This example demonstrates how to use Express 4.x and Passport to log users in with Facebook. Use this example as a starting point for your own web applications.

To get started with this example, clone the repository and install the dependencies.

$ git clone [email protected]:passport/express-4.x-facebook-example.git
$ cd express-4.x-facebook-example
$ npm install

This example requires credentials from Facebook, which can be obtained by creating an app in the App Dashboard. The OAuth redirect URI of the app should be set to: http://localhost:3000/oauth2/redirect/www.facebook.com

Once credentials have been obtained, create a .env file and add the following environment variables:

FACEBOOK_CLIENT_ID={{INSERT_APP_ID_HERE}}
FACEBOOK_CLIENT_SECRET={{INSERT_APP_SECRET_HERE}}

Start the server.

$ npm start

Navigate to http://localhost:3000.

This example illustrates how to use Passport and the passport-facebook strategy within an Express application to log users in with Facebook.

The example builds upon the scaffolding created by Express generator, and uses EJS as a view engine and plain CSS for styling. This scaffolding was generated by executing:

$ express --view ejs express-4.x-facebook-example

The example uses SQLite for storing user accounts. SQLite is a lightweight database that works well for development, including this example.

Added to the scaffolding are files which add authentication to the application.

• boot/db.js

  This file initializes the database by creating the tables used to store user accounts and credentials.

• boot/auth.js

  This file initializes Passport. It configures the Facebook strategy and supplies the serialization functions used for session management.

• routes/auth.js

  This file defines the routes used for authentication. In particular, there are three routes used to authenticate with Facebook:

  • GET /login

    This route renders a page that prompts the user to login with Facebook.

  • GET /login/federated/www.facebook.com

    This route begins the authentication sequence by redirecting the user to Facebook.

  • POST /oauth2/redirect/www.facebook.com

    This route completes the authentication sequence when Facebook redirects the user back to the application. When a new user logs in, a user account is automatically created and their Facebook account is linked. When an existing user returns, they are logged in to their linked account.

The Unlicense