Middleware in Iron-router - meteor

Question

I am trying to apply JWT(JSON Web Token) in Meteor server-side API's with Iron-router.
I am able to create token but I can't get method in iron-router to write middleware for verifying that token.
Can you Please explain Which method is used to write middleware and how to define it ?

Answer 1

In iron-router, middleware is defined using the onBeforeAction method (see "Server Hooks and Connect" in the guide). So for JWT verification, you can use something like this:
import { Meteor } from 'meteor/meteor';
import { Router } from 'meteor/iron:router';
import jwt from 'jsonwebtoken';
Router.onBeforeAction(function(req, res, next) {
jwt.verify(req.query.token, "secret", (err, decoded) => {
if (err) {
console.log(`Failed to verify token. Error: "${err}"`);
res.statusCode = 401;
res.end('invalid token');
} else {
next();
}
});
}, {where: 'server'});
// example server-side route for testing
Router.route('/server', { where: 'server' })
.get(function () {
this.response.end('ok');
})
Failing example (true negative):
> curl -i localhost:3000/server?token=totally-wrong
HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
date: Mon, 25 Nov 2019 16:41:33 GMT
connection: keep-alive
transfer-encoding: chunked
invalid token
Succeeding example (true positive):
> curl -i localhost:3000/server?token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.MTIzNDU2Nzg5MA.oy8UH-Y_-5ztrLKo8zgx-8b8AKvUTy4ijH-ItJU32qo
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
date: Mon, 25 Nov 2019 16:41:52 GMT
connection: keep-alive
transfer-encoding: chunked
ok

Answer 2

There're a handful of ways to achieve this, this simplest in my opinion is to apply your logic within the action method of the route like so:
Router.route("/dashboard", {
name: "dashboard",
action: function() {
const token = this.params.query.token
try {
var decoded = jwt.verify(token, "secret");
this.render()
} catch (err) {
this.render("home"); // go home
}
}
});
You may also try tinkering with hooks or plugins as mentioned in the docs.