Send silent request to refresh tokens - vue.js

Question

I am using Vue.js in frontend and JWT based authentication system. I have refresh tokens and access tokens. Access tokens have short amount of expiration time whereas refresh tokens have way longer. I want to send a request to server to refresh user's access token silently. I know when the access token will be expired. I want to refresh it 1 minute, or something, before it expires. How can I implement this? I thought to do it with putting a counter to my root component but I have no an exact solution. Thanks.

Answer 1

I have a similar problem as you do and found this Vue JWT Auth in the same search that pulled your answer. Implementation was a little more challenging than I had originally anticipated.
My application needs to have the JWT tokens refresh on page reloads and immediately before API calls. To do this I use axios to consume the APIs, allowing the use of an interceptor to check the validity of the tokens. To keep the UX smooth, I use the vuex store to maintain the tokens, escalating to localStorage, and then to making an external request for new tokens if each previous stage was not successful.
The components outside of the store look like:
src/utils/apiAxios.js: used to consume APIs
import axios from 'axios'
import config from '../../config'
import store from '../store'
const apiAxios = axios.create({
baseURL: `${config.dev.apiURL}api/`,
timeout: 1000,
headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/json'}
})
// before any API call make sure that the access token is good
apiAxios.interceptors.request.use(function () {
store.dispatch('isLoggedIn')
})
export default apiAxios
To src/main.js added these lines:
import store from './store'
router.beforeEach((to, from, next) => {
let publicPages = ['/auth/login/', '/auth/register/']
let authRequired = !publicPages.includes(to.path)
let loggedIn = store.dispatch('isLoggedIn')
if (authRequired && !loggedIn) {
return next('/auth/login/')
}
next()
})
src/store/index.js:
import Vue from 'vue'
import Vuex from 'vuex'
import createLogger from 'vuex/dist/logger'
import auth from './modules/auth'
Vue.use(Vuex)
const debug = process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production'
export default new Vuex.Store({
modules: {
auth
},
strict: debug,
plugins: debug ? [createLogger()] : []
})
src/store/modules/auth.js:
import axios from 'axios'
import jwtDecode from 'jwt-decode'
import router from '../../utils/router'
import apiAxios from '../../utils/apiAxios'
import config from '../../../config'
export default {
state: {
authStatus: '',
jwt: {
refresh: '',
access: ''
},
endpoints: {
obtainJWT: config.dev.apiURL + 'auth/',
refreshJWT: config.dev.apiURL + 'auth/refresh/',
registerJWT: config.dev.apiURL + 'auth/register/',
revokeJWT: config.dev.apiURL + 'auth/revoke/',
verifyJWT: config.dev.apiURL + 'auth/verify/'
}
},
mutations: {
UPDATE_TOKEN (state, newToken) {
apiAxios.defaults.headers.common['Authorization'] = `Bearer ${newToken.access}`
localStorage.setItem('jwtAccess', newToken.access)
localStorage.setItem('jwtRefresh', newToken.refresh)
state.authStatus = 'success'
state.jwt = newToken
},
UPDATE_STATUS (state, statusUpdate) {
state.authStatus = statusUpdate
},
REVOKE_TOKEN (state) {
delete apiAxios.defaults.headers.common['Authorization']
localStorage.removeItem('jwtAccess')
localStorage.removeItem('jwtRefresh')
state.authStatus = ''
state.jwt = {
refresh: '',
access: ''
}
}
},
getters: {
authStatus: state => state.authStatus,
isLoggedIn: getters => {
// quick check of the state
return getters.authStatus === 'success'
}
},
actions: {
login ({ state, commit }, { email, password }) {
axios({
url: state.endpoints.obtainJWT,
method: 'POST',
data: {
email: email,
password: password
},
headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/json'}
})
.then((response) => {
commit('UPDATE_TOKEN', response.data)
})
.catch((error) => {
commit('UPDATE_STATUS', error)
console.log(error)
})
},
register ({ state, commit }, { email, password, firstName, lastName }) {
axios({
url: state.endpoints.registerJWT,
method: 'POST',
data: {
email: email,
password: password,
