How do you allow another device to access your development mode server? - node.js

I have a MERN web app in development mode. I want to allow my other computer and phone to test it. I am currently running the frontend on port 3000 and the backend on port 5000. I can access the site URL with another device but unless its my computer with the code I cannot log in.
How do you allow other devices to access your server and make API requests? Is there a way to still have this functionality without putting the server online?
Thanks for any assistance

The easiest way will be to deploy the same code into two separate projects. You will have a "staging" link and a "production" link.
Deploy to both of them together or individually - Github actions can be helpful to build right away, also you can use npm scripts to trigger builds

Related

ReactJS: How to deploy on local server

I have a web app developed with a NodeJS + Express + GraphQL + MongoDB back-end and a ReactJS + Apollo front-end. I would like to deploy this application locally. Is that even possible?
I have come across dozens of "how to deploy to Heroku," "how to deploy to Digital Ocean", "how to deploy to Github", etc. But none that explains how to deploy locally.
Right now, I run: nodemon server for the back-end, and npm start for the front-end. I see the application running on http://localhost:3000/ (I use cors to connect the front end with the server running on port 3001).
I would like to just go to http://localhost:3000/ and see the app without having to execute the commands npm start and nodemon server. Is this possible? If so, how do I do that?
To my knowledge, our local server is not a WAMP server (our OS is Windows though). The IT department told me that it is a
[...] plain, regular old server. The address is localhost running on
port 3000. You can open up another port on 3001 if you need it. Just
drop your stuff on the C: drive and you should be good to go. I've
never heard of Node or React so I can't help if you have questions.
Any ideas? Many thanks in advance for your help!
UPDATE
There seems to be a bit of confusion surrounding what I am looking for. I am trying to deploy this locally.
Let's say, on your local computer (your laptop at home) you go to localhost:3000 on your favorite browser. Unless you are serving something to localhost in that moment nothing is going to show up, it will say "refused to connect" or something. What I want is to be able to open any machine on the network whenever I go to localhost:3000 and my react site appears and functions...does that make more sense?
I don't want this is development mode. I want a build of this project on localhost...I'm starting to think this isn't possible.
As i understood, you want to deploy it on a local server, not locally on your developing device.
I thought about doing that...but I'm not so sure IT will be okay with it always running... :(
How can you use a server if its not running? Just like WAMP (which runs apache), or whatever you got rolling there, it must be running. So, just make it a background process like slawomir suggested.
PS I dont think you understand node server properly though.
Read this to understand why node server needs reloading. After that you need to understand that no hot reload tool is perfect, and you gonna need to restart your server from time to time.
PPS I dont know what this means
[...] plain, regular old server. The address is localhost running on port 3000.
if there is a server running on 3000, youll need to change port for your server to smth else (most common is 9000)
To solve the problem you can create a startup script, which executes npm start and nodemon server. Then make sure to keep it hidden, so that your server will be always running. Keep in mind though, that any errors thrown will stop your server and unless you configure it, the server won't reload by itself.
I would try following:
build your app with the production environment variables set
get all files from dist folder and deploy them in your server
now access your app using localhost/
Maybe what you are looking for is something like ngrok which creates a socks tunnel to your localhost, effectivelly deploying from localhost, as I understand it, allowing you to access your localhost through a url like ldiuhv093.ngrok.io, or even a custom subdomain if you pay for a subscription fee.
If I have this wrong, someone please tell me!
To solve the problem first of need to create a batch file with .bat or .cmd extension and under that file add the following 2 command
nodemon server
npm start
Then follows the following steps to add it as a startup script for windows OS.
Create a shortcut to the batch file.
Once the shortcut has been created, right-click the file and select
Cut.
Press the Start button and type Run and press enter.
In the Run window, type shell:startup to open the Startup folder.
Once the Startup folder has been opened, click the Home tab at the
top of the folder and select Paste to paste the shortcut into the
folder.
Above steps are for example to create a batch file and add it as a startup script for Windows 8 and 10 users.
For better clarity or reference follows the following link.reference-link
There's no option to reload the server while keeping it running. You could, technically, have your 'main' file monitor another file for changes. This would be the file where you actually keep your sever program. Then, on changes, you discard your current logic and start executing that. That said, doing it that way would be very fragile and a very round-about way to do it. It also wouldn't fix your front-end for which you'd need a similar solution.
Instead, you could hook into your favorite editor's save event, and run those two console commands, so that every time you save, the server is automatically brought up. (Make sure to also clean up existing servers)
Run on Save for VSCode
save-commands for Atom
I know this post has been two years. But, I think the solution to your second desired outcome is to use concurrency. https://www.npmjs.com/package/concurrently.
This will allow you to do one NPM START to start two all three processes.
and to your first question, I think the solution is to add Electron to your app so you can package it to an executable application. When you start the app, your express server will start running in the background.
Most people probably don't understand why there is a need for this. Running on local server (computer) allows access to local file system and can even run SQL queries inside the proxy which would require IT involvement if hosted on outside server.
From what I have understand, that you want to deploy your app on local server that means you want to deploy it on the network that you are connected to.
Check ip from the command prompt
To deploy it locally,
Run: HOST=ip npm run start
It will get deploy on your local server. And everyone connected to the server can access the url
If this worked for you, kindly upvote
You need to do npm start There may be other ways of starting it but, all will result in the same. You can read this article on Freecodecamp on deploying on DigitalOcean. You can manipulate it to your localhost. Shouldn't be too different.FCC Tut on Deploying

