MERN Auth System 🔐

🚀 Live Demo

🔗 View it on Render

A complete full-stack MERN (MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js) authentication system with:

• ✅ User registration & login
• ✅ JWT authentication via HTTP-only cookies
• ✅ Email verification using OTP
• ✅ Password reset via OTP
• ✅ Protected routes using middleware
• ✅ Nodemailer integration

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🔧 Tech Stack

📦 Backend

• Node.js
• Express
• MongoDB with Mongoose
• JWT (jsonwebtoken)
• Bcrypt
• Nodemailer
• dotenv

🎨 Frontend

• React (Vite)
• Axios
• React Router DOM
• Tailwind CSS
• React Toastify

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🗂️ Folder Structure

.
├── client               # React Frontend (Vite)
│   ├── public
│   └── src
│       ├── assets       # Images/icons
│       ├── components   # Reusable UI components (Navbar, Header)
│       ├── context      # AppContext for global state
│       └── pages        # Route pages (Login, Register, Verify, Reset)
├── server               # Node.js Backend
│   ├── config           # MongoDB config
│   ├── controllers      # Route controller logic
│   ├── middlewares      # JWT middleware (userAuth)
│   ├── models           # Mongoose models
│   └── routes           # Express routers

🧪 Features

1. 🔐 Registration & Login Secure password hashing with bcrypt

JWT token stored in HTTP-only cookies

Persistent login on refresh

2. 📧 Email Verification After register, user receives 6-digit OTP

User must verify their account

OTP expires after 24 hours

3. 🔁 Password Reset User enters email to get OTP

OTP expires in 15 mins

After verifying OTP, user can reset password

4. 🛡️ Protected Routes Custom middleware (userAuth) to protect routes using token in cookies

🔄 API Routes

Auth

• POST /api/auth/register → Register a new user
• POST /api/auth/login → Login existing user
• POST /api/auth/logout → Logout the current user
• POST /api/auth/send-verify-otp → Send email verification OTP
• POST /api/auth/verify-account → Verify user email using OTP
• GET /api/auth/is-auth → Check if user is authenticated
• POST /api/auth/send-reset-otp → Send password reset OTP to email
• POST /api/auth/reset-password → Reset password using OTP

User

• GET /api/user/data → Fetch authenticated user's data

🧠 Learning Outcomes

Full-stack authentication using JWT and cookies

Building secure REST APIs with Express

Working with protected routes and middleware

Managing global app state using React Context API

✨ Credits

Built using React, Node.js, Express, MongoDB

OTP via Nodemailer

Auth with JWT