Accessing Node server remotely from React page - node.js

Question

I have created a site using Create React App on the frontend and Node express on the back. I then hosted React on IIS and ran Node as a windows service on the backend.
When running the app I set my callback paths in React (REACT_APP_HOST) to "localhost" and in the node my routes are "/routeName". This being said, the first path called is ${REACT_APP_HOST}/sitemap and the receiving path on the server is router.use('/siteMap', (req, res, next) => siteMapController(req, res, next));.
On the local server, using it as a client, this works perfectly. On a remote client (same domain) I am getting a 404 error.
The next step I tried was changing REACT_APP_HOST to "", making the resulting call to "/sitemap". This has stopped the functioning even on localhost.
Here is my code (app.js, sitemap fetch and server.js). Hoping that someone can give me a clue as to where I am going wrong.
//app.js
var createError = require('http-errors');
var express = require('express');
var path = require('path');
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser')
var logger = require('morgan');
var cors = require('cors');
var nodeSSPI = require('express-node-sspi');
let routeList = require('./routes/routeList');
let FileLoader = require('./Controllers/FileLoader');
var app = express();
app.use(bodyParser.json({ limit: '400000' }));
app.use(cors({
origin:['http://localhost', 'http://intranet-test', 'http://intranet'],
credentials: true
}));
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname,'../public')));
app.options('*', cors()); // include before other routes
// view engine setup
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'));
app.set('view engine', 'pug');
//https://www.npmjs.com/package/yarn
app.use(nodeSSPI({
retrieveGroups: false,
offerBasic: false,
authoritative: true,
}));
app.use(logger('dev'));
app.use(express.json());
app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
routeList(app);
// catch 404 and forward to error handler
app.use(function (req, res, next) {
console.log(req.originalUrl);
console.log(req.method)
next(createError(404));
});
// error handler
app.use(function (err, req, res, next) {
console.log(err);
// set locals, only providing error in development
res.locals.message = err.message;
res.locals.error = req.app.get('env') === 'development' ? err : {};
// render the error page
res.status(err.status || 500);
res.render('error');
});
module.exports = app;
//sitemap fetch
export const fetchInit = () => {
return ({
method: 'GET'
, headers: {
'Content-Type': 'application/json'
}
, credentials: 'include'
})
};
export const Sitemap_Fetch = () => (dispatch) => {
dispatch({
type: ActionTypes.SITEMAP_LOADING
});
var myReq = new Request(`${process.env.REACT_APP_HOST}/siteMap`, fetchInit());//?' + params
return fetch(myReq)
.then((response) => {
// if (response.ok) {
return response;
// }
// else {
// var error = new Error("Error " + response.statusText);
// error.response = response;
// throw error;
// }
},
(error) => {
var err = new Error(error.message);
throw err;
}
)
.then(response => response.json())
.then((data) => {
try {
dispatch({
type: ActionTypes.SITEMAP_LOADED,
payload: data
})
return data;
}
catch (ex) { throw ex }
})
.catch((err) => {
return dispatch({
type: ActionTypes.SITEMAP_FAILED,
payload: err.message
})
});
}
//server.js
#!/usr/bin/env node
/**
* Module dependencies.
*/
var app = require('./app');
var debug = require('debug')('node-backend:server');
var http = require('http');
/**
* Get port from environment and store in Express.
*/
var port = normalizePort('3000');
app.set('port', port);
/**
* Create HTTP server.
*/
var server = http.createServer(app);
/**
* Listen on provided port, on all network interfaces.
*/
server.listen(port, '0.0.0.0');
server.on('error', onError);
server.on('listening', onListening);
server.on('request',test=>{console.log(test)})
/**
* Normalize a port into a number, string, or false.
*/
function normalizePort(val) {
var port = parseInt(val, 10);
if (isNaN(port)) {
// named pipe
return val;
}
if (port >= 0) {
// port number
return port;
}
return false;
}
/**
* Event listener for HTTP server "error" event.
*/
function onError(error) {
if (error.syscall !== 'listen') {
throw error;
}
var bind = typeof port === 'string'
? 'Pipe ' + port
: 'Port ' + port;
// handle specific listen errors with friendly messages
switch (error.code) {
case 'EACCES':
console.error(bind + ' requires elevated privileges');
process.exit(1);
break;
case 'EADDRINUSE':
console.error(bind + ' is already in use');
process.exit(1);
break;
default:
throw error;
}
}
/**
* Event listener for HTTP server "listening" event.
*/
function onListening() {
var addr = server.address();
console.log(addr)
var bind = typeof addr === 'string'
? 'pipe ' + addr
: 'port ' + addr.port;
debug('Listening on ' + bind);
console.log('Listening on ' + bind);
}
Finally I am adding the .env file from my React site
BROWSER=none
SKIP_PREFLIGHT_CHECK=true
REACT_APP_HOST=http://localhost
PORT=80
This works as is. When I change REACT_APP_HOST to nothing it stops functioning.
THanks.

Answer 1

What I have done to solve this is use the serve (https://stackoverflow.com/a/49209041/2242131) command from a simple batch file and run my node backend from another batch. Then in React I created a constant called "hostname" which I set to ${window.location.hostname}:3000. This is now consistently serving my pages the necessary data.