Passport.js - Error: failed to serialize user into session

Question

I got a problem with the Passport.js module and Express.js.

This is my code and I just want to use a hardcoded login for the first try.

I always get the message:

I searched a lot and found some posts in stackoverflow but I didnt get the failure.

Error: failed to serialize user into session
    at pass (c:\Development\private\aortmann\bootstrap_blog\node_modules\passport\lib\passport\index.js:275:19)

My code looks like this.

'use strict';

var express = require('express');
var path = require('path');
var fs = require('fs');
var passport = require('passport');
var LocalStrategy = require('passport-local').Strategy;
var nodemailer = require('nodemailer');

var app = express();

module.exports = function setupBlog(mailTransport, database){
var config = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync('./blog.config'));

app.set('view options', {layout: false});

app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, '../', 'resources', 'html')));


app.use(express.bodyParser());
app.use(express.cookieParser());
app.use(express.session({ secret: 'secret' }));
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());


app.get('/blog/:blogTitle', function(req, res) {
  var blogTitle = req.params.blogTitle;
  if(blogTitle === 'newest'){
    database.getLatestBlogPost(function(post) {
      res.send(post);
    });
  } else {
    database.getBlogPostByTitle(blogTitle, function(blogPost) {
      res.send(blogPost);
    });
  }
});

passport.use(new LocalStrategy(function(username, password, done) {
  // database.login(username, password, done);
  if (username === 'admin' && password === 'admin') {
    console.log('in');
    done(null, { username: username });
  } else {
    done(null, false);
  }
}));

app.post('/login', passport.authenticate('local', {
  successRedirect: '/accessed',
  failureRedirect: '/access'
}));





app.listen(8080);
console.log('Blog is running on port 8080');

}();

Thanks.

Answer 1

It looks like you didn't implement passport.serializeUser and passport.deserializeUser. Try adding this:

passport.serializeUser(function(user, done) {
  done(null, user);
});

passport.deserializeUser(function(user, done) {
  done(null, user);
});

Answer 2

If you decide not to use sessions, you could set the session to false

app.post('/login', passport.authenticate('local', {
  successRedirect: '/accessed',
  failureRedirect: '/access',
  session: false
}));

Answer 3

Sounds like you missed a part of the passportjs setup, specifically these two methods:

passport.serializeUser(function(user, done) {
    done(null, user._id);
    // if you use Model.id as your idAttribute maybe you'd want
    // done(null, user.id);
});

passport.deserializeUser(function(id, done) {
  User.findById(id, function(err, user) {
    done(err, user);
  });
});

I added the bit about ._id vs. .id but this snippet is from the Configure Section of docs, give that another read and good luck :)

Answer 4

Here an working but still lazy way to use sessions and still "serialisize" the values.

var user_cache = {};

passport.serializeUser(function(user, next) {
  let id = user._id;
  user_cache[id] = user;
  next(null, id);
});

passport.deserializeUser(function(id, next) {
  next(null, user_cache[id]);
});

in case or weird errors just ask yourself: "Do I rlly set '_id' in my user object?" - in most cases you dont. So use a proper attribute as key.

Answer 5

Using Promise with serializeUser & deserializeUser:

passport.serializeUser((user, done) => {
  done(null, user.id);
});

passport.deserializeUser((id, done) => {
  // console.log(`id: ${id}`);
  User.findById(id)
    .then((user) => {
      done(null, user);
    })
    .catch((error) => {
      console.log(`Error: ${error}`);
    });
});

Please see my github repo for a full code example how to solve this issue.

Answer 6

in passport.use('local-login'...)/ or /('local-singup'...)

if err you have to return "false" err {return done(null, req.flash('megsign', 'Username already exists #!#'));} true {return done(null, false, req.flash('megsign', 'Username already exists #!#'));}