AdonisJS 6 Access Token Authentication in 20 Minutes

In this lesson, we'll cover how to implement access token authentication, using opaque tokens, in AdonisJS 6. We'll also take a look at what this would look like on the frontend via a Vue 3 app using Pinia

Published
May 21
Duration
20m 8s

Developer, dog lover, and burrito eater. Currently teaching AdonisJS, a fully featured NodeJS framework, and running Adocasts where I post new lessons weekly. Professionally, I work with JavaScript, .Net C#, and SQL Server.

Adocasts

Burlington, KY

⏰ Chapters
00:00 - Creating Our AdonisJS 6 Project
00:50 - Creating Our Vue 3 Project
01:20 - Opening Our Projects
01:50 - Setting Up Our AdonisJS 6 Project
03:00 - Creating Our Auth Controller & Validator
03:17 - Defining Our Register & Login Validators
04:53 - Registering A User
05:55 - User Access Tokens Provider
06:40 - Logging In A User
07:40 - Logging Out A User
08:28 - Getting An Authenticated Users Details
08:56 - Defining Our Auth Routes
10:13 - Creating A Register Page & Form
11:17 - Creating A Login Page & Form
11:34 - Defining Register & Login Page Routes
11:50 - Creating An Auth Pinia Store
12:55 - Creating An API Helper Function
14:25 - Authenticating A User In Our Pinia Store
14:49 - Auth Store Login & Register Methods
15:18 - Auth Store Logout Method
15:40 - Auth Store Get User Details
16:06 - Register & Login A User On Form Submit
17:02 - Auth User Details & Logout Form
18:10 - Testing Our Authentication Flow

Join The Discussion! (11 Comments)

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  1. Commented 6 months ago

    Thank you very much for the clear and detailed explanation!
    I wonder whether should be a good idea to add token expiration protection in front-end level, or rely on 409 server response in order to delete the token.

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    1. Commented 6 months ago

      The expiry time should be included with the initial token, so you could store it as well on your client and check it every once in a while to see if time is running up. I would rely on the server though for actually discerning whether it's expired or not.

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  2. Commented 6 months ago

    Awesome Tutorial! Thank you.
    Just one thing: I get this error:
    ```
    Property 'currentAccessToken' does not exist on type 'never'
    ```

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    1. Commented 6 months ago

      Thanks Shahriar!

      I would say to try restarting your text editor, sometimes it fails to pick up type changes. Apart from that, make sure your auth is configured correctly and double-check to make sure accessTokens is on your user model:

      static accessTokens = DbAccessTokensProvider.forModel(User)
      Copied!

      If you're still having issues, please share a link to the repo or a repoduction and I can see if anything stands out!

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  3. Commented 6 months ago

    Another question - how do you combine an access-token authentication with social authentication?
    https://docs.adonisjs.com/guides/authentication/social-authentication

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    1. Commented 6 months ago

      Social Auth with AdonisJS forms the connection between AdonisJS and the 3rd party service and gives you the tools to discern who a user is. You can then use that info to create a user inside your application. From there, auth is done normally inside AdonisJS.

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  4. Commented 6 months ago

    Hi. Thank you for the detailed explanation.

    I have been having trouble returning a value for the token after login. I keep getting the error message "Cannot save access token. The result '[0]' of insert query is unexpected" even though the token gets saved to the database. I'm not sure what I could be doing wrong.

    You can check out the login method here:

    https://github.com/ansman58/properties-backend/blob/main/app/controllers/auth.ts

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    1. Commented 6 months ago

      Hi Nnakwe!

      Thank you for providing a repo! My best guess, after an initial look, is that you're probably running into an error at line 176 here:
      https://github.com/adonisjs/auth/blob/develop/modules/access_tokens_guard/token_providers/db.ts#L176

      I don't have MySQL installed currently to be able to test it out though. When I get some free time I can give it a go. You may want to try debugging result at line 175 to see exactly what you're getting back. Line 175 is where it's inserting your token and returning back the inserted id. Since you said it's inserting okay, my best guess is the returning('id') isn't returning as expected for MySQL or your specific MySQL version.

      Could potentially be

      • Something specific to MySQL/MySQL2

      • The specific MySQL version you have installed on your machine

      • A bug in KnexJS

      • A bug in AdonisJS at line 176.

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      1. Commented 6 months ago

        Thanks for pointing me to the source code. I have taken a look and the problem seems to be with the `returning('id')`, as you correctly pointed out. Is there any configuration I need to apply to MySQL in my codebase to enable the returning clause? I don't think it is fully supported in MySQL.

        EDIT: Switched to postgres and it now works fine. It's A bug in AdonisJS at line 176 when using MySQL.

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        1. Commented 5 months ago

          Looks like there's a previously reported issue with the same, I didn't look though the closed issues last time I checked so I missed it:
          https://github.com/adonisjs/auth/issues/241

          Sounds like it could potentially be related to how the UUID is defined as the issue creator reported switching that resolved his issue.

          If you'd prefer using MySQL, it may be worth looking into and, if it is related, potentially providing your reproduction repository within that issue.

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  5. Commented 2 months ago

    How to implement access token authentication with multiple models in Adonis 6? I've searched everywhere, and I can't make it work.

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