basic-auth 2.0.1

Basic-auth is a popular Node.js module that serves as a generic parser for basic auth Authorization header fields. This means the module provides a simple way to retrieve and parse the credentials from a basic auth header. If the header is invalid, it returns undefined. If valid, it returns an object containing name and pass properties.

You can easily utilize basic-auth in your project by first installing it from the npm registry with the command $ npm install basic-auth.

After the installation, you can require it in your JavaScript file like this:

var auth = require('basic-auth');

Here is an example of how to use basic-auth to get basic auth credentials from a given request:

var auth = require('basic-auth')
var user = auth(req)
// => { name: 'something', pass: 'whatever' }

Additionally, you can parse a header string from any location with auth.parse:

var auth = require('basic-auth');
var user = auth.parse(req.getHeader('Proxy-Authorization'));

Here's how you might use basic-auth with a vanilla Node.js HTTP server:

var http = require('http')
var auth = require('basic-auth')
var compare = require('tsscmp')

// Create server
var server = http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  var credentials = auth(req)

  // Check credentials
  // The "check" function will typically be against your user store
  if (!credentials || !check(credentials.name, credentials.pass)) {
    res.statusCode = 401
    res.setHeader('WWW-Authenticate', 'Basic realm="example"')
    res.end('Access denied')
  } else {
    res.end('Access granted')
  }
})

// Basic function to validate credentials for example
function check (name, pass) {
  var valid = true

  // Simple method to prevent short-circut and use timing-safe compare
  valid = compare(name, 'john') && valid
  valid = compare(pass, 'secret') && valid

  return valid
}

// Listen
server.listen(3000)

The current basic-auth documentation is found within the README file of the package's GitHub repository, located at https://github.com/jshttp/basic-auth. The documentation features instructions for installation, brief descriptions of the API, and a few example usage scenarios.