first_name: firstName,
last_name: lastName
},
headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/json'}
})
.then((response) => {
commit('UPDATE_TOKEN', response.data)
})
.catch((error) => {
commit('UPDATE_STATUS', error)
console.log(error)
})
},
logout ({ state, commit }) {
let refresh = localStorage.getItem('jwtRefresh')
axios({
url: state.endpoints.revokeJWT,
method: 'POST',
data: { token: refresh },
headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/json'}
})
.then(commit('REVOKE_TOKEN'))
.catch((error) => {
commit('UPDATE_STATUS', error)
console.log(error)
})
},
refreshTokens ({ state, commit }) {
let refresh = localStorage.getItem('jwtRefresh')
axios({
url: state.endpoints.refreshJWT,
method: 'POST',
data: {refresh: refresh},
headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/json'}
})
.then((response) => {
this.commit('UPDATE_TOKEN', response.data)
})
.catch((error) => {
commit('UPDATE_STATUS', error)
console.log(error)
})
},
verifyToken ({ state, commit, dispatch, getters }) {
let refresh = localStorage.getItem('jwtRefresh')
if (refresh) {
axios({
url: state.endpoints.verifyJWT,
method: 'POST',
data: {token: refresh},
headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/json'}
})
.then(() => {
// restore vuex state if it was lost due to a page reload
if (getters.authStatus !== 'success') {
dispatch('refreshTokens')
}
})
.catch((error) => {
commit('UPDATE_STATUS', error)
console.log(error)
})
return true
} else {
// if the token is not valid remove the local data and prompt user to login
commit('REVOKE_TOKEN')
router.push('/auth/login/')
return false
}
},
checkAccessTokenExpiry ({ state, getters, dispatch }) {
// inspect the store access token's expiration
if (getters.isLoggedIn) {
let access = jwtDecode(state.jwt.access)
let nowInSecs = Date.now() / 1000
let isExpiring = (access.exp - nowInSecs) < 30
// if the access token is about to expire
if (isExpiring) {
dispatch('refreshTokens')
}
}
},
refreshAccessToken ({ dispatch }) {
/*
* Check to see if the server thinks the refresh token is valid.
* This method assumes that the page has been refreshed and uses the
* #verifyToken method to reset the vuex state.
*/
if (dispatch('verifyToken')) {
dispatch('checkAccessTokenExpiry')
}
},
isLoggedIn ({ getters, dispatch }) {
/*
* This method reports if the user has active and valid credentials
* It first checks to see if there is a refresh token in local storage
* To minimize calls it checks the store to see if the access token is
* still valid and will refresh it otherwise.
*
* #isLoggedIn is used by the axios interceptor and the router to
* ensure that the tokens in the vuex store and the axios Authentication
* header are valid for page reloads (router) and api calls (interceptor).
*/
let refresh = localStorage.getItem('jwtRefresh')
if (refresh) {
if (getters.isLoggedIn) {
dispatch('checkAccessTokenExpiry')
} else {
dispatch('refreshAccessToken')
}
return getters.isLoggedIn
}
return false
}
}
}
I'm using django for my backend and django-rest-framework-simplejwt for the tokens. The returned JSON is formatted like:
{
access: "[JWT string]",
refresh: "[JWT string]"
}
with a token structure of:
header:
{
"typ": "JWT",
"alg": "HS256"
}
payload:
{
"token_type": "access",
"exp": 1587138279,
"jti": "274eb43bc0da429a825aa30a3fc23672",
"user_id": 1
}
When accessing the refresh endpoint, SimpleJWT requires in the data the refresh token be named refresh; for the verification and the revocation (blacklisting) endpoints the refresh token needs to be named token. Depending on what you are using for your backend will require modification from what I did.
The access token is only used in the api Authentication header and is updated when the mutations are called.
To get the token so I could decode it I used a simple shell script:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
EMAIL="my#email.com"
PASSWORD="aReallyBadPassword"
echo "API Login Token"
JSON_FMT='{"email":"%s","password":"%s"}'
JSON_FMT=` printf "$JSON_FMT" "$EMAIL" "$PASSWORD" `
curl \
--request POST \
--header Content-Type:application/json \
--data $JSON_FMT \
http://localhost:8000/api/auth/
echo ""