What is the most scalable and simple way to have a node app serving many domains ?
I feel like many hosting services like nodejitsu don't support this (they actually told me this in an email)
My idea is to have the users redirect a domain to me (like tumblr) and then on the nodejs app I get the domain I'm serving like this:
req.headers.host
and then I simply serve the "template" with the user's options in the DB..
Essentially, you're describing a reverse proxy, no? And if so, why reinvent the wheel? Nginx will not only provide the reverse proxy functionality, but as your project grows you can leverage it for load balancing between a cluster of node apps. Even if you only have a couple of hosts, when you need to scale your architecture, decoupling each host is the first place you will start. Might as well get ahead of it from the get-go.
As for service providers like Nodejitsu, they use the singularity of a hostname as a means to monetize their service. They don't want you hosting a hosting platform on their own hosting platform =)
Related
I am working on a learning project. I have build an authentication system in nodejs using local and Google strategy. Front end is a react app. There are two options for hosting
Deploy front end on static hosting providers like netlify or github pages and backend node app to heroku.
Deploy both backend and front end on heroku with front end code in the public folder and use express.static('public')
I am confused about both these approaches and could not find the answer on the internet. It will be a lot of help if you can explain the pros and cons of both the method and which one is suitable in what conditions. Links to the articles are also appreciated. Thank you in advance.
First approach
Pros:
Static content served from a different server has more optimization potential (using S3/CloudFront edge caching), nginx is blazingly fast for serving static files
Less network traffic on one server (content can be served from multiple points in parallel)
The nodejs application doesn't have to "waste" time serving static files that never change as has more time for actual dynamic content
Cons
Needs more configuration, since it's running on a different origin (dealing with CORS, appropriate security settings)
Premature optimization
More maintenance
Second approach
Pros:
Easier to deploy
Fast enough in most cases
I can give you an example based on the company I work for. We separate back and front on different servers for security and convenience. We block all ip's from making requests to our backend and only release the ip of the front server. We create specific rules for each server separately and if one of the servers stops for any reason, it does not affect the other one.
But this decision depends a lot on the type of application you develop and also the structure you need for your project. But consider the following: security, maintainability, and convenience.
I'm intending to host an online portfolio and I have several node.js projects I'd like to host.
So I'd like to host one project on domain.net/project1 and the other on domain.net/project2
Do I need to use a single nodejs process to do this, or is it possible to have each of my separate nodejs projects running independently?
Is it possible to assign a nodejs process to each subdomain?
A better approach will be to host your NodeJS projects independently and then use the domain(hosted and provided by platform) to Custom Sub-Domain(created by you) pointing to point each of your projects to custom subdomains like project1.mydomain.com. This will provide you the flexibility to deploy your node applications on Heroku, AWS or any other hosting environment.
Thus you get freedom of choosing your own hosting platform and can have as many projects hosted as needed. I have attached an architecture diagram for the same and the link to the original draw.io document. Also please note that this is just a sample, and your design may vary as per your specific requirements
You can refer this Arc diagram for more details.
You can use nginx or apache http for host each project or create a path that contains sub paths for each one.
Here come references:
Apache http
nginx hosting
I'm just starting to learn more about the Node.js paradigm and finding it hard to grasp basic concepts. I'm familiar with front-end tools (HTML, CSS, JS) and have been using PHP with Apache server and mySQL db to deploy websites until now.
It seems to be that node is it's own server, and I would then need a SaaS platform like Heroku, or AWS (I'm not even sure if i'm understanding the purpose of these) if someone could explain the difference?
Is the database managed inside this service?
Is the website being hosted there?
In steps how would you get the node app to be served onto your domain name?
For Scalability purposes I understand how having dedicated big infrastructure can help, but if building a low traffic website with small number of members is there even a point in using node?
normal hosting services cost between $4-20 usd. per month and AWS or Heroku seem to start at a MUCH higher price. Is Node only to be used for large scale scaling business model?
Thank you for any answers or good recent external resources (websites or books) you could point me to.
You could easily host a low traffic website built with node.js absolutely for free on Heroku.
To see how easy that is, just go through the Getting Started With Node.js Heroku tutorial, in which you will do just that.
