How to deploy React.js with Node backend in IIS? - node.js

I have an application built with Create React App that I want to use Node.js as a backend to load data from a database. Basically, I want Node to load the data and then use Create React App to do stuff with it. To do so I used this tutorial: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-make-create-react-app-work-with-a-node-backend-api-7c5c48acb1b0/. I have set up a working development environment where I have all the Create React App in a client folder, a server.js that loads the data (from MS SQL Server if that's relevant), and a proxy set in client/package.json (CRA's package.json) for the port that the node app is running on (5000 in my case). I then run yarn dev and these two servers run together and talk to each other and everything works great.
The issue is deploying. My organization uses IIS. From what I can gather Node and IIS are not the ideal combination but IIS is what we use for everything. I would like the server.js and the CRA to be in the same folder and to basically function like one app as much as possible (I know that Node will need to run its own server). I would also like a setup that can be easily changed or moved to another machine. What I've done thus far is:
Set up a single application with a client folder, which is the build for CRA, and then server.js in the root
In my react code, made API calls to http://localhost:5000 (in the development environment I could do fetch('api/somestuff') but to make it work in production I needed to do fetch('http://localhost:5000/api/somestuff') )
Installed pm2 and used it to run server.js and start the Node server
This worked, however I'm wondering whether this is the optimal way to do things. This worked on my local machine but I don't know what will happen when I put it on our production machines. Will the Node server block other applications? Will it stay running no matter what or might it crash? Ultimately this is going to be deployed in a multi-server environment where we have 2 load-balanced servers with identical code that are put through an F5 to form a single URL--will this impact anything?
I'm pretty new to programming so bear with me, I'm sorry if this question was confusingly phrased.

I suggest you install ARR to work with IIS as a reverse proxy, which can forward the HTTP request to the backend NodeJS server.
Besides, for cross-domain request forwarding in the rewrite action type, we need to install Application Request Routing, and enable the proxy functionality.
Here are two examples of applying this feature, please check it.
How to successfully run node server with IIS?
ASP.net URL Rewrite subdirectory to external URL
Feel free to let me know if there is anything I can help with.

Related

Deploying Next.js in Jelastic

I have no experience with Next.js and its deployment. Our team has been developing an app in Next.js and I need to deploy it into our Jelastic platform. I am very much familiar with Apache server and haven't used any other servers than that.
I found out that Next.js can't be deployed with Apache (or at least static export is not the best idea). So, I created a Node.js server environment in Jelastic and I have no idea how to make the application accessible. I read the Next.js documentation and it says that the production build files after next build are stored inside .next folder but I didn't find any entry point files (as in Apache) such as index.html in that folder.
I tried running next start and a server was started on localhost on port 3000, but I couldn't access that remotely.
I didn't find much about Next.js deployment in different environments anywhere. I am probably missing several things here, but I am clueless. How do I deploy and run Next.js application in Jelastic?
Basically, port 3000 is not open on the firewall side on the NodeJS nodes that Virtuozzo provides. I think the server would have been accessible if you had opened the corresponding port through the dashboard.
You can test if your application is accessible from the NodeJS node by doing a "curl localhost:3000".
Otherwise, I think the best way to make your application accessible from the outside is to use your NodeJS node as you do, but add a loadbalancer NGinx node in front of it. Change the configuration provided to point to port 3000 and not 80 of your NodeJS node. This should be enough.

Can I run VueJS and NodeJS or related apps on Server that doesn't have NodeJS installed?

So I'm new to Vuejs and doesn't know anything about npm, node, and other javascript apps.
I wanted to switch to VueJS so that I can take away from JQuery. Been using AdminLTE for my projects before.
I wanted to use vue-admin now since it seems to address all of my needs. However, I have specific work area situations that seems to hinder learning Vue and other JS apps, these are:
The workspace folder (development) where I'm creating applications is hosted in the production server (Windows Server).
I think NodeJS isn't installed in the server
Adobe Coldfusion is used. I don't have a local server, so the production server is used when developing.
Question:
Will the production server run the app built with vue-admin even if the production server doesn't have NodeJS installed? (I have NodeJS locally).
I need to use Coldfusion for the logic of the application, specifically I'm using CFWheels right now and vue-admin for Frontend and UX. Is it possible? The application I'm making is closely related to parts of an ERP system.
Any pointers on how I could do this?
Yes you can. Most likely you will need NodeJS locally to make your development life a bit easier.
You can simply include Vue in your project with a script tag or your can use a buildtool like Webpack to enable you to write ES6 and use a module system.
If you go with the latter it still exports as plain ES5 allowing you to use it on your server without any problem since all of this is code which runs on the clients machine, not on your server.
As you can see the requirements for this project have a big bold headline with: 'Development'.
https://github.com/vue-bulma/vue-admin#development
You don't need any of the requirements in production.

