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_posts/2018-09-21-feathers-form-authentication.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: Feathers authentication for web pages and forms
+tags:
+- javascript
+- feathersjs
+---
+
+I have been using [Feathers](http://feathersjs.com) for a number of projects
+lately, including the backend and client for [Jenkins
+Evergreen](https://jenkins.io/projects/evergreen). 
+It is obvious from the design and structure of Feathers that a significant
+amount of thought went into its development.  Overall, I have been happy with
+the experience implementing clean APIs, and have added Feathers as my default
+toolchain for new web API and application development. Feathers has been great
+for building JSON-based RESTful APIs, but I stumbled over some hurdles when
+using it as a more traditional web application framework.
+
+The simplest to fix, but most frustrating to stumble over, was utilizing
+[Feathers
+Authentication](https://docs.feathersjs.com/api/authentication/server.html)
+when serving [views via
+Feathers](https://docs.feathersjs.com/guides/advanced/using-a-view-engine.html).
+By default, the authentication in Feathers utilizes a [JSON
+Web Token](https://jwt.io) for capturing the current authentication status of a
+request. When using the
+[OAuth2](https://docs.feathersjs.com/api/authentication/oauth2.html)
+authentication mechanism, it is possible to tell Feathers to set a cookie with
+the JSON Web Token.
+
+Then, when adding authorization in front of a Feathers service, it's as simple as
+adding a hook:
+
+```javascript
+{
+  before: {
+    all: [
+      authentication.hooks.authenticate(['jwt']),
+    ],
+  },
+  after: {
+  },
+  error: {
+  },
+};
+```
+
+Unfortunately even with that cookie set, a browser accessing the service, this
+results in "Not Authentication" errors.
+
+After a bit of searching around I eventually discovered some references to what
+I _thought_ might solve my problem on this page titled:
+[FeathersJS Auth Recipe: Authenticating Express middleware (SSR)](https://docs.feathersjs.com/guides/auth/recipe.express-middleware.html).
+
+By default, though the OAuth2 authentication module for Feathers will _set_ a
+cookie, it doesn't appear to do anything by default to _read_ that same cookie.
+One must install and use the `cookie-parser` package.
+
+```
+$ npm install --save cookie-parser
+```
+
+Once the `cookie-parser` package has been installed, it's important that it
+gets added as the first middleware in the application.
+
+```javascript
+const cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
+/*
+ * Add the cookie parser to GET routes
+ */
+app.get('*', cookieParser());
+/*
+ * Add the cookie parser to POST routes
+ */
+app.post('*', cookieParser());
+```
+
+With this package installed and configured, the JWT cookie will be parsed
+properly when for requests coming in to the application. This ensures that the
+`authentication.hooks.authenticate(['jwt'])` hook has the appropriate material
+it needs to perform the authentication.