Connectd Backend

Introduction

This is the backend repository for the practice project Connectd. Connectd is a personal CRM (customer relationship manager), created with React, Node.js, and MongoDB.

P.S. Connectd is a rewritten project. The original backend is written in Django and I was the frontend lead in the original project. The original team project is documented at: Confluence - Connectd CRM

• Frontend repository is located at: Frontend Repository

• Backend repository is located at: Backend Repository

• Frontend hosted on: Heroku - connectd-front

• Backend hosted on: Heroku - connectdcrm

About the backend server

The backend server of this project is built based on Node.js. The backend provides list of API endpoints to allow data exchange with frontend application, including get, create, update & delete user's connections, tasks, groups.

Table of contents

• Local Configuration
• Features
• API Endpoints
• Authentication System
• Module Structure
• Tool Stack
• Useful Links

Local Configuration:

Pre-requirement:

1. Node.js.
2. npm or yarn as the package manager.
3. Terminal
4. Git
5. A code editor (optional).
6. MongoDB connecting url, either locally or cloud.
7. Credential of google's Apis & service project
8. Please remove < secure >, < sameSite >, < httpOnly > flags in the session middleware configuration for local development

Steps:

1. Pull the backend repository from GitHub
2. In the folder of the project, run npm install or yarn to install all dependencies.
3. Run command node app.js to run the backend server,
   • By default, the server will run on port 5000 or process.env.PORT

Features

• User management
  • Register
  • Log in
  • Log out
• Authentication
  • cookie & session
  • google login enabled through Oauth2.0
  • password encryption, i.e. hash & slat
  • improved security. Apply flags such as: httpOnly, secure & samesite = none
• Connections / Tasks / Users
  • get
  • create
  • Update
  • Delete

API Endpoints

Authentication

Endpoint	HTTP Method	Description
auth/login	POST	Validate and log in the user
auth/logout	GET	Log out user with verification
auth/google	GET	navigate the user to google API
auth/google/callback	GET	callback routes from google

Connections

Endpoint	HTTP Method	Description
api/connections/:connectionId	DELETE	Remove a specific connection
api/connections	GET	get all connections of an user
api/connections/:connectionId	GET	get the detail of a single connection
api/connections/update	POST	update a single connection
api/connections/create	POST	create a new connection

Tasks

Endpoint	HTTP Method	Description
api/tasks/:taskId	DELETE	Remove a specific task
api/tasks/	GET	get all tasks of an user
api/tasks/:taskId	GET	get the detail of a single task
api/tasks/update	POST	update a single task
api/tasks/create	POST	create a new task

Users

Endpoint	HTTP Method	Description
api/users/password	POST	update user's password
api/users	DELETE	delete account
api/users	GET	get user's detial
api/users/update	POST	update user's detail
api/users/register	POST	register an user account

Authentication System

This branch of the project backend uses cookie & session to authenticate users. Initially, users can either log in to their account using email & password combined, or they can log in using their Google account. Once they are logged in, a cookie will be attached to their requests, which later is used to verify their identity and authenticate their requests.

Any requests that are not authorized will be rejected, such as:

• The cookie is missing in the request
• The user wants to GET, DELETE, UPDATE documents of other users
• The authenticaated user try to manipulate other user's documents

Module Structure

The file structure of this project is as follows:

Backend
 |  app.js
 |  package.json
 |  yarn.lock
 |  .env
 |  ...
 |
 └───api_routes: This folder contains all the routes and middleware used in these routes.
      |  authMiddleware.js
      |  authRoutes.js
      |  cnxRoutes.js
      |  taskRoutes.js
      |  userRoutes.js
 |
 └───config: This folder contains all configuration files
      |  databaseConfig.js
      |  passportConfig.js
 |
 └───encryption: This folder contains password encryption methods, i.e. hash & salt
      |  passwordEncrypt.js
 |
 └───models: This folder contains all data models that are used in the database (except sessions)
      |  cnxModel.js
      |  taskModel.js
      |  userModel.js

Tool Stack

Express has been chosen as the framework for backend development. Some main packages installed for various functionalities are listed below:

Package	Version	Notes
express	4.17.1	Backend web application framework
Mongoose	6.0.12	A MongoDB object modeling tool
passport	0.5.0	Authentication middleware
mongodb	4.1.4	NoSQL database
cors	2.8.5	Enable CORS with various options
passport-google-oauth20	2.0.0	Google Oauth2.0 strategy
passport-local	1.0.0	Local strategy, i.e. username & password

---

Useful Links

Git official website: https://git-scm.com/

VSCode official website: https://code.visualstudio.com/

NodeJS official website: https://nodejs.org/en/

Heroku official website: https://www.heroku.com/

Mongoose: https://mongoosejs.com/docs/