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Financial NodeJS Application

In this tutorial, you will see how to create a simple financial service in NodeJs using the Express framework.

Configure PlusAuth

First of all, you need to create a Fintech Service client from the PlusAuth Dashboard. Unlike other application types, you need to define your JWKS (JSON Web Key Set) while creating a financial client for validating client assertion. You will learn more about this later in this article. If you would like to learn about the internals, you can look at OpenID Connect Client Authentication section.

Generating a JWK set

There are many tools that will help you to generate JWKS. We will be using jose for this tutorial. Here is a simple node script that will generate a jwks and write them to corresponding files. Don't forget to install jose library before using the following script.

// generate_jwks.js


const fs = require('fs')
const jose = require('jose')


const key = jose.JWK.generateSync("EC", 'P-256', { use: "sig", alg: "ES256"})


const privateKey = key.toJWK(true)
const publicKey = key.toJWK(false)


fs.writeFileSync('es256_private.json', JSON.stringify(privateKey, null, 2));
fs.writeFileSync('es256_public.json', JSON.stringify(publicKey, null, 2));

After you run the above script, you will have two files which are our public and private keys. Make sure to keep your private key in a safe place. Let's copy the public key to JWKS field in the PlusAuth dashboard client creation popup and finish the creation of the client.

Configure Client

In order to continue this tutorial, you need to configure the redirect and post-logout redirect URIs of the client. You can also do this later.

Let's assume our application will be run on localhost:3000, and we will have /auth/callback route for OAuth2 redirect callback URI. Go to client details from the dashboard and add http://localhost:3000/auth/callback to Redirect Uri's.

For logout redirect URI, lets use /auth/logout/callback endpoint. Your post-logout redirect URI will be http://localhost:3000/auth/logout/callback. Let's add it to Post Logout Redirect Uris of the client and save the form.

Create Node.js Application

We will be using Express web framework with pug templating engine. For environment-specific configuration, we will be using dotenv library.

Install dependencies

So, here are the dependencies that we will be using.

  • express : NodeJS web framework
  • express-session : Session middleware for express apps
  • pug : A templating engine
  • dotenv : Environment variable loader utility
  • openid-client : OpenID Connect client library with FAPI support
  • passport : Authentication middleware for NodeJS
# install with npm
npm install express express-session pug dotenv openid-client passport

or with yarn

# install with yarn
yarn add express express-session pug dotenv openid-client passport

Create .env file

Don't forget to replace values defined in the format of <PLACEHOLDER> according to your needs.

PLUSAUTH_ISSUER=https://<YOUR_TENANT>.plusauth.com
PLUSAUTH_CLIENT_ID=<YOUR_CLIENT_ID>

Add express-session middleware

In our app, we will be using cookies to store user-session information.

// app.js


// Load environment variables
const dotenv = require("dotenv");
dotenv.config();


const session = require("express-session")


const sessionOptions = {
        cookie: {},
        resave: false,
        saveUninitialized: true,
        secret: "SomeRandomValue"
}


if(process.env.NODE_ENV === "production"){
    // Use secure cookies in production. For more: https://www.npmjs.com/package/express-session#cookiesecure
    sessionOptions.cookie.secure = true;
}


app.use(session(sessionOptions));

Initialize FAPI client

We will create an OIDC client with FAPI support and will be using it in authorization middlewares. If you remember, we generated JWKS in the step Generating a JWK set. We will use generated private key here. So make sure you load it correctly.

// app.js


const fs = require("fs");
const { Issuer } = require("openid-client");


// Make sure es256_private.json file exists with your generated private key.


const privateKey = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync("es256_private.json", { encoding: "utf-8" }))


const plusAuthIssuer = await Issuer.discover(process.env.AUTH_URL);


const plusAuthClient = new plusAuthIssuer.FAPIClient({
    client_id: process.env.CLIENT_ID,
    redirect_uris: ["http://localhost:3000/auth/callback"],
    post_logout_redirect_uris: ["http://localhost:3000/auth/logout/callback"],
    response_mode: "jwt",
    authorization_signed_response_alg: "PS256",
    id_token_signed_response_alg: "PS256",
    token_endpoint_auth_method: "private_key_jwt",
    request_object_signing_alg:"ES256",
}, { keys: [ privateKey ] } );

Add passport authentication middleware

Let's include passport with the OIDC client's strategy and configure it accordingly to our needs.

