Only Your Notes

Part of the Auth and Security section of Coddy's Node.js journey. Lesson 13 of 17.

Being logged in proves who you are, not that a note is yours. GET /notes/:id finds a note by its id alone, so anyone logged in who has an id, from a shared link or a log, reads that note. Checking the owner is called authorization.

Put the owner in the query itself, so the database never returns someone else's document. Answer 404, not 403, when it is not found: 403 would tell the visitor the note exists.

const order = await orders.findOne({
    _id: new ObjectId(req.params.id),
    customer: req.user.id,
});
if (!order) {
    return res.status(404).json({ error: 'Order not found' });
}

Every query that touches one user's data needs the filter: reads, updates and deletes.

Challenge

Easy

GET /notes/:id and DELETE /notes/:id only find notes whose owner is req.user.id.
Anyone else's note answers 404 { "error": "Note not found" }.

Try it yourself

import express from 'express';
import { ObjectId } from 'mongodb';
import { randomBytes } from 'node:crypto';
import { parseCookies } from './cookies.js';
import { notes, sessions, users } from './db.js';
import { hashPassword, verifyPassword } from './passwords.js';

const app = express();
app.use(express.json());

// The one admin account. Its password comes from the environment.
await users.insertOne({ username: 'admin', role: 'admin', passwordHash: await hashPassword(process.env.ADMIN_PASSWORD) });

app.post('/signup', async (req, res) => {
    const username = String(req.body.username ?? '').trim().toLowerCase();
    const password = String(req.body.password ?? '');
    if (!username || password.length < 8) {
        return res.status(400).json({ error: 'Pick a username and a password of at least 8 characters' });
    }
    if (await users.findOne({ username })) {
        return res.status(409).json({ error: 'That username is taken' });
    }
    await users.insertOne({ username, passwordHash: await hashPassword(password) });
    res.status(201).json({ username });
});

app.post('/login', async (req, res) => {
    const username = String(req.body.username ?? '').trim().toLowerCase();
    const user = await users.findOne({ username });
    if (!user || !(await verifyPassword(String(req.body.password ?? ''), user.passwordHash))) {
        return res.status(401).json({ error: 'Wrong username or password' });
    }
    const sid = randomBytes(24).toString('base64url');
    await sessions.insertOne({ _id: sid, userId: user._id, createdAt: new Date() });
    res.cookie('sid', sid, {
        httpOnly: true,
        sameSite: 'lax',
        secure: true,
        maxAge: 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000,
    });
    res.json({ username: user.username });
});

// Finds the user of the session cookie, or answers 401.
async function requireUser(req, res, next) {
    const { sid } = parseCookies(req.get('cookie'));
    const session = sid && (await sessions.findOne({ _id: sid }));
    const user = session && (await users.findOne({ _id: session.userId }));
    if (!user) {
        return res.status(401).json({ error: 'Log in first' });
    }
    req.user = { id: user._id.toHexString(), username: user.username, role: user.role };
    next();
}

app.get('/me', requireUser, (req, res) => {
    res.json({ username: req.user.username });
});

app.post('/logout', async (req, res) => {
    const { sid } = parseCookies(req.get('cookie'));
    if (sid) {
        await sessions.deleteOne({ _id: sid });
    }
    res.clearCookie('sid');
    res.status(204).end();
});

// Your notes as a page.
app.get('/', requireUser, async (req, res) => {
    const list = await notes.find({ owner: req.user.id }).toArray();
    const items = list.map((note) => `<li>${note.text}</li>`).join('');
    res.send(`<!doctype html><title>Vault</title><h1>${req.user.username}'s notes</h1><ul>${items}</ul>`);
});

// Notes: each user reads and writes only their own.
app.get('/notes', requireUser, async (req, res) => {
    res.json(await notes.find({ owner: req.user.id }).toArray());
});

app.post('/notes', requireUser, async (req, res) => {
    const note = { owner: req.user.id, text: String(req.body.text ?? '') };
    await notes.insertOne(note);
    res.status(201).json(note);
});

app.get('/notes/:id', requireUser, async (req, res) => {
    if (!ObjectId.isValid(req.params.id)) {
        return res.status(404).json({ error: 'Note not found' });
    }
    const note = await notes.findOne({ _id: new ObjectId(req.params.id) });
    if (!note) {
        return res.status(404).json({ error: 'Note not found' });
    }
    res.json(note);
});

app.delete('/notes/:id', requireUser, async (req, res) => {
    if (!ObjectId.isValid(req.params.id)) {
        return res.status(404).json({ error: 'Note not found' });
    }
    const { deletedCount } = await notes.deleteOne({ _id: new ObjectId(req.params.id) });
    if (!deletedCount) {
        return res.status(404).json({ error: 'Note not found' });
    }
    res.status(204).end();
});

// For admins: how many accounts there are.
app.get('/admin', requireUser, async (req, res) => {
    res.json({ users: await users.countDocuments() });
});

app.listen(3000, () => {
    console.log('Vault is running on port 3000');
});