firebase-token-generator
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A utility to generate signed Firebase Authentication Tokens
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# Firebase Token Generator - Node.js
[](https://travis-ci.org/firebase/firebase-token-generator-node)
[](http://badge.fury.io/gh/firebase%2Ffirebase-token-generator-node)
[Firebase Custom Login](https://www.firebase.com/docs/web/guide/simple-login/custom.html)
gives you complete control over user authentication by allowing you to authenticate users
with secure JSON Web Tokens (JWTs). The auth payload stored in those tokens is available
for use in your Firebase [security rules](https://www.firebase.com/docs/security/api/rule/).
This is a token generator library for [Node.js](http://nodejs.org/) which allows you to
easily create those JWTs.
## Installation
The Firebase Node.js token generator library is available via npm:
```bash
$ npm install firebase-token-generator --save
```
You can also download it via Bower:
```bash
$ bower install firebase-token-generator --save
```
## A Note About Security
**IMPORTANT:** Because token generation requires your Firebase Secret, you should only generate
tokens on *trusted servers*. Never embed your Firebase Secret directly into your application and
never share your Firebase Secret with a connected client.
## Generating Tokens
To generate tokens, you'll need your Firebase Secret which you can find by entering your Firebase
URL into a browser and clicking the "Secrets" tab on the left-hand navigation menu.
Once you've downloaded the library and grabbed your Firebase Secret, you can generate a token with
this snippet of Node.js code:
```js
var FirebaseTokenGenerator = require("firebase-token-generator");
var tokenGenerator = new FirebaseTokenGenerator("<YOUR_FIREBASE_SECRET>");
var token = tokenGenerator.createToken({uid: "1", some: "arbitrary", data: "here"});
```
The payload passed to `createToken()` is made available for use within your
security rules via the [`auth` variable](https://www.firebase.com/docs/security/api/rule/auth.html).
This is how you pass trusted authentication details (e.g. the client's user ID)
to your Firebase security rules. The payload can contain any data of your
choosing, however it must contain a "uid" key, which must be a string of less
than 256 characters. The generated token must be less than 1024 characters in
total.
## Token Options
A second `options` argument can be passed to `createToken()` to modify how Firebase treats the
token. Available options are:
* **expires** (Number) - A timestamp (as number of seconds since the epoch) denoting the time
after which this token should no longer be valid.
* **notBefore** (Number) - A timestamp (as number of seconds since the epoch) denoting the time
before which this token should be rejected by the server.
* **admin** (Boolean) - Set to `true` if you want to disable all security rules for this client.
This will provide the client with read and write access to your entire Firebase.
* **debug** (Boolean) - Set to `true` to enable debug output from your security rules. This
debug output will be automatically output to the JavaScript console. You should generally
*not* leave this set to `true` in production (as it slows down the rules implementation and
gives your users visibility into your rules), but it can be helpful for debugging.
Here is an example of how to use the second `options` argument:
```js
var FirebaseTokenGenerator = require("firebase-token-generator");
var tokenGenerator = new FirebaseTokenGenerator("<YOUR_FIREBASE_SECRET>");
var token = tokenGenerator.createToken(
{uid: "1", some: "arbitrary", data: "here"},
{admin: true}
);
```
## Testing and Compiling From Source
Prior to compiling from source, install all necessary dependencies:
```bash
$ git clone git@github.com:firebase/firebase-token-generator-node.git
$ git submodule update --init
$ npm install -g grunt-cli mocha phantomjs
$ npm install
$ grunt
```