Edit
To anyone coming here in the future, I solved this problem by indicating a value for PUBLIC_URL in my .env file.
In my case, I set PUBLIC_URL=/ui and now the static assets are being served from .../ui/static/...
Whenever I build my app and launch it, the browser requests content from the static directory, such as this:
Is it possible to somehow change this? I took a look here, but I didn't have any luck. I tried different combinations of express.static(. . .) to no avail.
Instead of http:///static/bundle123, I want it to request http:///custom/static/bundle123.
I've tried moving my build/static directory into build/custom/static and doing something like this, but it didn't work:
app.use('/static', express.static(path.join(__dirname, './custom')))
What am I doing wrong?
The first argument determines the URL path and the second part determines where the files are located on the file system.
So if your static files are located in the public directory (or in sub directories) and you want to access then on the https://.../static URL, you can use:
app.use('/static', express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
In your case, assuming you run the server from the build directory, using the following should work:
app.use('/custom/static', express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'static')));
Now if you request an URL https:///custom/static/foo Express will look for a file named foo in the static folder.
At Plesk server there are nodejs and reactjs build on hit url the build run but when we hit the nodejs file url of js files it open directly on browser means nodejs files are not secure.
So, it sounds like you are using express.static(), yet the user is able to fetch your server files that are not meant to go to the client. That apparently means that you've pointed express.static at a directory that contains your server files. Instead, you need to point express.static() at a directory hierarchy that ONLY contains files meant to be sent to the client. That means it has to be a separate directory from your server files and it has to not be above your server files directory.
There are many possible places to put it. Here are a couple ways to organize things:
projectDirectory
serverFiles
server.js
clientFiles
index.html
login.html
Then, when running server code from the serverFiles directory, you would use an express.static() like this:
const path = require('path');
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, "../clientFiles")));
Or, you can do it like this:
projectDirectory
serverFiles
server.js
clientFiles
index.html
login.html
const path = require('path');
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, "clientFiles")));
The idea is that the clientFiles directory hierarchy contains only client-side files and express.static() by default will not allow ../ syntax in the URLs to go above it.
Using the following simple Node server
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var path = require('path');
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public'))); // "public" off of current is root
app.listen(3000);
console.log('Listening on port 3000');
I have of course put a 'public' directory in my root and also dropped a index.html file in it but when i point my browser to
http://localhost:3000/public/
I get
Cannot GET /public/
The problem is how you're mounting express.static middleware. In your example you're mounting it to the root of your application.
So, in your example you should be able to access content of /public directory from http://localhost:3000/.
So, all you need is to specify a mounting point for express.static middleware:
app.use('public', express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
You should also keep in mind that express.static don't have a default index page. So, if you have no index.html in your public directory you'll get 404 anyway (express.static won't list your files like apache do).
This one caught me out as well when starting with express.
http://localhost:3000/public/ won't be accessible.
For example lets say you have a css folder inside of the public directory with a file called styles.css
Your browser would be able to access that file at http://localhost:3000/css/styles.css.
The express documentation on express.static can be found here: app.use (under the two example tables)
edit 1: See this answer here.
edit 2: #Leonid Beschastny answer is correct, I didn't see that a path to a folder was missing in app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
I have a test node.js/angular app that uses the yeoman angular-generator. However, I am having problems serving back the rendered .js files from the original .coffee files.
The js files are being rendered and saved to APP_ROOT/.tmp, but any requests for the js files results in a 404.
What is needed (within the Gruntfile?) to allow for the js files to be returned?
Thanks for the help.
Things are working now. The end fix was something was to add an additional static middleware to the app.js file, which was something I had already tried, but it is possible that the path was off causing the fix not to work.
app.js
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, '.tmp')));
When I first added ~line 2 the app.js folder was moved into the app_root/server folder with the following
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, '..', '.tmp')));
which for some reason wasn't working. That teaches me for moving files around
I've reduced my code to the simplest express-js app I could make:
var express = require("express"),
app = express.createServer();
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/styles'));
app.listen(3001);
My directory look like this:
static_file.js
/styles
default.css
Yet when I access http://localhost:3001/styles/default.css I get the following error:
Cannot GET / styles /
default.css
I'm using express 2.3.3 and node 0.4.7. What am I doing wrong?
