The management of user access stands as a pivotal aspect of web application development. In this comprehensive guide, you will learn and understand...
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Building user authentication and authorization oneself, as part of the development of a project, is an option. And articles like this are a fantastic resource for showing you how; nice work @miracool 😎 However building user authentication and authorization when it's not ones core focus can lead to a whole lot of unnecessary work - that can also open an application to some unwanted and undesirable security implications. Check out my DEV post here to see how integrating with a SaaS platform - such as Auth0 - can be beneficial for a whole host of reasons 🤗
Hello Peter,
I have come to this post because I was looking for a solution for a react app, deployed with Netlify, that is easier than with Auth0. The test on localhost works fine. The application is a Single Page Application on Auth0. But now, when I want to use Autho0 for the web version, it becomes rather complicated. On Netlify, I read that I have to create a Machine to Machine application - and its getting complicated.
Therefore I am looking for a solution described here, relying on the power of React.
You write: "However building user authentication and authorization when it's not ones core focus can lead to a whole lot of unnecessary work". And exactly this is my impression with Auth0. I recommend, take the time and read documentation of Netlify & Auth0 with the eyes on someone with no core focus on that stuff.
Best,
Eckard
Hi Eckard,
Thanks for reaching out 😎
I'm glad to hear you've found integrating your React SPA with Auth0 works well - at least on
localhost- however, I am sorry to hear you're facing some challenges when using Netlify. I'm not an expert with Netlify per se, but I would recommend you check out our Netlify getting started guides on the Auth0 Developer Centre: developer.auth0.com/resources/get-.... In particular, the Build your Web Store with React, Auth0, Stripe and Netlify video (with Ben Dechrai, ex Auth0) does a great job of showing you how to integrate Auth0 as part of a React application deployed to Netlify.I'm also not sure which documentation you read concerning the creation of a Machine-to-Machine (M2M) application 🤔 But I'm guessing it might be the documentation on Netlify that's currently marked as "in beta"? I.e: docs.netlify.com/integrations/auth...? Correct? A Machine-to-Machine application is typically one where there is no user interaction; using the OAuth 2.0/OIDC Client Credentials grant, this is where an application would call an API - such as the Auth0 Management API - in what is a machine-level context.
If you do still find yourself struggling, please feel free to post over in our Community Forum (community.auth0.com/) and mention me in any question you post. Hopefully, we can get you up and running ASAP....and also share what we find with others who may be facing a similar challenge?!
All the best
Peter
the documentation on Netlify that's currently marked as "in beta"?
Yes. Thank you!
Finally, I managed to create a M2M application. But on Netlify it was not possible the configure it. The page URL looks like app.netlify.com/sites/xxxxx/integr...
Under this headline
Auth0 by Okta
Easily integrate your Auth0 tenants with Netlify.
Configuration
I did the prefix: REACT_APP_
I selected my tenant
But under
Configure Tenant - dev-t927qb8a
Manage Apps
It was not possible to select the respective app. The select menu did not show me this one. Seemlingly it only showed Single Page Apps but not M2M apps
The end of the story is: I cannot do this. Even if it had worked out now, I think, I cannot use it because I need a clear, reproducible path.
Thanks for the article, how would you handle a refresh endpoint call on app start
Hi Dusan, Thanks for the feedback! For this app, there's no support for a refresh token on the backend, but I did use a valid endpoint; I just changed it before publishing.
Okay, let's assume there's a refresh token. This is how I will handle it.
localStorage, we can check when an app starts to know if a token exists; iftrue, we can attempt to login the user by making a request to the refresh token; otherwise, redirect to the login page.my thoughts
Like for a refresh token?
I think he'll have to write a script to check with the backend if the access token sent is still valid.. if it's not the backend will check for the user with the expired acess token and if the user is found, the refresh route from the backend will be triggered... That's just my idea
Nice post. I am new to react js (actually focused on backend and react native). Your post has really helped me with this auth concept. Its pretty much simillar to what I do in react native. The effort you put in to explain every process to down to the smallest detail is commendable. Thanks again for this. My biggest issue which was using the context API with react routes has been visited here. Now I can rest easy on this.
Thanks for the kind words
Bro oo, Nice article, I like the effort and detail you put into this, nicely done
Fantastic article. Was stuck with user context for one of my projects, but this article made me understand it better.
Really helpful have simple and easy explanation
Thanks for the kind words
I'm wondering how you got navigate("/dashboard"); in loginAction() to work? When I run the code, I get an error saying navigate() cannot be run outside of a Route context. I then tried to put navigate() inside a custom hook and call the hook from loginAction(). That didn't work either as a hook can only be called from a react component :(
Hi David, thanks for the feedback! From your error, it seems you have not set up your router. To use any react router method, you need to have your router set up properly first.
Hey thanks! I had my router setup but there was a small mistake in it. Your comment helped tremendously in finding my problem. I forgot to mention in my first post what a great writeup your article is. Thanks for posting it!
Glad it helped!
Awesome tutorial! Very well written.
Only one question- how would you use
localStoragemore? It's unclear if this is sufficient to store & retrieve the token, and it's definitely going to clear the user model between visits.One approach is to store non-sensitive user data in local storage along with the token. A
useEffecthook can also be used to re-fetch the user data associated with the token whenever the components are re-loaded during page refreshes or tab closureThis is a nice article Makanju. I didn't really understand most of what you said here though 😂😂, because I haven't yet learnt about the Context API in React. But I have seen this will be very helpful for me going forward, and I have bookmarked it. Thank you!
Glad to have helped, cheers!
Hello,
I'm facing a problem when i try to access auth.loginAction(input); that line in Login component.
It says:-
Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'loginAction')
Any solution?
Ok i found out the problem.
I forgot to put the Login under the
<AuthProvider>.........
</AuthProvider>
Glad you figured it out, must be nice.
I'm new to react.
Still learning!
Aaah, great code along. I'm wondering what your server side code looks like ?
Hi Nicki, Thanks for the feedback, i will share.
It could more useful if you share server side code
Thanks for the feedback, i will share
@miracool please can you add the backend repo or the endpoint, for testing purposes? Thank you.
🔥✅✅
Any thoughts about the security concerns about using localStorage for storing the token?
In case of a XSS the token can be fetched and sent to the hacker
Hi Mads, Making use of the refresh token would actually help in stopping or reducing any attack. because once a token has an expiration date, it won't later be useful for the hacker.
but I didn't implement a refresh token in this app.
do you know how to combine user auth with connect wallet function for web3?
Nah, why do you need that ?