Okta Sign-In Widget and React

This guide will walk you through integrating authentication into a React app with Okta by performing these steps:

Add an OpenID Connect Client in Okta
Create a React App
Install Dependencies
Create a Widget Wrapper
Create Routes
Connect the Routes
Start Your App

Prerequisites

If you do not already have a Developer Edition Account, you can create one at https://developer.okta.com/signup/.

Add an OpenID Connect Client in Okta

Sign in to the Okta Developer Dashboard, and select Create New App
Choose Single Page App (SPA) as the platform, then populate your new OpenID Connect app with values similar to:

Setting	Value
App Name	OpenId Connect App (must be unique)
Login redirect URIs	`http://localhost:3000/implicit/callback`
Logout redirect URIs	`http://localhost:3000/login`
Allowed grant types	Authorization Code

Note: CORS is automatically enabled for the granted login redirect URIs.

Create a React App

To quickly create a React app, we recommend using Create React App.

npx create-react-app okta-app
cd okta-app

If you need more information, see the Create React App getting started guide.

Install Dependencies

A simple way to add authentication into a React app is using the Okta Sign-In Widget library. We can install it via npm:

cd okta-app
npm install @okta/okta-signin-widget

We'll also need @okta/okta-react and react-router-dom to manage our routes:

npm install @okta/okta-react react-router-dom

To provide a fully-featured and customizable sign-in experience, the Okta Sign-In Widget is available to handle User Lifecycle operations, MFA, and more. To render the Sign-In Widget in React, we must create a wrapper that allows us to treat it as a React component.

Create a src/OktaSignInWidget.js file:

// src/OktaSignInWidget.js

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import OktaSignIn from '@okta/okta-signin-widget';
import '@okta/okta-signin-widget/dist/css/okta-sign-in.min.css';

export default class OktaSignInWidget extends Component {
  componentDidMount() {
    const el = ReactDOM.findDOMNode(this);
    this.widget = new OktaSignIn({
      baseUrl: this.props.baseUrl,
      authParams: {
        // If your app is configured to use the Implicit Flow
        // instead of the Authorization Code with Proof of Code Key Exchange (PKCE)
        // you will need to uncomment the below line
        // pkce: false
      }
    });
    this.widget.renderEl({el}, this.props.onSuccess, this.props.onError);
  }

  componentWillUnmount() {
    this.widget.remove();
  }

  render() {
    return <div />;
  }
};

Create Routes

Some routes require authentication in order to render. Defining those routes is easy using SecureRoute from @okta/okta-react. Let's take a look at what routes are needed for this example:

/: A default page to handle basic control of the app.
/protected: A route protected by SecureRoute.
/login: Show the sign-in page.
/implicit/callback: A route to parse tokens after a redirect.

`/`

First, create src/Home.js to provide links to navigate our app:

// src/Home.js

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { Link } from 'react-router-dom';
import { withOktaAuth } from '@okta/okta-react';

export default withOktaAuth(class Home extends Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.login = this.login.bind(this);
    this.logout = this.logout.bind(this);
  }

  async login() {
    this.props.authService.login('/');
  }

  async logout() {
    this.props.authService.logout('/');
  }

  render() {
    if (this.props.authState.isPending) return null;

    const button = this.props.authState.isAuthenticated ?
      <button onClick={this.logout}>Logout</button> :
      <button onClick={this.login}>Login</button>;

    return (
      <div>
        <Link to='/'>Home</Link><br/>
        <Link to='/protected'>Protected</Link><br/>
        {button}
      </div>
    );
  }
});

`/protected`

This route will only be visible to users with a valid accessToken.

Create a new component src/Protected.js:

// src/Protected.js

import React from 'react';

export default () => <h3>Protected</h3>;

`/login`

This route hosts the Sign-In Widget and redirects if the user is already logged in. If the user is coming from a protected page, they'll be redirected back to the page upon login.

Create a new component src/Login.js:

// src/Login.js

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { Redirect } from 'react-router-dom';
import OktaSignInWidget from './OktaSignInWidget';
import { withOktaAuth } from '@okta/okta-react';

export default withOktaAuth(class Login extends Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.onSuccess = this.onSuccess.bind(this);
    this.onError = this.onError.bind(this);
  }

  onSuccess(res) {
    if (res.status === 'SUCCESS') {
      return this.props.authService.redirect({
        sessionToken: res.session.token
      });
   } else {
    // The user can be in another authentication state that requires further action.
    // For more information about these states, see:
    //   https://github.com/okta/okta-signin-widget#rendereloptions-success-error
    }
  }

  onError(err) {
    console.log('error logging in', err);
  }

  render() {
    if (this.props.authState.isPending) return null;
    return this.props.authState.isAuthenticated ?
      <Redirect to={{ pathname: '/' }}/> :
      <OktaSignInWidget
        baseUrl={this.props.baseUrl}
        onSuccess={this.onSuccess}
        onError={this.onError}/>;
  }
});

`/implicit/callback`

The component for this route (LoginCallback) comes with @okta/okta-react. It handles token parsing, token storage, and redirecting to a protected page if one triggered the login.

Connect the Routes

Our example is using react-router-dom. By default you can include your components and Routes in src/App.js. If you need access to particular router properties, such as the history object that we use to override the default login flow, you need to create a wrapper component around <Router>.

Update src/App.js to create a Router and call <AppWithRouterAccess>` as a child component:

// src/App.js


import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { BrowserRouter as Router } from 'react-router-dom';
import AppWithRouterAccess from './AppWithRouterAccess';

class App extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <Router>
        <AppWithRouterAccess/>
      </Router>
    );
  }
}

export default App;

Create src/AppWithRouterAccess.js and include your project components and routes. Security is the component that controls the authentication flows, so it requires your OpenId Connect configuration. By default, @okta/okta-react redirects to Okta's login page when the user isn't authenticated. In this example, onAuthRequired is overridden to redirect to the custom login route instead:

// src/AppWithRouterAccess.jsx

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { Route, withRouter } from 'react-router-dom';
import { Security, SecureRoute, LoginCallback } from '@okta/okta-react';
import Home from './Home';
import Login from './Login';
import Protected from './Protected';

export default withRouter(class AppWithRouterAccess extends Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.onAuthRequired = this.onAuthRequired.bind(this);
  }

  onAuthRequired() {
    this.props.history.push('/login')
  }

  render() {

    // Note: If your app is configured to use the Implicit Flow
    // instead of the Authorization Code with Proof of Code Key Exchange (PKCE)
    // you will need to add the below property to what is passed to <Security>
    //
    // pkce={false}

    return (
        <Security issuer='https://${yourOktaDomain}/oauth2/default'
                  clientId='{clientId}'
                  redirectUri={window.location.origin + '/implicit/callback'}
                  onAuthRequired={this.onAuthRequired} >
          <Route path='/' exact={true} component={Home} />
          <SecureRoute path='/protected' component={Protected} />
          <Route path='/login' render={() => <Login baseUrl='https://${yourOktaDomain}' />} />
          <Route path='/implicit/callback' component={LoginCallback} />
        </Security>
    );
  }
});

Start your app

Finally, start your app:

npm start

Conclusion

You have now successfully authenticated with Okta! Now what? With a user's id_token, you have basic claims for the user's identity. You can extend the set of claims by modifying the scopes to retrieve custom information about the user. This includes locale, address, groups, and more.

Want to learn how to use the user's access_token? Check out our React how to guide to learn about protecting routes on your server, validating the access_token, and more!

Support

Have a question or see a bug? Post your question on the Okta Developer Forums.