I am trying to dockerize a NodeJS application. I have followed this tutorial https://nodejs.org/en/docs/guides/nodejs-docker-webapp/
It is really easy and works.
But I need extend functionality a little bit.
My infrastructure won't contain only the nodejs container, it will have much more containers that are linked together with the help of docker-compose file.
What I need
I am going to use https for my application. So I need to provide my SSL certificates in folder that will be mount to a host machine. But I guess I need to restart an express app in order to apply changes. How can I handle this use case ? In case I have other containers running.
I need to be able to restart nodejs app without restarting a container.
Could you please suggest the right strategy to follow in order implement this properly ?
Related
I've made an app using Angular, NestJS (Node.js) and MongoDB and I'm wondering how to easily turn it into a simple docker container, which will contain nginx sever for serving the frontend app and reverse proxy for the backend + the MongoDB. Also it would be cool if there was option for automatic Let's encrypt cert renewal etc.
Is there some pre-made package/template I could just clone, replace the app files and immediately just run? If not, I'd appreciate at least link to some guide on how to build such container myself - It's probably not super hard, but I've never really built anything with Docker (I do have some basic knowledge how it works) and my nginx experience is also very limited...
The expected result should be all-in-one docker app that I can easily provide to anyone, so they can just easily run it with something like docker run -p 80:80 image.
I have a react + node app which I need to deploy. I am using nginx to serve my front end but I am not sure what to use to keep my nodejs server running in production.
The project is hosted on a windows VM. I cannot use pm2 due to license issues. I have no idea if running the server using nodemon in production is good or not. I have never deployed an app in production, hence I have no idea about appropriate methods.
You may consider forever or supervisor.
Check this blog post on the same.
You can also use docker. You can create multiple docker containers that will run your node server. Now at the nginx level at your host machine you can do load balancing configuration which will route the traffic equally to different docker node containers this will improve your availability and scalability, In heavy traffic you just need to increase the number of docker node containers as and when required. I guess initially 2 containers will be enough to handle traffic (depends on your use case though).
Note:- You can also use forever or supervisor as suggested by #Rajesh Gupta inside your docker containers for running node server. We use PM2 for that.
If you have a database then you can create a separate docker container for the database and map it to a volume in your host machine.
You can learn about docker from here.
Also you can read about load balancing in nginx from here.
Further more to improve your availability you can add a caching layer in between nginx and docker containers. Varnish is the best caching service i have used till date.
PS:- We use a similar but more advanced architecture to run our Ecommerce application that generates 5-10k orders daily. So this is a tested approach with 0 downtime.
Try to dockerize the whole app including the db, caching server (if any) etc.
Here are some examples why:
You can launch a fully capable development environment on any
computer supporting Docker; you don't have to install libraries,
dependencies, download packages, mess with config files etc.
The working environment of the application remains consistent across
the whole workflow. This means the app runs exactly the same for
developer, tester, and client, be it on development, staging or
production server. In short, Docker is the counter-measure for the
age-old response in the software development: "Strange, it works for
me!"
Every application requires a specific working environment: pre-installed applications, dependencies, data bases, everything in specific version. Docker containers allow you to create such environments. Contrary to VM, however, the container doesn't hold the whole operating system—just applications, dependencies, and configuration. This makes Docker containers much lighter and faster than regular VM's.
I apologize if this is a general question, but apparently what I'm googling doesn't make sense, and I don't have anyone at my work I can ask.
Here's my situation:
Simple Vue.js app created with the Vue CLI 3.5, with an <input type="file">. Nothing hooked up yet when the form submits.
Docker container with Node and NGINX that pulls in and builds my Vue app - this is working. I basically copied the Dockerfile right from the vue.js site.
Now I need to store the file from the web app (and eventually FTP it to another server).
It was suggested I use Node, but I'm new to all the server-side stuff, so I don't know how to do that. My container has both Node and NGINX in it running the app, so can I stick with one container? And how do I build locally for development and then transfer that to the Docker image?
I'm just looking for pointers/articles/tutorials to help me think about this the right way.
Attention opinion:
In my experience NGINX is more of a router managing traffic.
Its in the name of Node to make a single one per task. So () i think its uesfull to split those.
Node is similar to "frotnend" except you have access to common system apis - wrapped by node.
But basically like you consume rest or graphql apis you can do with node.
Best is to simply peek into the basics you most likely gonna need:
file system, stream,...
https://nodejs.org/api/
New to this...
I'm trying to understand if a modern MEAN app should be deployed with 3 or 2 Docker containers:
Option 1: Express Server as container + Mongo DB as container
Option 2: All three as separate Docker containers
The second option sounds like the appropriate path so you can update any part of the stack without taking down other components if you don't want to. But then the question is does the ng app container need it's own server to serve the ng app files. I'm seeing some examples on Github where they are running the ng app with ng serve -H 0.0.0.0 from the Docker container which from my understanding is a no-no because that's not a prod ready server, just webpacks dev server.
To me, if you run all three separately then you actually need two servers, one to server the ng app (index.html, js, css, etc.) and the other to sever the backend app, the API.
The advantage I see if you run the Express Sever + ng app in one container then you can serve the initial index.html with ng app dependencies AND the API but then they both go down when they get updated.
What's the best practice here?
IMHO 2 Containers seems like the better solution with one for Mongo and one for Express. Anytime you're pushing new code, it doesn't make sense to have a front end still up if back end is down or vice versa. Also serving front end files from the same server reduces headaches of dealing with CSRF.
Regarding your other question, I think you can deploy your front end to something like AWS S3 and still only manage one server for your backend.
on a side note, you could also do it all in one container. It really depends on your other requirements to figure out the best architecture.
What are the best practices for deploying a nodejs application in production?
I would like to know how deploy for production Api's nodejs is being done today, today my application is in docker and running locally.
I wonder if I should use a Nginx inside the container and deploy my server on it or just upload my image node that is already running today.
*I need load balance
There are few main types of deployment that are popular today.
Using platform as a service like Heroku
Using a VPS like AWS, Digital Ocean etc.
Using a dedicated server
This list is in the order of growing difficulty and control. So it's easiest with PaaS but you get more control with a dedicated server - thought it gets significantly more difficult, especially when you need to scale out and build clusters.
See this answer for more details on how to install Node on a VPS or a dedicated server:
how to run node js on dedicated server?
I can only add from experience on AWS using a NAT Gateway which is a dedicated Node server with a MongoDB server behind the gateway. (Obviously this is a scalable system and project.)
With or without Docker, you need to control the production environment. This means clearly defining which NPM libraries you will need for production, how you handle environment variables and clusters for cores.
I would suggest, very strongly, using a tool like PM2 to handle clusters, server shutdowns and restarts and logs. (Workers & slaves also if you need them and code for them).
This list can go on and on, but keep in mind this is only from an AWS perspective. Setting up a Gateway correctly on AWS is also not an easy process. Be prepared for some gotcha's along the way.