Vertx SockJs Eventbus Authentication

Question

I'm trying to make a sock.js connection from the frontend to the vertx backend.

my initial try looked like this:

let token = '<the token>';
let data = {'Authorization' : 'Bearer ' + token};
let eb = new EventBus("http://localhost:8080/eventbus");
  eb.onopen = function () {
  eb.registerHandler('notifications', data, (err, msg) =>  {
    // handle the response
  });
}

this doesn't work since I need to send the auth data on EventBus creation, even though the official sock.js documentation states that this is not supported. Obviously now sending new EventBus("http://localhost:9090/eventbus", data) doesn't work either.

https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-node#authorisation

my backend handler for this:

final BridgeOptions bridgeOptions = new BridgeOptions()
  .addOutboundPermitted(new PermittedOptions().setAddress("notifications"))

final SockJSHandler sockJSHandler = SockJSHandler.create(vertx).bridge(bridgeOptions, event -> {
  event.complete(true);
});

router.route("/eventbus/*").handler(ctx -> {
  String token = ctx.request().getHeader("Authorization"); // null
});
router.route("/eventbus/*").handler(sockJSHandler);

whatever I tried the header field Authroization is always null.

What is the standard way to authenticate the sock.js connection and register to an eventbus request in vertx?

Answer 1

SockJS uses WebSockets by default. You can't add custom headers (Authorization, etc) using JavaScript WebSocket API. Read this thread for more explanation.

I see 2 ways, how you can add authorization:

1. Just add token parameter to URL:

   let eb = new EventBus("http://localhost:8080/eventbus?token=" + token);
   

   and here's how you can get it on a server:

   String token = ctx.request().getParam("token");
   

2. Send authorization message after connecting to the server. It can be some JSON object, which contains token field.

I think, 1st option is enough, however, 2nd one can be harder to implement in terms of Event Bus and SockJS.