Try http://localhost:3001/default.css.
To have /styles in your request URL, use:
app.use("/styles", express.static(__dirname + '/styles'));
Look at the examples on this page:
//Serve static content for the app from the "public" directory in the application directory.
// GET /style.css etc
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
// Mount the middleware at "/static" to serve static content only when their request path is prefixed with "/static".
// GET /static/style.css etc.
app.use('/static', express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
I have the same problem. I have resolved the problem with following code:
app.use('/img',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/images')));
app.use('/js',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/javascripts')));
app.use('/css',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/stylesheets')));
Static request example:
http://pruebaexpress.lite.c9.io/js/socket.io.js
I need a more simple solution. Does it exist?
This work for me:
app.use('*/css',express.static('public/css'));
app.use('*/js',express.static('public/js'));
app.use('*/images',express.static('public/images'));
default.css should be available at http://localhost:3001/default.css
The styles in app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/styles')); just tells express to look in the styles directory for a static file to serve. It doesn't (confusingly) then form part of the path it is available on.
In your server.js :
var express = require("express");
var app = express();
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
You have declared express and app separately, create a folder named 'public' or as you like, and yet you can access to these folder. In your template src, you have added the relative path from /public (or the name of your folder destiny to static files). Beware of the bars on the routes.
I am using Bootstrap CSS, JS and Fonts in my application. I created a folder called asset in root directory of the app and place all these folder inside it. Then in server file added following line:
app.use("/asset",express.static("asset"));
This line enables me to load the files that are in the asset directory from the /asset path prefix like: http://localhost:3000/asset/css/bootstrap.min.css.
Now in the views I can simply include CSS and JS like below:
<link href="/asset/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
What worked for me is:
Instead of writing app.use(express.static(__dirname + 'public/images')); in your app.js
Simply write
app.use(express.static('public/images'));
i.e remove the root directory name in the path. And then you can use the static path effectively in other js files, For example:
<img src="/images/misc/background.jpg">
Hope this helps :)
to serve static files (css,images,js files)just two steps:
pass the directory of css files to built in middleware express.static
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
/*public is folder in my project directory contains three folders
css,image,js
*/
//css =>folder contains css file
//image=>folder contains images
//js =>folder contains javascript files
app.use(express.static( 'public/css'));
to access css files or images just type in url http://localhost:port/filename.css ex:http://localhost:8081/bootstrap.css
note: to link css files to html just type<link href="file_name.css" rel="stylesheet">
if i write this code
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
app.use('/css',express.static( 'public/css'));
to access the static files just type in url:localhost:port/css/filename.css
ex:http://localhost:8081/css/bootstrap.css
note to link css files with html just add the following line
<link href="css/file_name.css" rel="stylesheet">
this one worked for me
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
app.use('/img',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/images')));
app.use('/shopping-cart/javascripts',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/javascripts')));
app.use('/shopping-cart/stylesheets',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/stylesheets')));
app.use('/user/stylesheets',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/stylesheets')));
app.use('/user/javascripts',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/javascripts')));
Webpack makes things awkward
As a supplement to all the other already existing solutions:
First things first: If you base the paths of your files and directories on the cwd (current working directory), things should work as usual, as the cwd is the folder where you were when you started node (or npm start, yarn run etc).
However...
If you are using webpack, __dirname behavior will be very different, depending on your node.__dirname settings, and your webpack version:
In Webpack v4, the default behavior for __dirname is just /, as documented here.
In this case, you usually want to add this to your config which makes it act like the default in v5, that is __filename and __dirname now behave as-is but for the output file:
module.exports = {
// ...
node: {
// generate actual output file information
// see: https://webpack.js.org/configuration/node/#node__filename
__dirname: false,
__filename: false,
}
};
This has also been discussed here.
