I am working on my first React application which consumes a REST API. Certain information within the API isn't accessible unless authorized by logging in, and the API returns an HTTPOnly cookie as a response upon a successful POST request to the login endpoint; I'm using axios, to accomplish this. It's possible to view the cookie within the network tab of the browser and it also successfully logged to the console, but I'm unsure of how I can actually store the information returned from the API within my react app. The cookie vanishes from the browser when I leave the page after logging in. Is there a way I can implement this cookie into the React App's memory/state so it can be sent and used upon future requests in the application? I've scoured for a few days and seen various methods to access a returned JWT, but most of them include using LocalStorage which isn't secure or are from deprecated tutorials many years ago. After logging in, the JWT returned from the API will need to be sent back upon future requests, which will also be made using axios. All help is much appreciated.
1 Answer
You can configure the expiry of the HttpOnly cookie. It sounds like your server is currently storing the JWTs in HttpOnly session cookies. If you are using Chrome, you can confirm this by looking at the "Expires / Max-Age" column in the Application tab. If it is a session cookie, the field will be unspecified, and the cookie disappears once you end your browsing session. If you set the expiry of the HttpOnly cookie to say a year, then the cookie persists across browsing sessions.
2 Comments
WenisOfLoki
Thank you for your comment. I checked and noticed that it's stored in the Network tab as a response cookie. It expires in one day so the expiration seems to not be the issue either. I think the issue comes in with storing/accessing the API's response cookie in the actual React app.
user3856437
How did you store it? If the app is refreshed, is the session being restored?