When you build your website with node.js, your own code that your write is the web server. You have no separate web server to configure and interact with (such as Apache). So what you see (or code...) is exactly what you get.
You will probably want to use a framework such as Express to build your web server functionality in your node.js app.
As for NoSQL databases, the way to do this on Heroku is to use an appropriate "add-on" from the Heroku Elements Marketplace. For example, you could easily add Heroku Redis or MongoLab. These are just some of the NoSQL "Database as a Service" options. That means that the Database is itself hosted somewhere in the cloud, and your app simply interacts with it. You don't need to worry about database maintenance, security upgrades etc. You just need to concentrate on your app's interaction with the DB.
Almost all add-ons in the Heroku Elements Marketplace feature a free-tier, that may suffice for your needs, at least initially. So you might be able to get your low-traffic website (including the DB) up and running completely for free, at least initially.
One thing you will need to understand is how Heroku free dyno hours work.
If you need your website to be continuously available 24/7, you may need to verify your Heroku account with a credit card (even though no charges would be incurred as long as you deploy only 1 free web dyno and are on a free-tier plan of your NoSQL DB as a Service). For further details, see this answer.
You also need to consider whether you can tolerate dyno sleeping in your low-traffic app. If not, you would need to prevent your web app from sleeping, which can also be done completely for free. For tips on how to do that see here.
As for serving your Heroku node.js app website from your own domain name, see here. Note that for this too you will need to verify your Heroku account with a credit card, although this too does not incur any charges.
Node.js is supported by many web hosting already, especially for those who use Plesk or cPanel as their web hosting control panel. Here is guide about how to setup a Node.js website via Plesk control, https://www.bisend.com/blog/how-to-set-up-a-node-js-site-in-plesk. As you said, it's very easy to host your website with a cheap shared web hosting.
Here's a noob question. I made a small app in node.js and to see it I have to go to localhost:4000 in my web browser. How can I publish it in an actual website that everybody can see? I already have a domain name and a hosting service.
Thanks in advance
Your hosting service may not actually support Node. If it doesn't let you install and run your own software then you may be out of luck.
Generally you have few options:
You can host it yourself on your own machine but it will not be as easy and efficient as using a service for hosting, unless you have a high quality symmetric internet connection with low latency and high bandwidth.
You can host it cheaply on a VPS using Digital Ocean, Vultr or AWS in which case you will have to configure Node yourself and install all of the databases and other software that you need.
Or you can use managed platforms like Heroku for Node (and Compose for databse like Mongo that you will probably also need) in which case the price will be higher but everything will be taken care of for you.
It depends on what costs are you willing to take, both in terms of service fees and your time and expertise needed to configure and maintain different layers of the system.
IMO the simplest way to deploy a Node app is with Heroku. You can find the documentation here.
It's free, and basically just requires that you create an app and then push your code to Heroku. It takes care of the rest for you!
Are there any examples or conventions out there of how to use node.js to host multiple web apps?
I'm already aware that node itself can be used to build a server, but I'm curious as to whether there have been implementations where you aren't necessarily running it all the time. Strictly for the reason that perhaps there are multiple sites being hosted, each with their own copy of a framework, static files and custom functionality.
Or maybe you do run one instance of node and code a multiple site architecture to ensure one bad site doesn't take the server downin some way?
Virtual hosts, ensuring that one site can't crash others...these are all things that have been considered with other platforms, but I have had some difficulties finding for node! :)
I am already aware of connect, express and other middleware, however it doesn't cover what I'm asking here.
If you're worried about runtime isolation, each "site" should run it's own node process. Then use a proxy like node-http-proxy that will do host header based routing. Another great node based option is bouncy, but you don't necessarily need to use node to do the host based routing. You could just as well use haproxy, nginx, etc.
The baseline RAM overhead of each node process is very small (~10mb - 15mb). Also, if you do HTTP based routing you can spread your sites easily across machines, user home directories, etc.
If you want to handle the site/host registration programmatically, I would use seaport and then communicate the hostname and host + port details back to the proxy so that the routing table can by dynamic. This would also make it fairly easy to scale a site across multiple node processes.
Good luck!