React 18 Authentication with .NET 6.0 (ASP.NET Core) JWT API
In this tutorial we'll go through how to implement authentication with a React front-end app and .NET (ASP.NET Core) back-end API
The result is a simple full-stack login application with the front-end built with React 18 and the back-end built with .NET 6.0.
Tutorial Contents
- React 18 App Overview
- ASP.NET Core API Overview
- Download and Start the React 18 App
- Download and Start the ASP.NET Core API
- Connect the Front-End to the Back-End
React 18 Front-End App Overview
Front-end authentication app built with React 18.1.0 and Redux 4.2.0
The React app is pretty minimal and contains just 2 pages to demonstrate JWT authentication:
/login- public login page with username and password fields, on submit the page sends a POST request to the API to authenticate user credentials, on success the API returns a JWT token to make authenticated requests to secure API routes./- secure home page that displays a list of users fetched from a secure API endpoint using the JWT token received after successful login.
Complete documentation is available at React 18 + Redux - JWT Authentication Example & Tutorial.
ASP.NET Core Back-End API Overview
Authentication API built with .NET 6.0
The ASP.NET Core API has just two endpoints/routes to demonstrate authentication with JWT and accessing a restricted route with JWT:
/users/authenticate- public route that accepts HTTP POST requests containing the username and password in the body. If the username and password are correct then a JWT authentication token and the user details are returned./users- secure route that accepts HTTP GET requests and returns a list of all the users in the application if the HTTP Authorization header contains a valid JWT token. If there is no auth token or the token is invalid then a 401 Unauthorized response is returned.
Complete documentation is available at .NET 6.0 - JWT Authentication Tutorial with Example API.
Download and Start the React Auth App
Follow these steps to run the React front-end authentication app:
- Install Node.js and npm from https://nodejs.org.
- Download or clone the project source code from https://github.com/cornflourblue/react-18-redux-jwt-authentication-example
- Install all required npm packages by running
npm installfrom the command line in the project root folder (where the package.json is located). - Start the application by running
npm startfrom the command line in the project root folder. - Open a browser and go to the application at
http://localhost:3000
Fake backand API by default
The React authentication app runs with a fake backend by default to enable it to run completely in the browser without a real API, we'll switch to connect to the ASP.NET Core API below once it's up and running.
Download and Start the ASP.NET Core Auth API
Follow these steps to run the .NET 6.0 backend API:
- Install the .NET SDK from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download.
- Download or clone the project source code from https://github.com/cornflourblue/dotnet-6-jwt-authentication-api
- Start the api by running
dotnet runfrom the command line in the project root folder (where the WebApi.csproj file is located), you should see the messageNow listening on: http://localhost:4000.
Connect the Front-End with the Back-End
In the React auth app, remove or comment out the 2 lines below the comment // setup fake backend located in the /src/index.js file, then start the React app and it should now send requests to the ASP.NET Core authentication API.
That's it! You now have a full stack React + ASP.NET Core authentication application running.
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