I'm trying to write middleware for authentication. And I want this if statement to redirect the user to '/' if they're not logged in. If they're logged in, I wan't to redirect them to '/news'.

/*Simplified for this example*/

if(rs.authenticated === true) {
    next();
} else {
    res.redirect('/');
}

Is there a way to do this inside of these if statements? Or do I have to write a new method? I've tried several ways with if statements but I just get redirect loops.

I'm trying to write middleware for authentication. And I want this if statement to redirect the user to '/' if they're not logged in. If they're logged in, I wan't to redirect them to '/news'.

/*Simplified for this example*/

if(rs.authenticated === true) {
    next();
} else {
    res.redirect('/');
}

Is there a way to do this inside of these if statements? Or do I have to write a new method? I've tried several ways with if statements but I just get redirect loops.

• javascript
• http-redirect
• express

2 Answers 2

The standard pattern would be for all pages requiring a logged-in user to use a middleware that verifies a logged-in user and redirects to / if they are not logged in.

function loggedIn(req, res, next) {
  if(req.authenticated === true) {
    next();
  } else {
    res.redirect('/');
  }
}

app.get('/news', loggedIn, newsRoute);
app.get('/', homeRoute);

Your problem is you are using a middleware for all routes, when you really only want to use it for protected routes, which is where your redirect loop is happening. If you want to send logged-in users to '/news' instead of '/', you can either just render the right template or do a conditional redirect in there.

function homeRoute(req, res) {
  if (req.authenticated) {
      return res.redirect('/news');
  }
  res.render('home');
}

You want to introduce a small middleware for checking if the user is logged in. You set it up on a route handler level.

Please see those SO answers:

javascript node.js next()

How does Express/Connect middleware work?

What is the parameter "next" used for in Express?