How to deploy Front & Back node.js on the same Heroku app? - node.js

To be able to run my app, I need to run these 2 command in 2 different terminal :
cd app && npm install & npm start
cd api && npm install & npm start
I basically launch the front (app) and the back (api).
I want to deploy that on Heroku, but using the free plan.
Is there a way to do that? Do I need to create a package.json file on the root folder? If yes what should be inside?
Whatever I write, it seems to run only the front and never the back.
Many thanks!

You need to build the front-end and then serve it from the server end.
Whatever front-end framework you are using, make sure the build file is kept in the server static directory. Then make a route to load the build file (in most cases index.html).
Your steps might be
First, build the production-ready front-end (in most cases, it will generate the index.html in a distribution directory).
Put the distribution directory in your server public or static directory.
Make route in your server end and server the static file (mainly the index.html)
Now you are ready to go, put the node server to heroku.
For example, your final route might be
app.get("*", (req, res) => {
res.sendFile("static index.html file path");
})

Related

How to combine vue-cli development mode with server-side api?

I'm new to vue and kind of confuse here.
I'm using vue-cli to build a vue app, I understand I can run a development server with npm run serve which is referenced as a script in my package.json for vue-cli-service serve
But my app need some data coming from a local node.js server. I cannot request this server from development mode because it's running on a different server.
To make my app work I'm obligated to build for production with
npm run build
Then to ask my node server to render by default the produced index.html file.
How could I combine development mode and my node server?
What would be the best way to make this work?
Thanks a lot
I stumbled across this, and found the answer buried at the bottom of the comments list, so I thought I'd highlight it.
This answer is taken from #Frank Provost comment, which really should be the accepted answer. As mentioned in his link https://cli.vuejs.org/config/#devserver-proxy all you need to do is create/edit vue.config.js file in your (client) project root to include this:
module.exports = {
devServer: {
proxy: 'http://localhost:3000' // enter dev server url here
}
}
Then start your dev server as usual from your server project:
[server-root]$ npm run dev
And run your client project from vue-cli project
[client-root]$ npm run serve
Then when you visit the client url (usually localhost:8080) all api requests will be forwarded to your dev server. All hot module replacement still works on both client and server.

How to run Tabler in production

On my local machine I have been developing on a tabler clone. To run it, I do as the repo suggests and run npm run serve. This brings up nice dev tools like auto-compiling scss and livereloading after changes. Further, npm run dist creates a /dist folder with my sites contents. However, I want to run this on an EC2 instance, but am unsure how to run for a production environment. How would I do this?
A direct Tabler clone is live here on my server. As you can see it takes too long to serve up the basic index page. This is the issue I am trying to solve by running in production
My solution was to wrap the code in /dist with a new node/express program. I set up a basic express app under /prod. In app.js I have the following code.
const dist = path.join(__dirname, '/public/');
router.get('/', function(req, res) {
res.sendFile(path.join(dist, '/index.html'));
});
For production, first I call npm run dist
Then I call npm run prod which does the following: "prod": "del ./prod/public && move-cli --mkdirp ./dist/ ./prod/public"
Now the server is runnable using node prod/bin/www

Deploy angular 7, mongo, express, node application on own server

I would like to deploy my angular application with nodejs, mongo, express js on my own server.
My way is:
-> ng build --prod (output is dist folder)
-> ng serve on dist folder
Start backend:
-> node server js file
But I think, it is not correct way od production stage. Added http server on express, there I create another index html view file with hbs, and there I use:
<body>
<my-app>Loading ...</my-app>
<script src="/dist/bundle.js"></script>
</body>
But on dist server, there is multiple js files.
How can I create using ng option (no webpack or must be f.e. webpack?) my angular/mongo/node/express application (in 1, my own server, no aws, heroku, github etc). There is any correct way to do it?
I've been able to deploy an angular app using Caddy Server as the webserver.
Create a build of your Angular code by doing ng build --prod-true.
This creates a set of bundled Js and Html files in the dist
directory.
Copy these files to where you want to run the app.
Next go to the Caddy website and download the version of Caddy for
your os. You can choose all kinds of features but for my deployment
inside a firewall a plain build worked fine.
Drop the caddy file in the directory that you put your compiled
angular code.
Create a caddyfile (just a file named caddyfile), add localhost:(your
favorite port number).
Run caddy and it will automatically serve your app by launching
index.html. You can view your app at localhost:port.
No messy node installation. Caddy has all sorts of add-ons to deal with more complicated scenarios but the deployment is caddy.exe, caddyfile and your built code.

