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Signed cookies give time-limited resource access to a set of files, regardless of whether the users have Google Accounts. Signed cookies are an alternative to signed URLs. Signed cookies protect access when separately signing tens or hundreds of URLs for each user isn't feasible in your application.
Cookies are simple, small files/data that are sent to client with a server request and stored on the client side. Every time the user loads the website back, this cookie is sent with the request. This helps us keep track of the user's actions.
js. Cookies are small data that are stored on a client side and sent to the client along with server requests. Cookies have various functionality, they can be used for maintaining sessions and adding user-specific features in your web app.
Session cookies: Session cookies are the temporary cookies that mainly generated on the server-side. The main use of these cookies to track all the request information that has been made by the client overall particular session.
The cookie will still be visible, but it has a signature, so it can detect if the client modified the cookie.
It works by creating a HMAC of the value (current cookie), and base64 encoded it. When the cookie gets read, it recalculates the signature and makes sure that it matches the signature attached to it.
If it does not match, then it will give an error.
If you want to hide the contents of the cookie as well, you should encrypt it instead (or just stores it in the server side session). I'm not sure if there is middleware for that already out there or not.
Edit
And to create a signed cookie you would use
res.cookie('name', 'value', {signed: true})
And to access a signed cookie use the signedCookies object of req:
req.signedCookies['name']
Yup like emostar mentions it's simply to ensure that a value has not been tampered with. It's placed in a different object (req.signedCookies) to differentiate between the two, allowing the developer to show intent. If they were stored in req.cookies along with the others someone could simply craft an unsigned cookie of the same name, defeating the whole purpose of them.
I have been searching pretty extensive for a good answer to this...
And looking at the source code of cookie-signature, that is used by cookie-parser to sign the signed cookies have given me a better understanding of what a signed cookie is.
val is of course the value of the cookie, and secret is the string you add as option to cookie-parser
https://github.com/visionmedia/node-cookie-signature/blob/master/index.js#L16
I used cookie-parser 1.4.4 version.
I could add signed cookies and signed cookie encrypted in browser, If i try to edit signed cookie using editThisCookie (chrome plugin) then cookie-parser detect external change and then set false as value.
response.cookie('userId',401,{signed: true})
Response header in browser,appear as
Set-Cookie: empId=s%3A101.US2oSV4TSvfkvvEQ5fj1sXsjj8rNxx2ph4VdHNTuKX8; Path=/
Get signed cookie
request.signedCookies
https://gist.github.com/dineshbalaji/607d166f0240f932a5cb02099b0ece4c
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