I am trying to create a complete session managment in nodejs for logins, chat sessions etc.
I googled a lot and every solution that i got was with some framework/module. I don't want to use any module/framework. I would rather like to build my own solution for this:
So this is the plan:
I will set a session cookie on the client machine (yet to figure out how)
For each cookie, i will be maintaining a unique id in the database instead of files as is the case with php (i am using mongodb)
When a user opens the application, a cookie will be set, a entry will be made in database and corresponding information from the db will be fetched.
I am yet to lay a concrete plan for this. I wanted to know whether doing it this way is a good idea? i read somewhere....'Real men don't use any framework. They make everything on their own' :P
Please correct me if i am on a wrong direction. M just starting with these things....
I'm not aware of any node.js frameworks that are closed-source. Just pick one that seems to do what you want to do, download it, and study the source code to see how the developer implemented it. Then come up with your (perceived) improvement on how they did it. You'll probably find that implementing session management involves a whole bunch of nitpicky details that were never obvious to you.
Ignore all the above advice if this is a school assignment where you're not allowed to look at related code. If that's the case, I pity you because you have an incompetent teacher.
Related
I kept searching for a tutorial that explains the logic behind facebook notifications (or any similar notifications system) and I couldn't really find any that approach this.
I mean those notifications with a dropdown that say "X commented on your picture" and so on.
How would you guys build such a feature with node? (socket.io?) What would you store in the database? If someone can give me some references would be great.
I never did a notification system to be honest, but as far as I know, yes, sockets (and for node specifically, socket.io, it's the only one I know) can allow you to do that easily, you should look at their basic documentation to learn more about it and understand how it can be done, and yes you can at the same time as notifying the user about the like, store it in a database for further reference, you can store the time, the profile who liked the post, the ID of the post, this kind of things.
Hope I'm clear and that you will find socket.io documentation easy enough to build your notification system!
I've been doing a lot of research, and perhaps just need a few dots connected.
I have an idea for a mobile app/website that contains lists of local eating/drinking establishments along with the deals/specials they offer each day. The idea is to create an app that people can refer to in order to save money on a night out.
I'm familiar enough with HTML/CSS/JS to create a functioning website, but when it comes to backend I'm a little confused. Editing the markup in order to reflect changes (e.g. a new deal starts or new establishment opens up) is a bit cumbersome. Now I know I want a database with my information ready to be displayed on my page. Does this mean that I need to develop my own API for everything, and then make sure it integrates with the hosting website that I end up choosing?
I feel like I'm missing something that should make it obvious what the next step is. Can anyone offer any advice?
The short answer is yes, you are exactly right.
The long answer is that is definetly one way to do it. But, for large projext just using JS can get quite cumbersomoe on your client end. Usually the first level would be using something like ajax. It's a great way to start and you can go a long way with just ajax. This is acutually where most people "start" when using just javascript to make api calls. The next level would be to use a framework like Angular. This will of course do more for you than just help handle api calls and it requires a larger investment in learning.
So that is all client side...
Now for the server side part... When you publish a website you are now dealing with "server-side" content. You have taken your static content and it is served up from the server but it's always the same static content from the server then it becomes dynamic on the client when all the javascript starts getting parsed.
The API is another server side component. But instead of being static like your pages, a bunch of files just sitting there, it is an actual application on the server. It takes a command via an api request and then does its thinking and then spits out a response object dynamically to the requester, which in this case will be the JS on your site.
Now, if you don't like the idea of learning to make your own API there are resources out there that will host an api for you and give you a gui to build your own API. I can't recommend one because I have never used one, but I do work with businesses that do and they love the fact they don't have to hire a dev to make thier apis. The downside is they are tied to that service and limited to the functionality that the service offers. It's not a big limitation as the services are quire powerful but if you are going to be managing complex data sets then it would probably be better to learn to make your own api.
Hope that clears things up a bit for you!
I've just started trying to use NodeJS and socket.io to create a simple multiplayer online game (similar idea to online chess). I apologise if the answer to my question is really obvious because I have tried googling around, but I think I am missing some key bit of understanding.
