All:
I wonder when I use express.static with a relative path like
app.use(express.static('./dist'));
How do I know what is the root directory? One interesting thing I find is:
If I run node server/app.js(all express server code is inside app.js) and put dist fold along with server folder, it works, but if I run node app.js inside server folder, then it does not. So does this mean express decide root base on some variables from Node?
Thanks
Related
I have a server running with express. Let's say I have the following folder structure:
- public
-- image1.png
-- image2.png
-- image3.png
- src
-- app.js
In the app.js I setup the server using express and I do:
const app = express();
app.use(express.static('public'));
Now, If I start the server and go to localhost:port/image1.png I get image1.png displayed.
I am confused because the path I specified is incorrect, kinda. If I do:
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, '..', 'public'))
I get the same result. Why they work the same?
it all depends on "how you start your server"
if you do:
node src/app.js
it will work because from a Node.js perspective, the path public exists in the file system from where the node process started,
now, if you do:
cd src
node app.js
it will not work because there's no public folder in the file system from where the node process started
behind the scenes, Express.js is using the serve-static package,
if you look in the source code, it is using path.resolve to load the folder:
https://github.com/expressjs/serve-static/blob/master/index.js#L65
and looking at the Node.js documentation for path.resolve, we have:
"If no path segments are passed, path.resolve() will return the absolute path of the current working directory."
So, resolving public from the current working directory of node when using node src/app.js, the folder exists!
that's why it works! :)
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.
I am trying to run my index.js script from outside the project directory. My project structure is as follows:
app
- config
- config.js
- public
- index.html
- src
- index.js
Now when I run my src/index.js from outside my app folder, require() is able to resolve the relative paths
const config = require(`../config/config`);
On the other hand express.static is not able to resolve such relative paths.
e.g. app.use(express.static("../public"));
Why do I need to use path.join and get the absolute path?
require() works off __dirname which is independent of what the current directory was when your app was loaded. It's always the directory where the module is located in, so it is consistent.
express.static() when used with relative paths uses the directory that the main app was launched form, so if you use relative paths, its behavior varies depending upon how you launch the app.
From the express doc for serving static files:
However, the path that you provide to the express.static function is
relative to the directory from where you launch your node process. If
you run the express app from another directory, it’s safer to use the
absolute path of the directory that you want to serve
So, if you want the directory to be module relative, you have to manually combine your path with __dirname to make a full path, as you have discovered.
My app’s folder structure for NodeJitsu is as follows (i.e., when i do a jitsu deploy, I'm in the folder that contains "server.js" - i.e., the "server" folder).
Root server
|___server.js
|___package.json
client
|___www
|___index.html
|___css
|___js
|___etc.
So at the root is the folder "server", containing the starting script, “server.js”. Then there’s a folder called “client”, parallel to "server", with a folder within that called “www”, and within “www” is the main “index.html”.
In my “server.js” file, I have the following code:
app.get(‘/’, function(req,res)
{
var aPath = path.resolve(“../client/www/”, “index.html”);
res.sendFile(aPath);
});
I don’t have a app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/somefolder'). And when I start the app, I get this error:
Error: ENOENT, stat '/opt/run/snapshot/client/www/index.html'
My process.cwd() is /opt/run/snapshot/package. Obviously the above path isn’t pointing to the location where “index.html” resides. But I thought the way I do the path.resolve(…) should point to “index.html”. I can’t see where the problem is. If “server.js” is in the root, then to get to “index.html”, which is in “client/www/index.html”, then I should need to write “../client/www”, relative to the excuting script, to get to “index.html”, right?.
Do you have any insights as to where the path is not set up correctly? What should /opt/run/snapshot/ be pointing to? Or, what changes do I need to make in the get(‘/’) handler to correctly point to my “index.html”?
EDIT
I incorrectly drew the folder structure. Now it's correct.
I also turned off the app.get() and turned on the app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/../client/www/'). But to no avail: now i get a Cannot GET / error.
What I'm ultimately after is to have the "server.js" file be the Node server that, mostly, just serves AngularJS HTML files to the browser, with attendant images, stylesheets, etc., from the "client" folder. This is the server's main role, with an additional role of authenticating the app's users, employing the very nice Satellizer module. And that's it. I have a MongoDB attached, but otherwise this is a very common and straightforward Node.js server app.
Thanks!
Try it without rooting, resolving and log out to double check:
// notice no leading / which is root. __dirname should be the dir of current file running
var staticPath = path.resolve(__dirname, '../client/www');
console.log(staticPath);
Then pass that into express.static
app.use(express.static(staticPath);
I would probably recommend following the layout and convention of express generated apps with app in the root and static files under public
/public
<static files>
app.js
Then do what the generated app does:
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
How is the file structure like when using Chaplin with node.js?
I've downloaded the brunch-with-chaplin and that seems pretty straight-forward, but where do I place my node.js files?
I have my app.js file for node, but where do I place it and how do I launch my Chaplin app with it? I wouldn't like to mix the server side files with chaplin files..
They should be either placed directly in the root e.g. I typically have a server.js file which resides in the root. Then optionally you would have sub-directories such as controllers, models, routes etc. depending on how you decide to structure your solution.
Here's an example of a project I'm working on right now.
/app - this contains you front-end application logic i.e. chaplin
/controllers
/lib
/models
/views
application.js
routes.js
/controllers
/models
/routes
server.js - node.js main, starts up express/connect etc.