,

Express JS Tutorial: Login Authentication Guide

Posted by






Express JS Tutorial | Login Authentication

Express JS Tutorial | Login Authentication

Welcome to our tutorial on building a login authentication system using Express.js. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of creating a secure login system for your web application.

What is Express.js?

Express.js is a web application framework for Node.js. It provides a robust set of features for building web and mobile applications. With its simplicity and flexibility, Express.js is widely used for creating APIs and web servers. It is also known for its middleware system, which allows developers to create modular and scalable web applications.

Understanding Login Authentication

Login authentication is the process of verifying the identity of a user attempting to access a web application. It is a critical aspect of web security, as it ensures that only authorized users can access the application and its resources. In this tutorial, we will focus on creating a simple username and password-based authentication system using Express.js.

Setting Up the Environment

Before we start building our login authentication system, make sure you have Node.js and npm installed on your machine. You can check their installation by running the following commands in your terminal:


node -v
npm -v

Creating the Express Application

To get started, let’s create a new directory for our project and navigate into it. Then, run the following commands to initialize a new Node.js project and install Express.js:


mkdir login-authentication
cd login-authentication
npm init -y
npm install express

Setting Up the Login Form

Now that we have our Express app set up, let’s create a simple login form using HTML and CSS. You can add the following code to a new file named login.html:


<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Login</title>
<style>
/* Your CSS styles here */
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Login</h2>
<form action="/login" method="post">
<input type="text" name="username" placeholder="Username" required>
<input type="password" name="password" placeholder="Password" required>
<button type="submit">Login</button>
</form>
</body>
</html>

Implementing the Authentication Logic

Now, let’s create the logic for handling the login requests in our Express app. We will use the express.Router middleware to handle the POST request to the /login route and validate the user’s credentials. Here’s an example of how you may structure your authentication logic:


const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');

app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true }));

app.post('/login', (req, res) => {
const { username, password } = req.body;

// Verify the user's credentials
if (username === 'admin' && password === 'password') {
res.send('Login successful');
} else {
res.status(401).send('Invalid username or password');
}
});

app.listen(3000, () => {
console.log('Server is running on port 3000');
});

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully created a basic login authentication system using Express.js. This tutorial has covered the fundamentals of building a simple authentication system, but there are many additional security considerations to keep in mind when developing a production-ready application. We recommend exploring features such as password hashing, session management, and input validation to further secure your application against potential security threats.


0 0 votes
Article Rating
1 Comment
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Fauzan DP
1 year ago

vscode theme nya namanya apa bang?