socket.io-custom-auth

It provides a hook to authenticate socket.io without using query-strings to send credentials, which is not a good security practice.

It works by preventing access to socket object before authentication, which is done by given auth function and submitted credentials on authenticate event.

Installation

npm install socket.io-custom-auth

Usage

Just pass socket.io server and auth function to socket.io-custom-auth and add other events on callback:

var io = require('socket.io')(4000)

// setup and authentication method
auth = function(data, done) {
  // check for valid credential data
  if (data.token == 'test token') {
    var userdata = {
      id: 1
    };
    
    socket.user = userdata;
    done(null, userdata);
  } else {
    done(new Error('bad token')) // or any error message
  }
};

require('socket.io-custom-auth')(io, auth, function(socket){
  // you can get access to user data via `socket.user`
  
  // use socket as before to implement other signals
  socket.on('event', function(data){
    socket.emit('someevent', data);
  });
});

you can set authentication window with timeout option (default is 1s (1000ms)):

require('socket.io-custom-auth')(io, auth, {timeout: 3000}, function(socket){
  // rest of code ...
});

clients just need to authenticate after connection:

var socket = require('socket.io-client')('http://localhost:4000');

socket.on('connect', function(){
  socket.emit('authenticate', {token: 'test token'});
  socket.on('authenticated', function(user){
    // on client you can get access to user data via `user` object

    // now it is an authenticated socket and works as before
    socket.on('someevent', function(data){
      console.log('Data from socket.io server:', data)
    });
    socket.emit('event', data);
  });
  socket.on('unauthenticated', function(err){
    // unauthenticated err message handling
  });
});

Contribute

You are always welcome to open an issue or provide a pull-request!

Also checkout the tests:

$ npm test

  socket.io-custom-auth
    before authentication
      ✓ marks socket as unauthenticated
      ✓ dose not sent messages to sockets
      ✓ disconnects unauthenticated sockets after timeout window
    on authentication
      with valid credentials
        ✓ authenticates and emits authenticated signal with user data
      with invalid credentials
        ✓ disconnects the socket
        ✓ emits unauthenticated signal with error message
    after authentication
      ✓ handles all signals normally