In Webpack v5, per the documentation here, the default is already for __filename and __dirname to behave as-is but for the output file, thereby achieving the same result as the config change for v4.
Example
For example, let's say:
you want to add the static public folder
it is located next to your output (usually dist) folder, and you have no sub-folders in dist, it's probably going to look like this
const ServerRoot = path.resolve(__dirname /** dist */, '..');
// ...
app.use(express.static(path.join(ServerRoot, 'public'))
(important: again, this is independent of where your source file is, only looks at where your output files are!)
More advanced Webpack scenarios
Things get more complicated if you have multiple entry points in different output directories, as the __dirname for the same file might be different for output file (that is each file in entry), depending on the location of the output file that this source file was merged into, and what's worse, the same source file might be merged into multiple different output files.
You probably want to avoid this kind of scenario scenario, or, if you cannot avoid it, use Webpack to manage and infuse the correct paths for you, possibly via the DefinePlugin or the EnvironmentPlugin.
The problem with serving __dirname is that __dirname returns the path of the current file, not the project's file.
Also, if you use a dynamic header, each page will look for the static files in a different path and it won't work.
The best, for me, is to substitute __dirname for process.cwd() which ALWAYS donates the path to the project file.
app.use(express.static(process.cwd() + '/public'));
And in your project:
link rel="stylesheet" href="/styles/default.css"
See: What's the difference between process.cwd() vs __dirname?
I was using
app.use(express.static('public'))
When there was no file in the public folder with name index.html.
I was getting the following error in the browser:
"Cannot GET /"
When I renamed the file to 'index.html', it works fine.
Try accessing it with http://localhost:3001/default.css.
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/styles'));
You are actually giving it the name of folder i.e. styles not your suburl.
I find my css file and add a route to it:
app.get('/css/MyCSS.css', function(req, res){
res.sendFile(__dirname + '/public/css/MyCSS.css');
});
Then it seems to work.
if your setup
myApp
|
|__ public
| |
| |__ stylesheets
| | |
| | |__ style.css
| |
| |___ img
| |
| |__ logo.png
|
|__ app.js
then,
put in app.js
app.use('/static', express.static('public'));
and refer to your style.css: (in some .pug file):
link(rel='stylesheet', href='/static/stylesheets/style.css')
Try './public' instead of __dirname + '/public'.
Similarly, try process.cwd() + '/public'.
Sometimes we lose track of the directories we are working with, its good to avoid assuming that files are located where we are telling express where they are.
Similarly, avoid assuming that in the depths of dependencies the path is being interpreted the same way at every level.
app.use(express.static(__dirname+'/'));
This worked for me, I tried using a public directory but it didn't work.
But in this case, we give access to the whole static files in the directory, hope it helps!
In addition to above, make sure the static file path begins with / (ex... /assets/css)... to serve static files in any directory above the main directory (/main)
Create a folder with 'public' name in Nodejs project
folder.
Put index.html file into of Nodejs project folder.
Put all script and css file into public
folder.
Use app.use( express.static('public'));
and in index.html correct path of scripts to <script type="text/javascript" src="/javasrc/example.js"></script>
And Now all things work fine.
static directory
check the above image(static directory) for dir structure
const publicDirectoryPath = path.join(__dirname,'../public')
app.use(express.static(publicDirectoryPath))
// or
app.use("/", express.static(publicDirectoryPath))
app.use((req, res, next) => {
res.sendFile(path.join(publicDirectoryPath,'index.html'))
In your nodejs file
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
app.use('/static', express.static('path_to_static_folder'));
In your pug file
...
script(type="text/javascript", src="static/your_javascript_filename")
...
Note the "static" word. It must be same in nodejs file and pug file.
i just try this code and working
const exp = require('express');
const app = exp();
app.use(exp.static("public"));
and working,
before (not working) :
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
app.use(express.static("public"));
just try