Implement Passport Authentication with Local Strategy

Passport authentication

Previously, we learned to create a login endpoint and generate a JWT for authentication in NestJS. As applications grow in complexity, more sophisticated security requirements might be necessary. With various strategies, Passport offers rich features and flexibility for handling authentication challenges in more complex scenarios.

Passport is a powerful middleware that simplifies user authentication and enables various strategies for secure access control. The local strategy refers to a method of authentication where users log in using their username and password within the application.

In this lesson, we’ll learn the fundamental concepts of Passport authentication and implement a local strategy.

Passport and strategy

Passport is a popular NodeJS-based library with an active community and a wide range of authentication strategies. NestJS streamlines the integration of Passport via the @nestjs/passport module, simplifying the inclusion of Passport into the NestJS application. This module offers a decorator-based syntax for Passport, ensuring an intuitive and straightforward implementation of authentication strategies with minimal boilerplate code.

Without the @nestjs/passport module, we would need to add more manual configuration, leading to an inconsistent and verbose authentication setup when using Passport. By adopting this module, we harness the full power of Passport in a NestJS-friendly way.

In Passport, a strategy is a predefined method for handling different types of authentication. Passport provides many strategies—such as local (username and password), OAuth, or JWT—enabling flexible and extensible authentication mechanisms. OAuth is an open standard for secure and delegated access, allowing users to grant third-party applications limited access to their resources without exposing credentials.

Below is a summary of these commonly used Passport strategies: