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Implement Protected Routes in NextJS!

20/1/2021 ā€¢2K views ā€¢4 min read


Protecting Routes from unauthenticated users is a crucial part of any app.

In this blog, Iā€™ll show you exactly how to do that with your NextJS pages using Higher-Order Components 1

There can be several ways of authenticating a user like using cookies or JWT tokens.2

Iā€™ll be using JWT token as an example, where the accessToken is stored in the localStorage

Letā€™s consider a page ā€œ/dashboardā€. This page should be only accessed by authenticated users

In our Dashboard.jsx

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 // pages/dashboard.jsx import withAuth from 'HOC/withAuth.js' const Dashboard = ({ user }) => { return ( <div> <h1>Dashboard</h1> <h2>{user.name}</h2> </div> ) } export default withAuth(Dashboard)

Notice that we are importing withAuth.jsx and exporting the page by passing it as an argument. That is all we need to do for our pages.


In our withAuth.jsx

Iā€™ll show you two methods of implementations:

  • Method 1: We donā€™t verify the token
  • Method 2: We verify the token

Method 1: (We donā€™t verify the token)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 // HOC/withAuth.jsx import { useRouter } from 'next/router' const withAuth = (WrappedComponent) => { return (props) => { // checks whether we are on client / browser or server. if (typeof window !== 'undefined') { const Router = useRouter() const accessToken = localStorage.getItem('accessToken') // If there is no access token we redirect to "/" page. if (!accessToken) { Router.replace('/') return null } // If this is an accessToken we just render the component that was passed with all its props return <WrappedComponent {...props} /> } // If we are on server, return null return null } } export default withAuth

Method 2: We need to verify the token.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 // HOC/withAuth.jsx import { useRouter } from 'next/router' import { useEffect, useState } from 'react' import verifyToken from 'services/verifyToken' const withAuth = (WrappedComponent) => { return (props) => { const Router = useRouter() const [verified, setVerified] = useState(false) useEffect(async () => { const accessToken = localStorage.getItem('accessToken') // if no accessToken was found,then we redirect to "/" page. if (!accessToken) { Router.replace('/') } else { // we call the api that verifies the token. const data = await verifyToken(accessToken) // if token was verified we set the state. if (data.verified) { setVerified(data.verified) } else { // If the token was fraud we first remove it from localStorage and then redirect to "/" localStorage.removeItem('accessToken') Router.replace('/') } } }, []) if (verified) { return <WrappedComponent {...props} /> } else { return null } } } export default withAuth

Footers:

  1. React Higher-Order Components
  2. User authentication in NodeJS

Wasnā€™t that easy!

I hope this blog helped you. If you got any queries or feedback then let me know šŸ˜€


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