Book Image

RESTful Web API Design with Node.js - Second Edition

By : Valentin Bojinov
Book Image

RESTful Web API Design with Node.js - Second Edition

By: Valentin Bojinov

Overview of this book

In this era of cloud computing, every data provisioning solution is built in a scalable and fail-safe way. Thus, when building RESTful services, the right choice for the underlying platform is vital. Node.js, with its asynchronous, event-driven architecture, is exactly the right choice to build RESTful APIs. This book will help you enrich your development skills to create scalable, server-side, RESTful applications based on the Node.js platform. Starting with the fundamentals of REST, you will understand why RESTful web services are better data provisioning solution than other technologies. You will start setting up a development environment by installing Node.js, Express.js, and other modules. Next, you will write a simple HTTP request handler and create and test Node.js modules using automated tests and mock objects. You will then have to choose the most appropriate data storage type, having options between a key/value or document data store, and also you will implement automated tests for it. This module will evolve chapter by chapter until it turns into a full-fledged and secure Restful service.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)
RESTful Web API Design with Node.js - Second Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

Authentication


An application considers a user authenticated when their identity has been successfully validated against a trusted store. Such trusted stores can be either any kind of specially maintained database, storing the credentials of the application (basic authentication), or a third-party service that checks a given identity against its own trusted store (third-party authentication).

Basic authentication

HTTP basic authentication is one of the most popular and straightforward authentication mechanisms available out there. It relies on HTTP headers in the request, which provide the user's credentials. Optionally, the server may reply with a header, forcing the clients to authenticate themselves. The following diagram shows a client-server interaction when basic authentication is carried out:

Whenever an HTTP request is sent to an endpoint secured by HTTP basic authentication, the server replies with a HTTP 401 Unauthorized status code, and optionally with a WWW-Authenticate header...