Passport req.user is undefined when using GitHub strategy

Question

I'm trying to set up Github authentication using passport.

app.js (where i set up middleware)

var createError = require('http-errors');
var express = require('express');
var path = require('path');
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
var logger = require('morgan');

const session = require('express-session');
const passport = require('passport');
const GitHubStrategy = require('passport-github').Strategy;


var indexRouter = require('./routes/index');

var app = express();
const helmet = require('helmet');

app.use(helmet());


const passportConfig = require('./config');

//================================PASSPORT CONFIG=======================    
app.use(session({
    secret: 'test1234',
    resave: false,
    saveUninitialized: true,
    cookie: { secure: true }
}));

app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());
passport.use(new GitHubStrategy(passportConfig,
    function (accessToken, refreshToken, profile, cb) {
        return cb(null, profile)
    }
));

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

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

// view engine setup
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'));
app.set('view engine', 'ejs');

app.use(logger('dev'));
app.use(express.json());
app.use(express.urlencoded({extended: false}));
app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));

app.use('/', indexRouter);

// catch 404 and forward to error handler
app.use(function (req, res, next) {
    next(createError(404));
});

// error handler
app.use(function (err, req, res, next) {
    // set locals, only providing error in development
    res.locals.message = err.message;
    res.locals.error = req.app.get('env') === 'development' ? err : {};

    // render the error page
    res.status(err.status || 500);
    res.render('error');
});

module.exports = app;

As you can see, I set up express session and use passport.initialize() and passport.session()

But when i try retrieving the req.user object in any of my routes, it returns undefined. Does anyone know what the reason for this might be?

Paresh Barad Paresh Barad · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-13T11:26:02

I think this is an issue of app.use(passport.session()); middleware, Manually saving the session before doing any action.

app.get('slack/callback', function(req,res){
    passport.authorize('slack');
    //Manually save session before redirect.
    req.session.save(function(){
        res.redirect('/someURL');
    });
})

Passport req.user is undefined when using GitHub strategy

1 Answers