Running angular2 on hostgator (or any host)

I have started getting into angular2 recently and have previously used angularjs. This might seem like a very broad question but all of the tutorials show how to use angular2 on a local environment and show how to serve the app and navigate to localhost:3000 etc. So my question is how do I go about running my app on my hosted server. Like how do I get it to go to my app using www.mysite.com? Do I copy the files to my public_html directory or do I have do do something to make my domain go to the port the app is being served on? Or do I have to turn off apache and do something to use node instead? Any help would be apreciated.
is very simple:
Copy local files into remote folder
Execute ng build --prod
your domain root route should be myremoteFolder/dist
hope this help you
Angular is a frontend framework, which means it runs entirely in the browser. This means it's files are "static", they don't require a web server to dynamically process the way PHP files would. This means they can be hosted anywhere static files can be hosted such as AWS S3 or whatever directory you'd put your images and stylesheets on HostGator.
I'm assuming the localhost:3000 is a simple development server used for local testing. If it does more work than that, such as expose API endpoints that your Angular app calls to, then you'll need to find a host that can run NodeJS applications.

Ghost blog integrated with application

I am new to node, so please excuse me if I am asking stupid questions.
Ghost has been released as NPM module recently. I am trying to integrate it with my application, so I could have custom home page and serve blog on a separate page. Once I do following in my app.js, it takes over all the traffic to my site. How do I configure ghost to serve only the blog?
var ghost = require('ghost');
ghost();
We're missing a few details here so I'll make some assumptions.
If you are hosting node using the default server than (as of this posting) you are out of luck since ghost is setup to run in it's own standalone server. One possible solution is to run both the standard node.js server for your page then another for ghost. That's obviously not ideal but until they fix their integration issues you don't have much choice.
I'm trying to solve the same problem, and currently imagine finding a hosting that allows me to run two node instances (I think that is quite possible with e.g. digital ocean). One - port 80 - will point to Ghost, while the other (on some other port) will host the REST API for the app.
I will then create a blank page linked to a custom template that loads the rest of my angular application - the files will be stored in the assets folder of my custom template, while ajax calls will simply be to the non-standard port.

How to replace IIS with Node.js for simple websites

I am coming from Microsoft world so please bear with me on this. I was told I could install node.js and use that as a web server instead of IIS. This is a very small business application. In IIS I can create virtual directory and point to the location of the web page and everything works just fine. Based on very little I read, I have few questions;
Is it possible to run node js as a windows service or any other form so that it runs for ever? I did find the forever package that I think I can use.
In IIS, I can create virtual directory set the port and thats it, I have myself a website.
I do not see any examples where I can use a directory where I have a web page, written in java script and point it to run as a web site. All the examples have some thing like server.js and that runs and routes the call. what is the other way to host web sites and use node.js to simple run as a fast web server.
I was told I could install node.js and use that as a web server instead of IIS.
This is true, but as you already found out then you are in charge of providing for things that IIS was already doing for you (e.g. automatically restart on reboot, or on crashes, hosting multiple sites by creating virtual folders, et cetera.)
You can indeed get all of these things worked out in Node.js and there are several libraries that help on each of these areas. It's not too hard but you'll need to do a bit of researching.
You can also run Node.js behind IIS. Take a look at iisnode http://tomasz.janczuk.org/2011/08/hosting-nodejs-applications-in-iis-on.html
Is it possible to run node js as a windows service or any other form so
that it runs for ever?
The library Forever takes care of restarting the site when it crashes...but I don't know if you can run it as a Windows Service. I haven't tried that.
In IIS, I can create virtual directory set the port and thats it,
I have myself a website.
I assume you are talking about a site that serves static HTML files, right? If that's the case that's very easy to support in Node.js either writing your own web server or using Express.js to serve static files.
I do not see any examples where I can use a directory where I have a web page,
written in java script and point it to run as a web site. All the examples
have some thing like server.js and that runs and routes the call.
Here is an extremely simple example to serve plain HTML files in Node.js https://gist.github.com/2573391 Don't use this in production, though. It's just an example and it does not have any kind of error handling or security.
what is the other way to host web sites and use node.js to simple run
as a fast web server.
As others have said, you should look into Express.js http://expressjs.com/ It provides some of the infrastructure that you are very likely going to need when building traditional web sites.
You say you're running a "very small business application" behind IIS. Unless it's written for Node.js (in JavaScript), it won't work.
There are no examples pointing to a directory and running that as a website, because that's not how things are done in Node.js. You write a Node.js-application and pull in a webserver-library.
Put simply, In Node.js, you don't embed the appliation in the webserver; you embed the webserver in the application.
When I used node.js, I redirected HTTP requests by a proxy server, nginx. I don’t know if you can directly bind node.js as an HTTP server, but for what’s it worth, nginx is pretty nice!
First things first, allow me to share an introduction. IMHO you should take this decision ( of moving from IIS to nodeJS) by adding various parameters. I belong to the Java & PHP community yet I use NodeJS to achieve extremely specific implementation where NodeJS perform the fastest ( fast IO, AJAX-JSON responses & more ). As you are coming with a Microsoft background you should bare with less comfortable solutions.
Yes, its possible to run NodeJs as a windows service and Forever will do fine.
and yes you can create "Virtual Directories" but by creating symbolic links to each of your customer's web site.
I recommend to take a good look at bouncy & express, If you're willing to take this step then these packages is just what you need.
Cheers!

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