Setting HTTP headers

Question

Never mind, I figured it out - I used the Set() method on Header() (doh!)

My handler looks like this now:

func saveHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    // allow cross domain AJAX requests
    w.Header().Set("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*")
}

Maybe this will help someone as caffeine deprived as myself sometime :)

All of the above answers are wrong because they fail to handle the OPTIONS preflight request, the solution is to override the mux router's interface. See AngularJS $http get request failed with custom header (alllowed in CORS)

func main() {
    r := mux.NewRouter()
    r.HandleFunc("/save", saveHandler)
    http.Handle("/", &MyServer{r})
    http.ListenAndServe(":8080", nil);

}

type MyServer struct {
    r *mux.Router
}

func (s *MyServer) ServeHTTP(rw http.ResponseWriter, req *http.Request) {
    if origin := req.Header.Get("Origin"); origin != "" {
        rw.Header().Set("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", origin)
        rw.Header().Set("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "POST, GET, OPTIONS, PUT, DELETE")
        rw.Header().Set("Access-Control-Allow-Headers",
            "Accept, Content-Type, Content-Length, Accept-Encoding, X-CSRF-Token, Authorization")
    }
    // Stop here if its Preflighted OPTIONS request
    if req.Method == "OPTIONS" {
        return
    }
    // Lets Gorilla work
    s.r.ServeHTTP(rw, req)
}

Do not use '*' for Origin, until You really need a completely public behavior.
As Wikipedia says:

"The value of "*" is special in that it does not allow requests to supply credentials, meaning HTTP authentication, client-side SSL certificates, nor does it allow cookies to be sent."

That means, you'll get a lot of errors, especially in Chrome when you'll try to implement for example a simple authentication.

Here is a corrected wrapper:

// Code has not been tested.
func addDefaultHeaders(fn http.HandlerFunc) http.HandlerFunc {
    return func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
        if origin := r.Header.Get("Origin"); origin != "" {
            w.Header().Set("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", origin)
        }
        w.Header().Set("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "POST, GET, OPTIONS, PUT, DELETE")
        w.Header().Set("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "Content-Type, Content-Length, Accept-Encoding, X-CSRF-Token")
        w.Header().Set("Access-Control-Allow-Credentials", "true")
        fn(w, r)
    }
}

And don't forget to reply all these headers to the preflight OPTIONS request.

If you don't want to override your router (if you don't have your app configured in a way that supports this, or want to configure CORS on a route by route basis), add an OPTIONS handler to handle the pre flight request.

Ie, with Gorilla Mux your routes would look like:

accounts := router.Path("/accounts").Subrouter()
accounts.Methods("POST").Handler(AccountsCreate)
accounts.Methods("OPTIONS").Handler(AccountsCreatePreFlight)

Note above that in addition to our POST handler, we're defining a specific OPTIONS method handler.

And then to actual handle the OPTIONS preflight method, you could define AccountsCreatePreFlight like so:

// Check the origin is valid.
origin := r.Header.Get("Origin")
validOrigin, err := validateOrigin(origin)
if err != nil {
    return err
}

// If it is, allow CORS.
if validOrigin {
    w.Header().Set("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", origin)
    w.Header().Set("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "POST")
    w.Header().Set("Access-Control-Allow-Headers",
        "Accept, Content-Type, Content-Length, Accept-Encoding, X-CSRF-Token, Authorization")
}

What really made this all click for me (in addition to actually understanding how CORS works) is that the HTTP Method of a preflight request is different from the HTTP Method of the actual request. To initiate CORS, the browser sends a preflight request with HTTP Method OPTIONS, which you have to handle explicitly in your router, and then, if it receives the appropriate response "Access-Control-Allow-Origin": origin (or "*" for all) from your application, it initiates the actual request.

I also believe that you can only do "*" for standard types of requests (ie: GET), but for others you'll have to explicitly set the origin like I do above.

Set a proper golang middleware, so you can reuse on any endpoint.

Helper Type and Function

type Adapter func(http.Handler) http.Handler
// Adapt h with all specified adapters.
func Adapt(h http.Handler, adapters ...Adapter) http.Handler {
    for _, adapter := range adapters {
        h = adapter(h)
    }
    return h
}

Actual middleware

func EnableCORS() Adapter {
    return func(h http.Handler) http.Handler {
        return http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

            if origin := r.Header.Get("Origin"); origin != "" {
                w.Header().Set("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", origin)
                w.Header().Set("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "POST, GET, OPTIONS, PUT, DELETE")
                w.Header().Set("Access-Control-Allow-Headers",
                    "Accept, Content-Type, Content-Length, Accept-Encoding, X-CSRF-Token, Authorization")
            }
            // Stop here if its Preflighted OPTIONS request
            if r.Method == "OPTIONS" {
                return
            }
            h.ServeHTTP(w, r)
        })
    }
}

Endpoint

REMEBER! Middlewares get applyed on reverse order( ExpectGET() gets fires first)

mux.Handle("/watcher/{action}/{device}",Adapt(api.SerialHandler(mux),
    api.EnableCORS(),
    api.ExpectGET(),
))

I create wrapper for this case:

func addDefaultHeaders(fn http.HandlerFunc) http.HandlerFunc {
    return func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
        w.Header().Set("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*")
        fn(w, r)
    }
}