Rate limiting with express-rate-limit - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Rate limiting with express-rate-limit

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple Express server that needs to protect its API from too many requests from the same user. This helps keep the server safe and fair for everyone.

🎯 Goal: Create an Express server that uses express-rate-limit to limit each user to 5 requests every 10 minutes.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an Express app with a single GET route at /

Set up express-rate-limit with a limit of 5 requests per 10 minutes

Apply the rate limiter middleware to the GET / route

Send a simple text response 'Hello, world!' when the route is accessed

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Rate limiting helps protect web servers from too many requests that can slow down or crash the server. It is used in APIs and websites to keep service fair and stable.

💼 Career

Understanding how to use middleware like express-rate-limit is important for backend developers to build secure and reliable web applications.

1

Set up Express app and import express-rate-limit

Write code to import express and express-rate-limit. Then create an Express app by calling express() and store it in a variable called app.

Express

const express = require('express');
const rateLimit = require('express-rate-limit');

// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use require('express') and require('express-rate-limit') to import the packages. Then call express() to create the app.

2

Create a rate limiter configuration

Create a variable called limiter and assign it the result of calling rateLimit() with an object that sets windowMs to 600000 (10 minutes in milliseconds) and max to 5.

Express

const express = require('express');
const rateLimit = require('express-rate-limit');

const app = express();

// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use rateLimit() with an object that has windowMs set to 600000 and max set to 5.

3

Apply the rate limiter to the GET / route

Use app.get to create a GET route at '/'. Pass limiter as middleware before the route handler function. The handler should send the text 'Hello, world!' as the response.

Express

const express = require('express');
const rateLimit = require('express-rate-limit');

const app = express();

const limiter = rateLimit({
  windowMs: 600000,
  max: 5
});

// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use app.get with limiter as middleware and send 'Hello, world!' in the response.

4

Start the Express server

Add code to make the app listen on port 3000 using app.listen. Pass a callback function that does nothing (empty arrow function).

Express

const express = require('express');
const rateLimit = require('express-rate-limit');

const app = express();

const limiter = rateLimit({
  windowMs: 600000,
  max: 5
});

app.get('/', limiter, (req, res) => {
  res.send('Hello, world!');
});

// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use app.listen(3000, () => {}) to start the server on port 3000.