[Blog] How to register authentication strategies

[dhmlau]

Description

The authentication package is being updated with

• a new authentication strategy interface Add abstraction for authentication strategy #2466
• a new authentication action Refactor the authentication action to be a common one. #2467
• extensionPoint and extensionFor decorators which allow the registration of authentication strategy implementations Extension point for registering the authentication strategies #2312
• a new authentication strategy resolver Extension point for registering the authentication strategies #2312 + Access modified request in Authentication Provider #2367 which discovers registered authentication strategies

The shopping cart example will also be given an overhaul to utilize the new capabilities of the authentication package in loopbackio/loopback4-example-shopping#79 and will contain an example of a jwt authentication strategy being registered as an extension of the authentication strategy extension point.

Also #2312 will have light documentation on how to properly register authentication strategies.

So this blog would mention :

• that our authentication package has been updated with these new capabilities
• that we welcome community members to contribute new authentications strategies to the authenticate package
• that our passport strategy adapter is still available and works in the updated design
• links to documentation for understanding how strategies are registered
• link to the shopping cart example
• how the users/login endpoint in the shopping cart example wasn't decorated with a strategy, and the logic for validating user credentials occurred in the controller method, and a token service was used to create a JWT token
• show how the JWTAuthenticationStrategy in the shopping cart example was registered as an authentication strategy extension , and how the users/me endpoint was decorated with @authenticate('jwt') and how the JWTAuthenticationStrategy.authenticate() method will determine if the user is authorized to access this endpoint or not.

Acceptance Criteria

• Blog conforms to LoopBack team's blogging standards

[dhmlau]

@jannyHou @emonddr , please add the acceptance criteria. thanks.

[dhmlau]

closing as done.