My meanjs server takes 3-6 minutes to start - node.js

Question

My mean.js app is based off the yoeman meanjs generator, with some tweaks (e.g. separating the front end and backend so they can be deployed separately).
I'm launching the app using fig (see fig.yml below).
When I set the command to "node server.js", the server takes 6 seconds to starts.
When I startup using "grunt", which runs nodemon and watch, it takes about 6 minutes. I've tried various things but can't really understand why nodemon would cause things to run so much slower
fig.yml:
web:
build: .
links:
- db:mongo.local
ports:
- "3000:3000"
volumes:
- .:/home/abilitie
command: grunt
#command: node server.js # much faster but you don't get the restart stuff
environment:
NODE_ENV: development
db:
image: dockerfile/mongodb
ports:
- "27017:27017"
Gruntfile (excerpt)
concurrent: {
default: ['nodemon', 'watch'],
old_default: ['nodemon', 'watch'],
debug: ['nodemon:debug', 'watch', 'node-inspector'],
options: {
logConcurrentOutput: true,
limit: 10
}
},
jshint: {
all: {
src: watchFiles.serverJS,
options: {
jshintrc: true
}
}
},
grunt.registerTask('lint', ['jshint']);
// Default task(s).
grunt.registerTask('default', ['lint', 'concurrent:default']);

Answer 1

It's because your first approach simply run Express server by $ node server.js. But I don't understand why i it takes 6 seconds to start? Maybe you have a slow hardware...
In order to understand why the second approach takes 6 minutes you need to understand what grunt do after launching:
Lint all this JavaScript files
serverJS: ['gruntfile.js', 'server.js', 'config/**/*.js']
clientJS: ['public/js/*.js', 'public/modules/**/*.js']
Starts two parallel processes: watch & nodemon
If watch is clear (it watching for files from stetting and after editing them restart the server) what do the nodemon? More precisely, what is the difference between starting the server by nodejs and nodemon.
From official github documentation:
nodemon will watch the files in the directory in which nodemon was started, and if any files change, nodemon will automatically restart your node application.
If you have a package.json file for your app, you can omit the main script entirely and nodemon will read the package.json for the main property and use that value as the app.
It's watching for all the files from node_modules directory and in my meanjs v0.4.0 its ~41,000 files. In your case buffering all of this files takes about 6 minutes. Try to add to your gruntfile.js grunt.initConfig > nodemon > dev > option ignore
nodemon: {
dev: {
script: 'server.js',
options: {
nodeArgs: ['--debug'],
ext: 'js,html',
watch: watchFiles.serverViews.concat(watchFiles.serverJS),
ignore: 'node_modules/*' // or '/node_modules'
}
}
},
You need to determine exactly where the problem is. Try to start the server by three different ways and to measure the time
NODE_ENV=development nodejs server.js
NODE_ENV=development nodemon server.js
NODE_ENV=development nodemon server.js --ignore node_modules/

Answer 2

NFS saved the day.
The VirtualBox shared folder is super slow. Using this vagrant image instead of boot2docker is much faster.
https://vagrantcloud.com/yungsang/boxes/boot2docker
Also, make sure to disable UDP, or NFS may hang. You may do so by putting this in your Vagrantfile:
config.vm.synced_folder ".", "/vagrant", type: "nfs", nfs_udp: false