prevent a direct access to files using AngularJs and Node.js / Express

Question

Using Angular and Node.js / Express, is there a way to prevent a direct access to my partial .html files whilst still allowing the following route handling:

My Angular routes look like this:

$stateProvider.state('albums', {
  url: '/albums',
  templateUrl: '/public/albums',
  controller: 'AlbumsCtrl'
});

then my express app does the following:

app.get('/public/albums', function(req, res){
  res.sendfile('views/partials/albums.html');
});

This all works ok, but typing "mysite.com/public/albums" allows an access to the partial .html file. There still wouldn't be anything to see as the contents is loaded seperately and the user would need to be signed in for that, but I would still like to somehow prevent an access to this file.

Answer 1

You probably found an answer or a different method yourself, but if you want to do something like that there's actually a workaround:

The idea

You can use the httpRequestInterceptor to add a custom header on all the requests that are coming from angular. On the server side, you can just check if the request contains that header. If it doesn't, than you can redirect or send an error message.

The code

Client-side (Angularjs):

Create an interceptor:

myApp.factory('httpRequestInterceptor', function () {
    return {
        request: function (config) {
            config.headers['x-custom-header-name'] = 'something'
            return config
        }
    }
});

Add the interceptor to the $httpProvider interceptors:

myApp.config( function ($httpProvider) {
    $httpProvider.interceptors.push('httpRequestInterceptor')
});

Server side (node.js)

At the point when you want to start avoiding direct access, just put this code:

app.use(function (req, res, next) {
    if (!req.headers['x-custom-header-name']) {
        res.redirect('/'); //Or just do what you want to
    }
    next();
});

Or if you want to avoid the access on just one or some routes, you can modify the code changing

app.use(function (req, res, next) ...

with

app.use( 'route/no-direct-access', function (req, res, next) ...

The code for the interceptor came from this stackoverflow question:

Setting application wide HTTP headers in AngularJS

Hope that this can help someone! Bye!

Answer 2

Making a request in AngularJS for the path /foo/bar is the same as entering the URL domain.com/foo/bar.

You cannot prevent one and allow the other because in the end - they are requests to the server.

What you however can do is prevent unauthorized requests using a middleware. For example, only if user is administrator or only if user has logged in.

So, in your server you can write a code such as:

function ensureAuthenticated (request, response, next) {
    //Custom code - If request is authenticated
    return next();
    //if Not
    res.send(403, "Forbidden");
};

app.get('/public/albums', ensureAuthenticated, function (req, res) {
    //res.sendfile(filepath);
});