Basically, I need to store a few things on the server while the application is running. For example:
I need to store which socket connections are hosts, and which are players.
I need to store the current state of each game (e.g. in the case of chess, where the pieces are and whose turn it is)
It would also be nice to be able to store all the socket.io "rooms".
Feel free to answer the question at this point, information below is for extra reference.
There are a few things that I have tried or seen online:
When I google something with "persistence", I get results based on saving to a database or something, I don't think this is what I want.
I have tried just adding variables at the top of the NodeJS file, like I would with global variables in an ordinary JS file. This seems to work, but just feels wrong to me, if someone could explain how this works it would be great.
I have also seen things called session variables, I think this might be what I want.
I have seen applications that do this by just passing the information back and forward between to client and server, but I would prefer that the client couldn't just edit the information to "hack" to game.
Any help or explanation appreciated.
Nothing wrong with saving to a database. If your server crashes and restarts a few seconds later, you don't really want everyone's data to just be obliterated. I think you're thinking about it in the way that databases are always long-term and slow. But really, there are DB technologies great for this type of thing, and oft used with socket.io.
The one I'd probably opt for is Redis, which is super fast and stores data in-memory. This means that it's not constantly writing to disk, and it's a bit of a halfway house between having full persistent storage like with MySQL, and the slightly dodgy method of just keeping it in Node memory via variables.
When reddit created "Place", that massive multiplayer drawing with a tonne of concurrent users, they used Redis and Cassandra together. You can read a bit about it here.
So, I want to make a leveling/xp system for my discord bot (like mee6 or tatsumaki) but the only way I know how to do this is by using mSQL. Is there a way to do this just using discord.js or is there an eazier way to do this?
I'm sorry for this question being so general but i can't find an answer anywhere, thanks
You could, though using a DB will help more in the future.
Using a Database will probably be the only solution unless you want to write files uselessly or want the levels to be cleared upon restart. From my experience, a database will just work best if you want to store anything like this. Also when using a Database you can use other tables to save more information (Command statistics, etc.) without a problem.
I've been there myself, though once you get over not wanting to use a database and setting one up you'll wonder how you lived without it.
I'm using a point system on my bot. I'm saving it on a JSON file, it's pretty easy to do with node.
You can scan all the users every time you launch the bot for new users and initialize them in your file.
The downside is that you can erase all of the file if you parse it when you boot the bot and you get an error.
I'm considering switching to a DB instead.
I want to rewrite a complete community website in nodejs,express and
nowjs with mongodb. Its currently in php using the codeigniter
framework. It includes functionality such as your own profile page,
photoalbum, guestbook, internal messages, contacts and more. And im
going to add an im to it and some other things like a forum and so on.
Its a pretty big project.
I have to make a decision about which techniques to use in the
webapplication. So i did a little research and found, node, Expess and
nowjs.
Should i stick to finish the application in php( codeigniter ), mysql
and ajax, or can i do this in express, mongodb and nowjs?
Can anyone recommend this for use on a live production site? And if
so, are there any security issues one should know about? General
guidelines?
Help would be really appreciated so i can make up my mind and finish
the project
Regards
George
The problem with Nodejs being young is not that it's a half baked product or something but infact it's growing very fast and new developments are being done at breath taking place. So you need to keep up with them while developing.
Otherwise there are huge projects out there developed totally with node and express. Take a look at expressjs.com/applications to see what kind of commericial projects are built using it.
As far as security, sessions etc. are concerned. Unlike ASP/PHP , you don't get most of the features out of the box. You'll need to either write them yourselves or using open source frameworks. Both ways you and only you have to ensure that your application has all bases covered. With flexibility, comes complexity.
It should be noted that Nodejs is optimum for real time I/O. If you think this is something which is required at your end then I highly recommend to go for it.
What you describe does sound like a big project.
If you have the time to spare, I would suggest picking a small portion of it that deals with managing secure sessions (e.g. the profile page). Implement that in Express to get a sense of how it compares to the existing PHP. If you like it, keep going.
Particularly when security is at stake, always try to use existing components when they are available. Node's minimalism makes it tempting to 'roll your own,' but it's very easy to make a security mistake with anything less than expert knowledge.