Andrei L

Posted on Sep 21, 2021 • Updated on Mar 10, 2023

🔐 Private Route in React Router v6

#react #router #security #authentication

Things are changing fast in WEB today, and react-router v6 is in beta already and around the corner. 🤔

This is just for learning purposes only, react-router v6 is still in beta, use at your own risk

Private routes in v5 and below were done in a specific way using a custom component mostly named PrivateRoute that was most of the times just a wrapper and composition of basic Route and Redirect e.g.

function PrivateRoute(props) {
  let { component: Component, children, render, ...rest } = props
  let auth = useAuth();
  return (
    <Route
      {...rest}
      render={() => auth
        ? <Component />
        : <Redirect to="/login" />
      }
    />
  );
}

function App() {
  return (
    <BrowserRouter>
      <Route path="/" component={Public} />
      <PrivateRoute path="/private" component={Private} />
    </BrowserRouter>
  );
}

But taking a look at v6 docs it seems that things changed a little bit, and we need to think a little bit different about it.

For info about all API reference see the link

Let's move on.

Some things that we used to create PrivateRoute have changed a little bit

Redirect is now Navigate
Route props changed and is just a stub component now
A new component Routes appearead

In v6, routes are rendered in such a manner

function App() {
  return (
    <BrowserRouter>
      <Routes>
        <Route path="/" element={<Public />} />
        <Route path="/private" element={<Private />} />
      </Routes>
    </BrowserRouter>
  );
}

const Public = () => <div>public</div>;
const Private = () => <div>private</div>;

So as you can see, no more render props or component prop.
You need to pass a direct JSX element (don't worry about performance if you do)

Ok now let's take a look at Route component source code

/**
 * Declares an element that should be rendered at a certain URL path.
 *
 * @see https://reactrouter.com/api/Route
 */
export function Route(_props: RouteProps): React.ReactElement | null {
  invariant(
    false,
    `A <Route> is only ever to be used as the child of <Routes> element, ` +
      `never rendered directly. Please wrap your <Route> in a <Routes>.`
  );
}

Wait a minute where is the code? 👀 Well actually the parent component Routes will use the Route just as a host for the props and children, and do nothing more with the Route

For more info about Routes implementation see link

So how we do implement our PrivateRoute now? 🤔 If we do some adjustments to PrivateRoute props, it will look like this

function App() {
  return (
    <BrowserRouter>
      <Routes>
        <Route path="/" element={<Public />} />
        <PrivateRoute path="/private" element={<Private />} />
      </Routes>
    </BrowserRouter>
  );
}

But this will not work. Routes will just take the props of PrivateRoute and ignore it's body totally. Even a console.log inside PrivateRoute will not be shown.

So what we do? 🤔 We do some more adjustments to PrivateRoute

function PrivateRoute({ children }) {
  const auth = useAuth();
  return auth ? <>{children}</> : <Navigate to="/login" />;
}

As you can see we changed Redirect to Navigate, and just return children if user is authenticated. And the usage of it also changes a little bit

function App() {
  return (
    <BrowserRouter>
      <Routes>
        <Route path="/" element={<Public />} />
        <Route
          path="/private"
          element={
            <PrivateRoute>
              <Private />
            </PrivateRoute>
          }
        />
      </Routes>
    </BrowserRouter>
  );
}

As you can see PrivateRoute also moves to element prop.

The implementation of PrivateRoute can be done in multiple ways.

Here is a different implementation of PrivateRoute using Outlet

function PrivateOutlet() {
  const auth = useAuth();
  return auth ? <Outlet /> : <Navigate to="/login" />;
}

function App() {
  return (
    <BrowserRouter>
      <Routes>
        <Route path="/private-outlet" element={<PrivateOutlet />}>
          <Route element={<Private />} />
        </Route>
      </Routes>
    </BrowserRouter>
  );
}

The pros of this is that you can put multiple private sub routes under same route.

For a full example see this Codesandbox

That's all for today. Happy coding! 🎉 🎊 ✨

Keep your users secure!

Cover Photo by Maxim Zhgulev on Unsplash

Top comments (61)

Kevin H Griffith • Mar 30 '22

Awesome man! Huge thanks 🙏

Femi Obadimu • Feb 16 '22

thanks

Aspyryan • Nov 20 '21

I was using a module to route users to I only need to render the header once etc.. so in I have outlet to render the nested routes. How can I now use the with the nested routes. This was my homeModule

return (<>
<Header selectedPage={0} />
<main className="w-main flex-1 shadow-md m-auto p-5 my-5 rounded-sm flex">
  <Outlet/>
</main>
</>);

And this is how I would want to have it work:

<Route path="/" element={<PrivateOutlet />}>
  <Route exact path="/requests" element={<RequestsPage />} />
  ...
</Route>

Aspyryan • Nov 20 '21

Whoops, I already figured it out, this was the code for my privateoutlet:

export default function PrivateOutlet() {
    const { account } = useContext(AccountContext);

    return account ? (
        <HomeModule>
            <Outlet />
        </HomeModule>
    ) : (
        <Navigate to="/login" replace />
    );
}

Andrei L • Nov 20 '21

Yes 😊 I was about to write that you need to change PrivateOutlet

Antonio Nogueda • Jan 30 '22 • Edited

is it necesary write Outlet twice?

Yeee • Sep 7 '22

Awesome !

Dhenyson Jhean • Jan 26 '22

Perfeito, muito obrigado (thank you)! But just aesthetic issues I recommend I created the component that manages private routes receiving props and your code is more reduced and clean.

Tim Bogdanov • Feb 4 '22 • Edited

component={Page} should be capital C component or should at lease be defined:

const PrivateRoute = ({component: Component}) => {

Minh Kì Đông • May 30 '22

Great

Viney Rawat • Sep 23 '21

शानदार लेख भाई

Mahedi Hassan Sharif • Jun 29 '22

Awesome very Good Brother! Many Many Thanks.

Pasecinic Nichita • Jan 6 '22

You could use auth-react-router package npmjs.com/package/auth-react-router

It provides a really simple API to define your routes and few more configurations (like redirect routes for authorized and unauthorized routes, fallback component for each of the routes)

Just define your routes path and pages component and it will work