Go Full-Stack With Node.js, Express, and MongoDB

Set Up Authentication Routes

Let see in this next video how to set up authentication routes!

Start by building the infrastructure you need for your authentication routes, such as a controller and a router, and then register that router with your Express app.

First, create a  user.js  in your  controllers  folder:

exports.signup = (req, res, next) => {

};

exports.login = (req, res, next) => {

};

Create another  user.js  file, this time in your  routes  folder:

const express = require('express');
const router = express.Router();

const userCtrl = require('../controllers/user');

router.post('/signup', userCtrl.signup);
router.post('/login', userCtrl.login);

module.exports = router;

The routes provided are the ones expected by the front-end app.

Now register your router with your app. First, import the router:

const userRoutes = require('./routes/user');

And then register it:

app.use('/api/stuff', stuffRoutes);
app.use('/api/auth', userRoutes);

Your routes are now ready, so it's time to start implementing the business logic.

Create New Users

Let's create new users in the next video!

You will need the  bcrypt  encryption package for your  signup  function, so install it to your project:

npm install bcrypt

You can now import it to your controller, and implement your  signup  function (don't forget to import your user model!):

exports.signup = (req, res, next) => {
  bcrypt.hash(req.body.password, 10).then(
    (hash) => {
      const user = new User({
        email: req.body.email,
        password: hash
      });
      user.save().then(
        () => {
          res.status(201).json({
            message: 'User added successfully!'
          });
        }
      ).catch(
        (error) => {
          res.status(500).json({
            error: error
          });
        }
      );
    }
  );
};

In this function:

• Call bcrypt's hash function on your password and ask it to salt the password 10 times (the higher the value, the longer the function will take, but the more secure the hash. For more information, check out bcrypt's documentation).

• This is an asynchronous function that returns a promise, where you receive the produced hash.

• Create a new user in your  then  block and save it to the database, returning a success response if successful and any errors with an error code if not.

Let's Recap!

• bcrypt's  hash()  method creates an encrypted hash of your users' passwords to save them securely in the database

In the next chapter, you'll learn to implement the  login  function to check user credentials, allowing them to log in.