Forgot Password Exercise

A simple Node.js application demonstrating password reset functionality using email verification.

🧠 Learning Project

Note: This repository is intended as a personal learning exercise to explore backend authentication patterns.

🔑 Features

• User registration with password hashing
• Password reset via email verification
• Time-limited reset tokens (1 hour)
• MongoDB integration for user data storage

🛠️ Technologies Used

• Node.js with Express for the backend server
• MongoDB with Mongoose for database operations
• Nodemailer for sending password reset emails
• bcrypt for secure password hashing
• crypto for generating reset tokens

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js
• MongoDB database (local or Atlas)
• Gmail account for sending emails

Installation

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/DanielPodolsky/Forgot-Password-Exercise.git
   cd Forgot-Password-Exercise
   

2. Install dependencies

   npm install
   

3. Create a .env file in the root directory with the following variables:

   MONGODB_USERNAME=your_mongodb_username
   MONGODB_PASSWORD=your_mongodb_password
   MONGODB_CLUSTER=your_cluster_address
   MONGODB_OPTIONS=retryWrites=true&w=majority
   GMAIL_MAIL=your_gmail_address
   GMAIL_PASSWORD=your_app_password
   

4. Start the server

   nodemon app.js
   

📝 API Endpoints

• POST /api/auth/register - Register a new user
• POST /api/auth/forgot-password - Request password reset email
• POST /api/auth/forgot-password/:token - Reset password with token