I'm looking for a documentation which describes the standard way of setting up a Node.js server. I'm wondering whether there is such a thing, actually.
I'm writing a Linux (Ubuntu) server and administrators of a standard server would find it normal to find the settings of the application under:
# Admin editable settings
/etc/<app-name>/<app-name>.conf
# Read-only files used by the server
/usr/lib/<app-name>/...
# Read-Write files used by the server
/var/lib/<app-name>/...
The <app-name>.conf file could be used to change the other paths.
Does the default Linux organization sound completely out of wack for a Node.js application?
IMPORTANT: I'm not in any way interested about how to read the .conf or what format it should be in. That part already works exactly as I want it to work. I'm only interested in where those files are expected to be installed when someone installs your Node.js service.
Related
I made a program trying to see how many color pages are on an uploaded PDF file, using Ghostscript. Now, it worked perfectly on my local environment, but I can't put the site online, as the web hosting service I use tells me that any application that needs root access cannot be installed on the server. Is it the case with Ghostscript, and if so, is there any other way I can use it ?
I'm new to all this, and I know now I should have asked the web hosting service first thing, but I'd really like to not have to put my work in the bin over this !
No Ghostscript doesn't require root privileges and I've no idea why they would claim it does. Also, I would strongly urge you to review the AGPL license.
I'm developing a cross-platform desktop application for Mac, Linux and Windows. The application will create a plain-text log file to help with debugging, amongst other things. What are people's recommendations for a sensible place to store the log on each of the platforms?
Here is my guess so far, based on web searches:
Mac: ~/Library/Logs/MY-APP-NAME/system.log
Linux: ~/.MY-APP-NAME/logs/system.log
Windows: %APPDATA%\MY-APP-NAME\logs\system.log
For Linux, the XDG Base Directory Specification is followed by some applications. Log files are not specifically called out as such. You can put them either into a subdirectory of the data directory ($XDG_DATA_HOME or $HOME/.local/share), where they will not be deleted automatically, or you could use a subdirectory of the cache directory ($XDG_CACHE or $HOME/.cache). In the latter case, the files could be automatically expired after some time.
Let say i have a cross-platform runnable application
This application create then read/write some data and preference in external files
Bundle hierarchy is as follow:
ApplicationFolder/application.jar
ApplicationFolder/database.odb
ApplicationFolder/config.xml
Whether it's on a Mac, Windows or Linux, the application knows that everything is next to her (ie: /database.odb or /config.xml)
Now comes the Self Contained Application feature provided by JavaFx 2
The application is embedded in .exe on Windows, .app on Mac and don't know yet about Linux...
As a Mac user i've tested it on Mac and saw that database.odb and config.xml are now created at the user root path
I thus agree that i should think of a cross-platform mechanism to save/read my application preferences regarding the operating system
But i'm not quite sure of what to do and how to do it (can't find any googling help either..)
On windows, the .exe is installed in a folder, so i guess i can keep the same behavior
On Mac, the .app is a folder and i should keep everything inside (how to get the .app path ?!)
Isn't there a built-in mechanism in Java/JavaFx ?
Thanks a lot for any comment, advice, documentation or else that you could give me
Badisi
There are many ways to do this. I have listed some of them here in no particular order. The recommended approach depends on the type of data being stored.
Java provides a couple of mechanisms (e.g. the properties API and the preferences API) for maintaining application preferences.
If your application is sophisticated enough to benefit from an database, then you might want to use Java EE or Spring, both of which have their own configuration mechanisms.
For read-only configuration, you can bundle the relevant files inside your application jar.
To store customized application configuration files or client application wide databases in relative to the application jar, write the required files at runtime. See How do I get the directory that the currently executing jar file is in?.
For user specific configuration, use System.getProperty("user.home") to retrieve the user's home directory, then create a subdirectory for your preference storage (for example "{$user.dir}/.myapp") with hidden file attributes so that it doesn't show up on a standard file directory list.
If your app relies on internet connectivity, then you can store some of this information server side rather than the client and make use of it from the client using internet protocols. An advantage of this approach is that user configuration and data is automatically ported across client machines.
I have a web application developed using JSP and Servlet. This web application is deployed on server having Debian Linux as OS and The Tomcat version is 5.5.31. As this applications required some data files, These data files will be get created automatically when setting are done using a standalone java application. This application is deployed on another machine. This setup is done. As I dont know much about Debian Linux and where my application is goes on it so I have some doubts in deployment of these autimatically generated data files which are as follows
As I made the .war file of my web application and deployed it using Tomcat Manager. so I dont know where exactly my application goes. I dont know the exact path. How do I find it?
Is it possible to create FTP for this web application which is deployed on Debian Linux server? I think that if creating FTP is possible then I will directly connect to FTP using my Stand alone Java program and will easily do the creation of the file and other file and directory manipulation.
If you've deployed a war, the application isn't anywhere on the filesystem as such. Most servers will unpack the war somewhere, but you shouldn’t rely on where that is.
I can think of several options:
getServletContext().getAttribute("javax.servlet.context.tempdir") to get the application's temp directory, then inform you external program of this location and place the file somewhere in there in a know location.
Arrange for a "know location" outside of the application, such as /tmp/somewhere or /var/cache/your-app/somewhere to place such files. (Note: /tmp is usually cleaned on startup of a linux machine)
As for getting the file onto the server from a remote machine: You could get your client to upload the file directly to your webapp (something like Apache HTTPClient will help you there), which means that you could do without the "know location" above. If you want to do this outside of the application though, I'd avoid FTP (due to security). Instead, I'd go with scp (secure copy).
Edit: Reading between the lines a little, you mention "setting" in the data file. If this is a configuration file which is not changed once the app is running, you may find it more convenient to have a "deploy" step on your server which simply takes the settings file and adds it to the war before deploying it. This is easy enough with "ant war" for example. You could then access the file using getClass().getResourceStream(..) or such.
Is there a standard location on Linux (Ubuntu) to place external config files that a web application (Grails) uses?
UPDATE: Apparently, there is some confusion to my question. The way Grails handles config files is fine. I just want to know if there is a standard location on linux to place configuration files. Similar to how there is a standard for log files (/var/log). If it matters, I'm talking about a production system.
Linux configuration files typically reside in /etc. For example, apache configuration files live in /etc/httpd. Configuration file not associated with standard system packages often live in /usr/local/etc.
So I'd suggest /usr/local/etc/my-grails-app-name/. Beware that this means you can't run two different configurations of the same app on the same server.
I don't believe there is a standard location. You usually define the location for your external config files via the grails.config.locations property in config.groovy.
EDIT
After reading your comment, I suppose the standard locations would be:
Somewhere on the classpath
OR
In the .grails folder in your home directory.
As these are the defaults in config.groovy file.
grails.config.locations = [ "classpath:${appName}-config.properties",
"classpath:${appName}-config.groovy",
"file:${userHome}/.grails/${appName}-config.properties",
"file:${userHome}/.grails/${appName}-config.groovy"]
There's a plugin Standardized external configuration for your app which you might find useful if the grails.config.locations parameter is insufficient.