Rust-auth-example

This repository aims to represent a simple authentication flow using Rust and Actix-web, with a PostgreSQL database and a sveltekit frontend.

The Goal

The goal of this repository is to provide a simple example of how to implement session-based authentication in Rust & Actix. This repository will be used as a reference for future projects. This repository will also be used as a reference for future blog posts.

This repository also aims to provide examples of how to use the following technologies:

• Diesel
• Actix
• Juniper
• Sveltekit
• Tailwind
• DaisyUI

As well as provide examples of idiomatic Rust practices.

This repository aims to grow over time to include more features and more technologies that are commonly used in web stacks and Rust projects.

The project consists of a actix-hosted static sveltekit SPA while still maintaining the Vite development server for better development experience. See the 'How to run' and 'Developement' sections below

The Stack

The Backend

• Diesel will be used as an ORM to interact with the database.
  • Argon2 will be used to hash passwords.
• Actix web will be used as a web framework.
  • Actix-session will be used to manage sessions.
  • Actix-cors will be used to manage CORS.
• Juniper will be used as a GraphQL framework.

The Frontend

• Sveltekit will be used as a frontend framework.
• Tailwind will be used as a CSS framework.
• DaisyUI will be used for additional tailwind components.
• We will use normal fetch requests to interact with the backend.

How to run

Docker

• Install Docker
• Run docker build -t rust-actix-auth-flow-example . to build the image
• run docker run -p 8000:8000 rust-actix-auth-flow-example:latest to run the image and expose the port
• The backend will be running on localhost:8000 and will statically serve the frontend on the same port
• head to localhost:8000 to see the frontend and interact with the backend

Alternatively you can run the backend and frontend separately and set up the database manually

Database

• Install PostgreSQL
• Create a database named rust-auth-example
• Create a superuser(to avoid permission issues) named example with (optionally) no password.
• update the env file with the correct database credentials in the case where you want a custom username and password and database name

Frontend

• Install Node.js
• Run npm install to install the dependencies
• Run npm build to build the frontend
• The frontend will be statically hosted by the backend so they have the same domain

Backend

• Install Rust and Cargo
• Install Diesel CLI (cargo install diesel_cli --no-default-features --features postgres)(make sure you have the postgres-libs installed)
• Cookie same site is set to strict when running in production mode.
• Run ENV=prod cargo run --release to run the backend, the migrations will automatically apply.
• The backend will be running on localhost:8000
• head to 'localhost:8000' to interact with the frontend

How to use

Frontend

• The frontend is a simple login and register page.
• The frontend will send a request to the backend to register a user.
• The frontend will send a request to the backend to login a user.
• The frontend will send a request to the backend to get the current user.
• The frontend will send a request to the backend to logout a user.

Backend

• The backend will handle the requests from the frontend.
• The backend will register a user.
• The backend will login a user.
• The backend will get the current user.
• The backend will logout a user.

Development

There are some weird issues with vite and firefox, so I recommend using chrome for development. I will try to fix this in the future.

Database

• Install PostgreSQL
• Create a database named rust-auth-example
• Create a superuser(to avoid permission issues) named example with (optionally) no password.
• update the env file with the correct database credentials in the case where you want a custom username and password and database name

Backend

• Install Rust and Cargo
• Install Diesel CLI (cargo install diesel_cli --no-default-features --features postgres)(make sure you have the postgres-libs installed)
• set up the DATABASE_URL environment variable in the .env file to point to the database
• Run diesel migration run to run the migrations
• Run cargo run to run the backend
• The backend will be running on localhost:8000
• Cookie security is set to lax different when running in development mode

Frontend

• Install Node.js
• Run npm install to install the dependencies
• Run npm run dev to run vite and start a development server
• it will be running on localhost:5173
• Requests will automatically be routed to the backend on localhost:8000