# Add authentication for React app **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Created:** [January 12, 2017, 11:31pm UTC](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/t/add-authentication-for-react-app/76002 "2017-01-12T23:31:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![60noypearl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/ecb155/32.png) [@60noypearl](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/u/60noypearl)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 11:31pm UTC](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/t/add-authentication-for-react-app/76002/1 "2017-01-12T23:31:29Z")
I started learning React two weeks ago. I made a simple project, navigating with react-router between the pages. I have Node+Express+Mongo as backend API and it’s working with Android app which I developed. It is an admin panel with login by password[only]. After the admin is logged in there is a panel with a sidebar displaying information from my server. I developed most of the view (the home page and login page). I am using Webpack and Webpack-dev-server so that I don’t have a Node-Express server with server.js file. I have searched for ways to authenticate the admin login, I tried to make Passport.js working with my React web app but I don’t know where to authenticate the user. Simply put, I find a lot of tutorials using Node Express, checking if the user is logged in and displaying home.html or login.html page but since I am using React, displaying index.html with static content (components) with no Node server - I don’t know where to make the authentication. Here is a screenshot of my project folder: ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/freecodecamp/original/3X/0/1/011ebb0bf34c4031c75e27cea4ae1fe228096f79.png) ---
**Author:** ![Oxyrus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/freecodecamp/user_avatar/forum.freecodecamp.org/oxyrus/32/69509_2.png) [@Oxyrus](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/u/Oxyrus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 11:47pm UTC](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/t/add-authentication-for-react-app/76002/2 "2017-01-12T23:47:05Z")
What you usually do is the following: 1. Create a form, in which the user is able to write his email/username and password, send the data as a POST request to your API (Express), which would then hash the password and compare it with the hash stored in your database. 2. If the credentials are correct, you send a JWT, then the React application would store it in the localStorage of the browser, so subsequent requests would add a header like `Bearer: /6das#hkhsad%m=1$n4432` or something similar. I’ve just found this article, but seems like it uses Express and React, check it out [https://vladimirponomarev.com/blog/authentication-in-react-apps-creating-components](https://vladimirponomarev.com/blog/authentication-in-react-apps-creating-components) ---
**Author:** ![60noypearl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/ecb155/32.png) [@60noypearl](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/u/60noypearl)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 12:06am UTC](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/t/add-authentication-for-react-app/76002/3 "2017-01-13T00:06:17Z")
Ok, I checked out the article. It indeed uses React with Express and I tried to add Express to my project. I couldn’t do that and I don’t understand how can I add now Express after it already runs on Webpack-dev-server. Could you point out the changes I should apply in order to move from Webpack dev server to Express server? ---
**Author:** ![Oxyrus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/freecodecamp/user_avatar/forum.freecodecamp.org/oxyrus/32/69509_2.png) [@Oxyrus](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/u/Oxyrus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 12:13am UTC](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/t/add-authentication-for-react-app/76002/4 "2017-01-13T00:13:25Z")
In theory, webpack-dev-server is an Express.js server, which serves a webpack bundle, but without the code I can’t tell but guess. ---
**Author:** ![JohnnyBizzel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/freecodecamp/user_avatar/forum.freecodecamp.org/johnnybizzel/32/37661_2.png) [@JohnnyBizzel](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/u/JohnnyBizzel)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 12:18am UTC](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/t/add-authentication-for-react-app/76002/5 "2017-01-13T00:18:34Z")
I am in the same boat. I tried the Auth0 authentication service and got nowhere fast. Also tried doing the authentication with just Node but I feel lost in a quagmire. I think the 2000 hours will be spent on this one project. ---
**Author:** ![ILM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/freecodecamp/user_avatar/forum.freecodecamp.org/ilm/32/363239_2.png) [@ILM](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/u/ILM)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 5:09pm UTC](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/t/add-authentication-for-react-app/76002/6 "2021-01-16T17:09:50Z")