Cookie-Based Authentication in Axum: From Extractors to Middleware

This article explores two approaches to implementing cookie-based user authentication in the Rust Axum framework. Initially, the author demonstrates using a custom extractor, `CookieJwt`, to retrieve JWT tokens from requests, conditionally rendering a 'Profile' or 'Login' button based on JWT validity. However, this approach proves less clean and scalable for complex authentication scenarios. The article then refactors the solution using Axum middleware, providing a cleaner, more reusable, and flexible approach to handling authentication logic. This middleware efficiently validates JWTs, manages refresh tokens, and gracefully handles various request types, ultimately resulting in a more robust and adaptable user authentication system. The author details the middleware's implementation, highlighting its advantages over the extractor-based approach.