Book Image

RESTful Web API Design with Node.js 10 - Third Edition

By : Valentin Bojinov
Book Image

RESTful Web API Design with Node.js 10 - Third Edition

By: Valentin Bojinov

Overview of this book

When building RESTful services, it is really important to choose the right framework. Node.js, with its asynchronous, event-driven architecture, is exactly the right choice for building RESTful APIs. This third edition of RESTful Web API Design with Node.js 10 will teach you to create scalable and rich RESTful applications based on the Node.js platform. You will be introduced to the latest NPM package handler and understand how to use it to customize your RESTful development process. You will begin by understanding the key principle that makes an HTTP application a RESTful-enabled application. After writing a simple HTTP request handler, you will create and test Node.js modules using automated tests and mock objects; explore using the NoSQL database, MongoDB, to store data; and get to grips with using self-descriptive URLs. You’ll learn to set accurate HTTP status codes along with understanding how to keep your applications backward-compatible. Also, while implementing a full-fledged RESTful service, you will use Swagger to document the API and implement automation tests for a REST-enabled endpoint with Mocha. Lastly, you will explore some authentication techniques to secure your application.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Authorization


So far, the catalog data service uses basic authentication to protect its routes from unknown users; however, a catalog application should allow only few white-listed users to modify the items inside the catalog. To restrict access to the catalog, we will introduce the concept of authorization, that is, a subset of authenticated users, with appropriate permission allowed.

When Passport's done() function is invoked to authenticate a successful login, it takes as an argument a user instance of the user that has been granted authentication. The done() function adds that user model instance to the request object, and, in this way, provides access to it via the request.user property, after successful authentication. We will make use of that property to implement a function performing the authorization check after successful authentication:

function authorize(user, response) {
  if ((user == null) || (user.role != 'Admin')) {
    response.writeHead(403, { 'Content-Type' : 
    'text...