node.js + express.js: session handling with mongodb/mongoose

Question

Right now i'm storing my session data in the "memory store" which comes bundled with connect(express). But I want/have to change this for production.

The application is using mongodb and I installed mongoose to handle all db-communications.

e.g. Connect to the DB after initializing my app:

var mongo = require('mongoose');
mongo.connect('mongodb://localhost/myDb');
mongo.connection.on('open', function () {
  app.listen(3000);
}

I found the connect-mongodb module, but I don't know how to implement it using mongoose, or if it's actually possible? I need to add something like this:

var mongoStore = require('connect-mongodb');
// ...
app.use(express.session({
  secret: 'topsecret',
  maxAge: new Date(Date.now() + 3600000),
  store: new mongoStore({ db: 'myDb' })
}));

or do I have to define my db connection a second time using the mongodb-module directly?

Solution 1

in the end i'm using a bit of every answer that was given before:

• i switched from connect-mongodb to connect-mongo module
• i'm using a general conf object to store my configuration data
• there are two db connections because it's easier to handle for me (maybe changed later on, if/when a new version of mongoose/express comes out)

requirements:

var express = require('express'),
    MongoStore = require('connect-mongo')(express),
    mongo = require('mongoose');

conf object:

var conf = {
  db: {
    db: 'myDb',
    host: '192.168.1.111',
    port: 6646,  // optional, default: 27017
    username: 'admin', // optional
    password: 'secret', // optional
    collection: 'mySessions' // optional, default: sessions
  },
  secret: '076ee61d63aa10a125ea872411e433b9'
};

then i can configure it like this:

app.configure(function(){
  // ...
  app.use(express.cookieParser());
  app.use(express.session({
    secret: conf.secret,
    maxAge: new Date(Date.now() + 3600000),
    store: new MongoStore(conf.db)
  }));
  // important that this comes after session management
  app.use(app.router);
  // ...
});

and finally connect to mongodb a second time using mongoose:

var dbUrl = 'mongodb://';
dbUrl += conf.db.username + ':' + conf.db.password + '@';
dbUrl += conf.db.host + ':' + conf.db.port;
dbUrl += '/' + conf.db.db;
mongo.connect(dbUrl);
mongo.connection.on('open', function () {
  app.listen(3000);
});

Solution 2

Please include

app.use(express.cookieParser());

directly before

app.use(express.session({

Otherwise throws error as below,

TypeError: Cannot read property 'connect.sid' of undefined

Solution 3

It looks like you could do this to setup connect-mongodb assuming your mongoose connection code above is run earlier:

app.use(express.session({
  secret: 'topsecret',
  maxAge: new Date(Date.now() + 3600000),
  store: new mongoStore({ db: mongoose.connections[0].db })
}));

Solution 4

So connect-mongodb does not use Mongoose, it uses the node-mongodb-native driver (i.e.: npm install mongodb). Mongoose also depends on this driver, so it should be present.

Looking at the code directly, you have to provide your DB connection information as a MongoStore object:

store: new mongoStore({ host: 'session_server', port: 27017, db: 'seesion', collection: 'sessions' })

Typically for this, you'll want to have some "config" object or variable that can be dynamically loaded (dev vs test vs prod). Then you pull the host/port/db/auth off of that config object.

Solution 5

For express 4x:

var express = require('express'),
    session = require('express-session'),
    MongoStore = require('connect-mongo')(session),
    mongo = require('mongoose');

var conf = {
  db: {
    db: 'myDb',
    host: '192.168.1.111',
    port: 6646,  // optional, default: 27017
    username: 'admin', // optional
    password: 'secret', // optional
    collection: 'mySessions' // optional, default: sessions
  },
  secret: '076ee61d63aa10a125ea872411e433b9'
};

app.configure(function(){
  app.use(express.cookieParser());
  app.use(session({
    secret: conf.secret,
    maxAge: new Date(Date.now() + 3600000),
    store: new MongoStore(conf.db)
  }));
});

var dbUrl = 'mongodb://';
dbUrl += conf.db.username + ':' + conf.db.password + '@';
dbUrl += conf.db.host + ':' + conf.db.port;
dbUrl += '/' + conf.db.db;
mongo.connect(dbUrl);
mongo.connection.on('open', function () {
  app.listen(3000);
});

session has been moved to it's own module, so you need to require it and use session when configuring the MongoStore.

View more solutions

Comments

[Philipp Kyeck]

you link to connect-mongo, i used connect-mongodb in the example. but they're almost identical, so i will check this out.

[Philipp Kyeck]

i'm using the express.session() in app.configure() before i connect to the DB. i think, i'll define a config object which contains all DB info and try to use connect-mongo (instead of connect-mongodb) - implementation looks easier than connect-mongodb

[Salida Software]

Good work! Only addition I have that was compounding my troubles is to make sure that your "app.use(app.router);" is placed after the "app.use(express.session...".

[Peter Downs]

For anyone trying to get this working recently: it seems that as of v0.1.9, you'll need to set express as a varilable (var express = require('express')) and then pass that to connect-mongo (var MongoStore = require('connect-mongo')(express)). This works because express exposes all of the underlying parts of connect, and connect-mongo is actually a function that takes the connect object as an argument.

[antitoxic]

That saves lives. The internet is wrong on this - there wasn't a single example from the top of the results even suggesting about this.

[Joscha]

Thank you so much - that fixed it!

[CommaToast]

In order to avoid EADDRINUSE errors I had to remove the "app.listen(3000)" line from the bottom section of code that you had, because I was already doing my .listen somewhere else. That part only needs to be done once and is for starting the actual express webserver itself -- not relevant per se to the mongodb connection. Just a note!

[Philipp Kyeck]

thanks for the hint but next time, just edit my answer and add the missing line so that others won't have to read another answer ...

[Hadesara]

Okay, I reached till here, but now how do I interact with the session? set and get values..

[ngChris]

@Hadesara There is excellent documentation on expressjs and sessions here: expressjs-book.com/forums/topic/…

[mauris]

the example in the github page doesn't tell how to use with mongoose. this example helped a lot.

[Kawd]

Hi there, I'm trying to understand express-session myself and I've run into an issue when ti comes to storing sessions in mongoDB - Do you think you could take a look here : stackoverflow.com/questions/32413051/… ? Thanks!

[David]

From repo mongoose-session, INACTIVE. Use connect-mongo instead. It's better anyways.

[User007]

In line 3, what exactly it means by (session) after require statement. Is it like (session) is passed to mongoStore