Azure Mobile Services on Local IIS rather than IIS Express

OK, I've created an Azure Mobile Services project in Visual Studio 2013.
I run it up as-is, then in the browser I test it by adding a todo item via the simple browser app that seems to get baked into these service projects. It gives me a '201 success' message - brilliant.
I then convert the project from IIS Express to Local IIS as the web host, recompile and try again, and although I get the same smiley face app telling me that everything is OK, when I try and add a todo item I get a 404 error. This is contrary to the Microsoft article that gives these instructions, which clearly says I am able to choose either IIS Express or Local IIS when setting up the project.
My guess is that web.config is missing something when this project runs on the local IIS server.
I'm hoping someone already has a solution before I spend hours trying to work out how to configure IIS for this type of project.
I've already wasted a load of time working through loads of bugs and gotchas with Azure Mobile, and I'm starting to run out of steam - so I'm hoping someone can help me before I go and grab an account at Parse.com
Many thanks in anticipation.
Dean
The easiest approach for your situation might be to just deploy to the cloud, and use that service for your testing. Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 makes it easy to deploy your app and connect to it for remote debugging. It is a little slower than using a local instance, but you are also assured that there will be no surprises when you eventually go live (since you are live the whole time).
That said, we will investigate the issue you are seeing with using IIS directly. Some things you might want to try on your own:
Verify that you can view the web side from your Mac's browser, to make sure that the firewall is letting the requests through.
Try using the "Getting Starting" link from the smiley-face page, to see if the REST endpoints are behaving correctly.

Options for Visual Studio web performance and load test against a remote server

I am new to Visual Studio Web Performance Testing and Load Testing. I am wondering what my options are for testing a remote server? For example, I am planning to deploy a ASP.NET site to Amazon Cloud. Configuration is 2 web front ends, 1 database server behind a load balancer. Can I run a web test/load test connecting to Amazon simply by configuring Visual Studio accordingly? Or do I have to set up a test agent on the web servers and configure that accordingly? I have tested the site locally (my development environment). Can I, instead of pointing locally, point to the url running on Amazon?
I know I can add a computer through LoadTest "Run Settings". Though, I do not think it is as simple as adding the remote server name here.
Yes, you can test against any URL that you can reach from your computer that is running Visual Studio. You simply need to parameterize the host url(s) in your webtest(s). Click the Parameterize Web Servers button in the web test editor toolbar to achieve this. Once parameterized, you can substitute different values by creating the same context parameters in your LoadTest RunSetting. LoadTest context parameters override WebTest context parameters.
Of course, you are still subject to whatever network obstacles and firewall rules that are in your way. For example, you won't be able to hook up to capture Performance Monitor data from the Amazon Cloud servers (or at least I presume that the relevant ports would be blocked).

Publish website on local network

Guys I have build a website and testing it on localhost using LAMP on ubuntu. Now i want to publish this website on my local network. how do I do it.? Please help. Thanks.
Install a webserver somewhere on your local network (this could be the one you have been using for testing if you don't want to have separate development and live environments … although that usually isn't a good idea).
Publish the site to that webserver (in the same way you are doing for your development server).
Give out the URL to the site

Setup local IIS7 for testing websites

Is there an alternative, other then modifying HOSTS to setup temp domains when testing websites locally? I'm using IIS7 on Win7.
I don't want to use /localhost/domainname. I'd rather do /domainname so i don't have to worry about paths to files, etc. My websites are setup so that paths to files are relative to the root folder and not to the page.
Unless your code explicitly checks the domain name, you should be able to deploy on II7 and test through http://localhost.
There are few caveats with this approach, though:
if you are using third-party API that requires a key tied to the domain name of you app, you might have to request two keys - one for the domain name (for PROD purposes) and one for localhost (for DEV purposes). I do that with both Google Ajax API and Facebook Connect keys.
http://localhost is in different security zone in IE than regular internet sites, so if your app uses any AP that requires cross-domain communication (like Facebook Connect), you might have problems testing on IE7. Works like a charm on Chrome and seems to work properly on IE8.
if you are working on multiple apps at the same time, you can't have all of them listen on port 80 at the same time. SO, some of the apps will have to be moved to http://localhost:8080 or another port.
My approach is to run the VS Dev WebServer (Cassini) on ports 808x during developing and to deploy to the local IIS7 (using CruiseControl.Net) on ports 888x. This allows me to debug easily with VS while working on the code, yet still have the site set under medium trust on IIS7.
I also have a host name on the target domain pointing to my dev machine, so the IIS7 instances are available both as http://localhost:888x and http://dev.domain.com:888x, which allows me to also test the domain integration with Google Ajax and Facebook Connect APIs. Of course, this requires control over the domain DNS and the ability to add an A record to it.
However, note that nothing in this setup requires actual testing on the domain URL.

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