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Protect a Page with Login in NodeJS / ExpressJS

In this guide, we set up a new ExpressJS application and protect its home page with a login page using Ory. It will also add features such as profile settings, registration, and more. You can use this guide with both Ory Cloud and by self-hosting Ory software.

This guide is for you if you:

  1. have NodeJS installed;
  2. want to use ExpressJS to build an application;
  3. want to show your app only if the user is logged in.

Before we start, let's take a look at what user flow you will implement with this guide.

Create ExpressJS App​

First we create a new ExpressJS project:

mkdir your-project
cd your-project

npx express-generator
npm i

Install Ory SDK​

To interact with Ory's APIs we install the Ory SDK:

npm i --save @ory/client

Install Ory CLI​

The last step is setting up the Ory CLI.

npm i --save @ory/cli

Why do I Need the Ory CLI?​

The Ory CLI includes useful functionality to manage your Ory Cloud Project. But that is not why we require it in this guide!

Ory's philosophy is to make hard things easy for you. For this reason, Ory has deployed measures against all OWASP Top 10 and implements the OWASP Authentication Cheat Sheet along other mechanisms.

Therefore, Ory manages Anti-CSRF Cookies as well as Ory Session Cookies for you. That however requries that Ory and your application run on the same domain!

If your application runs on http://localhost:3000 then Ory needs to be available on the hostname localhost as well (e.g. http://localhost:3001). That is why we need the Ory CLI, because it has a proxy included which mirrors Ory's API endpoints on the domain of your application.

Ory Proxy mirrors Ory's APIs

Add NPM Run Script​

Now that the Ory CLI is installed, let's add it as a npm run script to our project:

package.json
{
  "name": "protect-page-login",
  "version": "0.0.0",
  "private": true,
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node ./bin/www",
    "proxy": "ory proxy --no-jwt --port 4000 http://localhost:3000/"
  },
  "dependencies": {

This requires the express app (npm run start) to run on port 3000. The browser / user uses however the port 4000 (http://localhost:4000) to access the app.

Require Login to Access the Home Page​

Next we add a session check to the default home page of the example application. The highlighted code is what we added to check whether the user is signed in, and redirect them to the login page if not:

var express = require('express')
var router = express.Router()
var sdk = require('@ory/client')

var ory = new sdk.V0alpha2Api(
  new sdk.Configuration({
    baseUrl: '/.ory'
  })
)

/* GET home page. */
router.get('/', function (req, res, next) {
  ory
    .toSession(undefined, req.header('cookie'))
    .then(({ data: session }) => {
      res.render('index', {
        title: 'Express',
        // Our identity is stored in the session along with other useful information.
        identity: session.identity
      })
    })
    .catch(() => {
      // If logged out, send to login page
      res.redirect('/.ory/ui/login')
    })
})

module.exports = router

Run your ExpressJS App​

Great, that's it! Let's run your application! Start the ExpressJS server

npm run start

and set up your environment variables to connect with Ory's APIs

# This is a public Ory Cloud Project.
# Don’t submit any personally identifiable information in requests made with this project.
# Sign up for Ory Cloud at
#
#   https://console.ory.sh/registration
#
# and create a free Ory Cloud Project to see your own configuration embedded in code samples!
export ORY_SDK_URL=https://playground.projects.oryapis.com

Next open a new terminal window and start the Ory Proxy:

npm run proxy

Then open http://localhost:4000 in your browser. You are presented with Ory's Sign In page! Let's click on sign up and create your first user!

Go to Production​

Going to production with your app is possible in many ways. Whether you deploy it on Kubernetes, AWS, a VM, or a RaspberryPi is up to you. To get your app working with Ory it is important that Ory and your app are available under the same common domain (e.g. https://ory.example.com and https://www.example.com).

The easiest way to connect Ory to your domain is to connect Ory to a subdomain of yours. You can do this easily by adding a Custom Domain to your Cloud project!

With the custom domain set up, you do not need the Ory Proxy anymore and will use the configured custom domain in your SDK calls:

var sdk = require('@ory/client')

var ory = new sdk.V0alpha2Api(
  new sdk.Configuration({
    baseUrl: 'https://ory.example.org',
    baseOptions: {
      // Ensures that cookies are included in CORS requests:
      withCredentials: true
    }
  })
)