node-argon2 VS Passport

❓ Why is hashing and salting passwords mandatory? A salt is simply a random data used as an additional input to the hashing function to safeguard your password. The random string from the salt makes the hash unpredictable. A password hash involves converting the password into an alphanumeric string using specialized algorithms. Hashing and salting are irreversible and ensure that even if someone gains access to the hashed passwords, they will not be able to decrypt them to recover the original passwords. Hystorically bcrypt is recognized as the best hashing algorithm. However, in terms of robustness against all the new cryptographic attacks targeting hashing algorithms, the current clear winner is argon2. However, since the “youth" (2015) of this algorithm, I chose to use bcrypt

Argon2: this is the newest highly recommended algorithm, and recommended by OWASP. (Edit: originally linked to a low-download library.)

Though I am using bcrypt to hash passwords, recommended approach currently is argon2

As per security.stackexchange.com the recommended number of rounds for Bcrypt is a number such that it takes atleast 250 ms to hash your password. Argon2 on the other hand takes multiple parameters it seems. What is the equivalent configuration you need for Argon2? I am talking about an express webserver here with passportjs if that helps

If you already have Bcrypt & want to start converting to Argon2, check out this guide → https://github.com/ranisalt/node-argon2/wiki/Migrating-from-another-hash-function

You can look at the argon2 npm (https://www.npmjs.com/package/argon2).

Next, use something like https://www.npmjs.com/package/passport, this is authentication middleware, and it works similarly for different authentication providers. Carefully read the documentation. OAuth is complicated, but that's because it solves a complicated problem

Passport is outdated and the project has been more or less on a stand-still for years now. As of currently, there are more than 320 open issues and very few have been resolved within the last months. I'd highly advice you not to use Passport for your applications in 2023. You've received some great alternatives by others in the comments here.

lib: The lib folder, short for "library", is mostly used to store the actual source code of the package, but it can also be used to store third-party code, utilities and helpers. Example from passport.

Research - there's github and stackoverflow documentation saying this is part of passport.js 0.6.0 that can be resolved by turning logout into a callback function (I was not the first person to encounter this error).

passport for authentication

I went down the rabbithole of using next-auth (now authjs) for a recent project. Having used Passport.js [1] for Oauth2 the last time I was doing node.js ~3 years ago, I found this library to have many footguns as comments/answers on SO and Github.

Seems like many people are trying to shoehorn their codebase [2] (!!) to make it work with the way the library manages sign-in flow, redirects, cookies, logout, etc. [3]

These were solved problems in the MEAN stack era with middlewares, but now that Next.js/react is the trend, people are doing everything they can to make it work - from relaxing security configs, to stashing things in the JWT just so some callback can get an additional piece of data.

[1] https://github.com/jaredhanson/passport

Passport to act as auth middleware to authenticate requests Passport

Checkout using NestJS that uses Passport or just checkout Passport