//app.js


const passport = require("passport");
const { Strategy, generators  } = require("openid-client");


const PlusAuthStrategy = new Strategy({
        client: plusAuthClient,
        params: {
            response_type: "code",
            response_mode: "jwt"
        },
        passReqToCallback: true
    },
    function(req, token, user, done) {
       // Store token to user session
       req.session.token = token
       return done(null, user)
    }
)


passport.use("PlusAuth", PlusAuthStrategy);


passport.serializeUser((user, next) => {
    next(null, user);
});


passport.deserializeUser((user, next) => {
    next(null, user);
});


app.use(passport.initialize())
app.use(passport.session())

Create routes for login, logout, and user profile

Login

We will be using the request object to pass authorization options in a FAPI conformant way to the PlusAuth.

//app.js


app.use("/auth/login", async function (req, res){
    const state = generators.state()
    const nonce = generators.nonce()
    // epoch time for 5 minutes later. It defines expiration of the request object.
    const in5minutes = new Date(new Date().getTime() + (5 * 60 * 1000) ).getTime() / 1000


    return passport.authenticate("PlusAuth", {
      state,
      nonce,
      request: await plusAuthClient.requestObject({
        state,
        nonce,
        exp: in5minutes,
        aud: process.env.PLUSAUTH_ISSUER,
        client_id: process.env.PLUSAUTH_CLIENT_ID,
        scope: "openid profile email",
        response_type: "code",
        redirect_uri: "http://localhost:3000/auth/callback",
      }),
    })(req,res)
});


app.use(
  "/auth/callback",
  (req,res,next) =>
      passport.authenticate("PlusAuth", {
        failureMessage: true,
        failureRedirect: "/error",
        successRedirect: "/profile",
      })(req, res, next)
);

Logout 

app.get("/auth/logout", (req, res) => {
    res.redirect(
        plusAuthClient.endSessionUrl({ id_token_hint: req.user.id_token })
    );
});
app.get("/auth/logout/callback", (req, res) => {
    req.logout();
    res.redirect("/");
});

Check auth middleware 

function isLoggedIn(req, res, next) {
    if (req.isAuthenticated()) {
      return next();
    }


    res.redirect("/auth/login");
}

User Profile 

app.use("/profile", isLoggedIn, (req, res) => {
    res.render("profile", { user: req.user });
});

Create views

We will be using pug as a template engine.

// app.js
const path = require("path");


app.set("views", path.join(__dirname, "views"));
app.set("view engine", "pug");

Here is a simple layout with bootstrap.

// views/layout.pug
doctype html
html(lang='en')
    head
        meta(charset='utf-8')
        meta(name='viewport' content='width=device-width, initial-scale=1, shrink-to-fit=no')
        title Plusauth Starter Template
        link(rel='stylesheet' href='https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.5.0/css/bootstrap.min.css' integrity='sha384-9aIt2nRpC12Uk9gS9baDl411NQApFmC26EwAOH8WgZl5MYYxFfc+NcPb1dKGj7Sk' crossorigin='anonymous')
    body
        style.
            body {
                padding-top: 5rem;
            }
        nav.navbar.navbar-expand-md.navbar-dark.bg-dark.fixed-top
            a.navbar-brand(href='/') Plusauth Starter
            #navbarsExampleDefault.collapse.navbar-collapse
                ul.navbar-nav.mr-auto
                if locals.user
                    li.nav-item.navbar-nav
                        a.nav-link(href='/profile')
                            | Logged in as: #{user.email}
                    a.nav-link(href='/auth/logout')
                        | Logout
                else
                    li.nav-item.navbar-nav
                        a.nav-link(href='/auth/login')
                            | Login
        main.container(role='main')
            block main

And following is our main page.

// views/index.pug
extends layout
block main
    .jumbotron
        .container
            h1.display-3 Hello, world!
            p
                | This is a simple Express application to demonstrate
                | how to use financial application in PlusAuth
            p
                if locals.user
                    a.btn.btn-success.btn-lg(href='/profile' role='button') View Profile »
                else
                    a.btn.btn-primary.btn-lg(href='/auth/login' role='button') Login/Register »
            p

Profile

On the profile page, we will be printing authenticated user information as JSON with a welcome message.

// views/profile.pug
extends layout


block main
    .container
        h3 Welcome #{locals.user.email}
        pre.
            User object: #{ JSON.stringify(locals.user, null, 2) }

See the results

Now you are ready to run your application. After installing dependencies, run your application. If you have followed this tutorial exactly the application should run at http://localhost:3000

The source code is served at GitHub. You can reach it from here