft-ietf-oauth-json-web-token-08. It makes use of node-jws

Install

$ npm install jsonwebtoken

Usage

jwt.sign(payload, secretOrPrivateKey, options, [callback])

(Asynchronous) If a callback is supplied, callback is called with the err or the JWT.

(Synchronous) Returns the JsonWebToken as string

payload could be an object literal, buffer or string. Please note that exp is only set if the payload is an object literal.

secretOrPrivateKey is a string or buffer containing either the secret for HMAC algorithms, or the PEM encoded private key for RSA and ECDSA.

options:

• algorithm (default: HS256)
• expiresIn: expressed in seconds or a string describing a time span rauchg/ms. Eg: 60, "2 days", "10h", "7d"
• notBefore: expressed in seconds or a string describing a time span rauchg/ms. Eg: 60, "2 days", "10h", "7d"
• audience
• issuer
• jwtid
• subject
• noTimestamp
• header

If payload is not a buffer or a string, it will be coerced into a string using JSON.stringify.

There are no default values for expiresIn, notBefore, audience, subject, issuer. These claims can also be provided in the payload directly with exp, nbf, aud and sub respectively, but you can't include in both places.

The header can be customized via the option.header object.

Generated jwts will include an iat (issued at) claim by default unless noTimestamp is specified. If iat is inserted in the payload, it will be used instead of the real timestamp for calculating other things like exp given a timespan in options.expiresIn.

Example

// sign with default (HMAC SHA256) 
var jwt = require('jsonwebtoken');
var token = jwt.sign({ foo: 'bar' }, 'shhhhh');
//backdate a jwt 30 seconds 
var older_token = jwt.sign({ foo: 'bar', iat: Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000) - 30 }, 'shhhhh');
 
// sign with RSA SHA256 
var cert = fs.readFileSync('private.key');  // get private key 
var token = jwt.sign({ foo: 'bar' }, cert, { algorithm: 'RS256'});
 
// sign asynchronously 
jwt.sign({ foo: 'bar' }, cert, { algorithm: 'RS256' }, function(err, token) {
  console.log(token);
});

jwt.verify(token, secretOrPublicKey, [options, callback])

(Asynchronous) If a callback is supplied, function acts asynchronously. Callback passed the payload decoded if the signature (and optionally expiration, audience, issuer) are valid. If not, it will be passed the error.

(Synchronous) If a callback is not supplied, function acts synchronously. Returns the payload decoded if the signature (and optionally expiration, audience, issuer) are valid. If not, it will throw the error.

token is the JsonWebToken string

secretOrPublicKey is a string or buffer containing either the secret for HMAC algorithms, or the PEM encoded public key for RSA and ECDSA.

options

• algorithms: List of strings with the names of the allowed algorithms. For instance, ["HS256", "HS384"].
• audience: if you want to check audience (aud), provide a value here
• issuer (optional): string or array of strings of valid values for the iss field.
• ignoreExpiration: if true do not validate the expiration of the token.
• ignoreNotBefore...
• subject: if you want to check subject (sub), provide a value here
• clockTolerance: number of second to tolerate when checking the nbf and exp claims, to deal with small clock differences among different servers

// verify a token symmetric - synchronous 
var decoded = jwt.verify(token, 'shhhhh');
console.log(decoded.foo) // bar 
 
// verify a token symmetric 
jwt.verify(token, 'shhhhh', function(err, decoded) {
  console.log(decoded.foo) // bar 
});
 
// invalid token - synchronous 
try {
  var decoded = jwt.verify(token, 'wrong-secret');
} catch(err) {
  // err 
}
 
// invalid token 
jwt.verify(token, 'wrong-secret', function(err, decoded) {
  // err 
  // decoded undefined 
});
 
// verify a token asymmetric 
var cert = fs.readFileSync('public.pem');  // get public key 
jwt.verify(token, cert, function(err, decoded) {
  console.log(decoded.foo) // bar 
});
 
// verify audience 
var cert = fs.readFileSync('public.pem');  // get public key 
jwt.verify(token, cert, { audience: 'urn:foo' }, function(err, decoded) {
  // if audience mismatch, err == invalid audience 
});
 
// verify issuer 
var cert = fs.readFileSync('public.pem');  // get public key 
jwt.verify(token, cert, { audience: 'urn:foo', issuer: 'urn:issuer' }, function(err, decoded) {
  // if issuer mismatch, err == invalid issuer 
});
 
// verify jwt id 
var cert = fs.readFileSync('public.pem');  // get public key 
jwt.verify(token, cert, { audience: 'urn:foo', issuer: 'urn:issuer', jwtid: 'jwtid' }, function(err, decoded) {
  // if jwt id mismatch, err == invalid jwt id 
});
 
// verify subject 
var cert = fs.readFileSync('public.pem');  // get public key 
jwt.verify(token, cert, { audience: 'urn:foo', issuer: 'urn:issuer', jwtid: 'jwtid', subject: 'subject' }, function(err, decoded) {
  // if subject mismatch, err == invalid subject 
});
 
// alg mismatch 
var cert = fs.readFileSync('public.pem'); // get public key 
jwt.verify(token, cert, { algorithms: ['RS256'] }, function (err, payload) {
  // if token alg != RS256,  err == invalid signature 
});
 

jwt.decode(token [, options])

(Synchronous) Returns the decoded payload without verifying if the signature is valid.

Warning: This will not verify whether the signature is valid. You should not use this for untrusted messages. You most likely want to use jwt.verify instead.

token is the JsonWebToken string

options:

• json: force JSON.parse on the payload even if the header doesn't contain "typ":"JWT".
• complete: return an object with the decoded payload and header.

Example

// get the decoded payload ignoring signature, no secretOrPrivateKey needed 
var decoded = jwt.decode(token);
 
// get the decoded payload and header 
var decoded = jwt.decode(token, {complete: true});
console.log(decoded.header);
console.log(decoded.payload)

Errors & Codes

Possible thrown errors during verification. Error is the first argument of the verification callback.

TokenExpiredError

Thrown error if the token is expired.

Error object:

• name: 'TokenExpiredError'
• message: 'jwt expired'
• expiredAt: [ExpDate]

jwt.verify(token, 'shhhhh', function(err, decoded) {
  if (err) {
    /*
      err = {
        name: 'TokenExpiredError',
        message: 'jwt expired',
        expiredAt: 1408621000
      }
    */
  }
});

JsonWebTokenError

Error object:

• name: 'JsonWebTokenError'
• message:
  • 'jwt malformed'
  • 'jwt signature is required'
  • 'invalid signature'
  • 'jwt audience invalid. expected: [OPTIONS AUDIENCE]'
  • 'jwt issuer invalid. expected: [OPTIONS ISSUER]'
  • 'jwt id invalid. expected: [OPTIONS JWT ID]'
  • 'jwt subject invalid. expected: [OPTIONS SUBJECT]'

jwt.verify(token, 'shhhhh', function(err, decoded) {
  if (err) {
    /*
      err = {
        name: 'JsonWebTokenError',
        message: 'jwt malformed'
      }
    */
  }
});

Algorithms supported

Array of supported algorithms. The following algorithms are currently supported.

TODO

• X.509 certificate chain is not checked

Issue Reporting

If you have found a bug or if you have a feature request, please report them at this repository issues section. Please do not report security vulnerabilities on the public GitHub issue tracker. The Responsible Disclosure Program details the procedure for disclosing security issues.

Author

Auth0

License

This project is licensed under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.