How to run a node app after production build by WebPack when output is index.html?

***Updated for further clarification:
Thanks much for taking the time to reply. Running 'npm run build' (I'm using the Vuetify/Webpack template) created an index.html and a directory named 'static' with the respective html, css, and js (in 'dist' directory). The question is - how can I run this in production using node or pm2 (for example, 'pm2 start myapp.js')?
Doing some further research and testing, the 'npm run build' built as static. It was my lack of understanding how vue-cli was to build for production (via WebPack) (vue-cli builds static meant to be served via web server). Doing further testing, I can load and bring up my app on a couple local Linux servers (the static content running on one servers, while MongoDB and API running on another server (API running with pm2)). Also, I was able to bring it up on AWS S3 (as static). I think I have my answer now. Thanks much for your time.
***From Original Post:
How to run the following node app in production? Webpack build produced an index.html (I assume as it's using html-webpack-plugin). I can view the site if I run under a web server (e.g., nginx), but I want to run my final app using pm2, or running node process.
I am using the Vuetify WebPack template (I'm using Vue.js), when I run the npm run build for production (in package.json: “build”: “node build/build.js”) the output is as follows:
$ ls
index.html static/
and
$ ls static/js/
app.f7301c212bc5fefd6563.js manifest.2ae2e69a05c33dfc65f8.js vendor.1aae36aa0dc798d4d36d.js
app.f7301c212bc5fefd6563.js.map manifest.2ae2e69a05c33dfc65f8.js.map vendor.1aae36aa0dc798d4d36d.js.map
So, how do I run this via node (npm start) or pm2 (pm2 start) (can't use index.html or static/js files).
When I run the webpack build I was expecting a .js output (for example ‘build.js’) to run via node or pm2 (npm start that runs ‘node build.js’ or pm2 start build.js). I suppose this will work for serverless, but was looking to run via pm2 (with nginx as proxy) as the app will have other factors (e.g., MongoDB) that won’t allow running in serverless (e.g., AWS Lambda).
Would this be a matter of just re-configuring WebPack to output to a .js file (for example, build.js), or will the static files (served via a webserver, nginx/Apache/http-server) allow for the same functionality? That is, will there be any factors that would limit my app by running as static verses via ‘node build.js’ or ‘pm2 start build.js’, (for example, will my API connects to the back-end still work (back-end being node/JS))?

Serving Node Server and Angular 4 application in one command

I am starting a new project which is using Angular 4 for frontend designing and the application will need some rest api's for which I have decided to use node. I am using angular cli for creating angular app and I know how to create angular app and node server but I want to know how will I connect these two things such that when I do ng serve both the server and angular app gets compiled and run. What basic changes in the project structure or some file is needed to be done?
I'm currently building a full-stack Angular app with a Node/Express backend and was wondering the exact same thing. However, despite what that scotch.io tutorial tells you, creating both the Express server and the Angular app in the same directory is NOT the best way to go about it.
What you want to do is set up your Express server in one project and serve it in one terminal window, then serve your Angular app in a separate terminal window but have it point to your locally-running Express server instead of the default dev server that's included with the Angular CLI (the ng-serve command).
Here's a Stack Overflow answer and also a Medium article that answered all of my questions for how to set this up (fortunately, it's not too hard).
Here's what I did Shubham. I went into the Angular-Cli and changed "outDir": to "../public"in other words it will look like "outDir": "../public". The ../public folder is my Express static folder set in my app.js file with app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
Keeping in mind I have nodemon installed globally, and in my package.json file, "start": "node app" I simply run nodemon from this dir to start my server and both Angular and Express run on the same server.
I have seen some people say it's not good to run static filed on the Node/Express server, but for development I'm not sure it matters. Although I'm a novice when it comes to js frameworks etc. Here's the project files on my github acct: https://github.com/chriskavanagh/angularauth.
Edit: You must run ng-build (in your Angular dir) whenever you change code.
First, in Angular project do ng build, it will create dist folder (static folder).
Second step, paste the following code in backend servers entry point file.
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'dist/')));
app.get('*', (req, res) =>{
res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, 'dist/index.html'));
});
And after the above thing is done run backend server: node filename
Note: in give proper path where your index.html file is located in dist folder.
The node server and the Angular app are two different things.
In order to run the node server you should use the command:
node ServerName.js
In order to run the angular app you should use the command:
npm start OR ng serve
In your case, the connection between the two is made by http requests.
For example you could use 'express' in order to implement rest services in your node server and then send an http request to the server in the current route.

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