# How to get cookies server-side in a Next.js app

> Learn how to read cookies during server-side rendering in Next.js by forwarding ctx.req.headers.cookie to your Axios request inside getInitialProps for auth.

Author: [Flavio Copes](https://flaviocopes.com/about/) | Published: 2019-12-06 | Topics: [Next.js](https://flaviocopes.com/tags/next/) | Canonical: https://flaviocopes.com/nextjs-cookies/

I had this problem. My app depended on [cookies](https://flaviocopes.com/cookies/) for authentication, and using [Next.js](https://flaviocopes.com/nextjs/) apparently my cookies were not set on first page initialization.

I had this code, which was in charge of hitting a GET endpoint using [Axios](https://flaviocopes.com/axios/):

```js
Bookings.getInitialProps = async ctx => {
  const response = await axios.get('http://localhost:3000/api/bookings/list')

  return {
    bookings: response.data
  }
}
```

I had Passport.js on the server side endpoint, but it failed to authenticate the user on the SSR page, because it didn't find any cookie.

I had to change my code to this, adding the cookies to the `headers`:


```js
Bookings.getInitialProps = async ctx => {
  const response = await axios({
    method: 'get',
    url: 'http://localhost:3000/api/bookings/list',
    headers: ctx.req ? { cookie: ctx.req.headers.cookie } : undefined
  })

  return {
    bookings: response.data
  }
}
```

The key to making cookies available in the backend was adding:

```js
headers: ctx.req ? { cookie: ctx.req.headers.cookie } : undefined
```

to the Axios configuration.