Flow of Work Working With Node.JS HTTP server - node.js

Learning Node.JS at the moment.
Everything is going fine, just that i have a little challenge with the flow of work.
So i create an HTTP server that listens at a particular port. For example
var http = require("http");
http.createServer(function(request, response) {
response.writeHead(200, {"Content-Type": "text/plain"});
response.write("Hello World");
response.end();
}).listen(8888);
It works fine. Only problem is that when i edit the file that has the above code, and try to start the node process again by typing node server.js i get the following error:
Error: EADDRINUSE, Address already in use.
So i learnt I need to kill the node process using ps before the changes can be reflected and before i can restart.
But this looks like a pain. Do i need to kill the node process anytime i make changes to the server i am writing?
I am sure there is a better way. Any help?

During development I tend to just run node from the command line in a terminal window. When I'm finished with the testing I just Ctrl-C to interrupt the current process which kills node and then press arrow-up enter to restart the process.

my solution is as simple as
npm install dev -g
node-dev app.js
node-dev is the same as 'node' but automatically reruns app.js everytime any file in application dir (or subdir) is changed. it means restarting when static files are changed, too, but should be acceptable for development mode

There isn't any easy way. Authors of node do not like hot-reloading idea, so this is the way it works.
You can hack it if you put your server in a module, require it from the main script, fs.watchFile the .js for changes and then manually stop it as a reaction to a file change, manually deleting it from the module cache (require.cache if I am not mistaken), and require it again.
Or run it in child process and kill and respawn it after a file change (that is, doing automatically what you now do by hand).

You can use something like nodemon (video tutorial about it here) or node-supervisor so that the server auto-restarts when editing files.
If you want to manually do this, then just interrupt the process (CTRL+C) and re-run last command (node server.js).

Related

Make nodemon auto-restart a program on crash without waiting for file changes at custom error?

I'm building an E-commerce site, where there's an Authentication system.
I noticed that if the client login with a wrong user or password, the backend/server that works with nodemon will crach and hang in there crashed till i restart manually nodemon. This is example output error of the nodemon crash:
[nodemon] app crashed - waiting for file changes before starting...
node:internal/errors:464
ErrorCaptureStackTrace(err);
^
Error [ERR_HTTP_HEADERS_SENT]: Cannot set headers after they are sent
to the client
Ofcourse, when server crashes, client can no more access or do login again till server restarts.
After some googling, i found this question and this repository that fix my problem but particulary and not as expected precisely, i dont want nodemon to restart forever on any error that occure ofcourse, but only with specifics errors that i set them -like Authentication errors as i mentionned above-.
So, my idea/question is: is there anyway to get nodemon restarts by itself in some cases of failures or errors (NOT ALL)?
Seems like you a referring to a production situation, and nodemon is a development node server, which is not intended for use in production, as the intro states:
nodemon is a tool that helps develop Node.js based applications by
automatically restarting the node application when file changes in the
directory are detected.
You should use node.js in production, instead of nodemon.
For managing your node server in production, you could use a process manager like PM2..
That said, an authentication server that crashes every time a user uses a wrong password seams very ineffective in handling a common use case. So I would advise to start with fixing the root cause, which is the buggy server, and then for recovery from incidental crashes use something like PM2.
PS:
The error you are getting looks like an express error you get when you send a response (in this case an error response) without exiting the function e.g. by using return. Because you are not returning, another res.send is called, which causes the 'ERR_HTTP_HEADERS_SENT' error. See this answer.
This is really bad since it can send your program into a loop of restarting, but if you really want it, replace app.js with your file's name and try this:
nodemon -x 'node app.js || copy /b app.js +,,'
Linux version:
nodemon -x 'node app.js || touch app.js'
Next time try a little googleing before you ask since it is most likely faster.

starting, stopping and restarting windows services using node js

Can someone explain how I can start or stop a windows service using a node program? Not a NodeJS service running on Windows, but specifically a Windows service itself, and that too, using NODEJS. There are lots of articles as to how to kill or start a NodeJS service, but not of what I am in need of here. There is an article though on StackOverflow in the following link:
Node js start and stop windows services
But I am either not doing it right because I have not understood it the way it should be or it doesn't do what I need it to do. Please help me out. Don't know why, but there are just almost no articles online about this.
USE os-services module
npm install os-service
It is loaded using the require() function:
var service = require ("os-service");
A program can then be added, removed and run as a service:
service.add ("my-service");
service.remove ("my-service");
service.run (function () {
// Stop request received (i.e. a kill signal on Linux or from the
// Service Control Manager on Windows), so let's stop!
service.stop ();
});
Use bat file to stop and start node server or user nodemon package.
And use windows task scheduler
#echo off
cd "D:\sam\Projects\NodeSchedule // path of node project i.e. index.js
taskkill /IM node.exe -F
start /min cmd /C "node index.js"
goto :EOF

child_process.fork not starting an express server inside of packaged electron app

I have an electron app where I need not only to run the interface to the user but also start an express server that will serve files for people connected through the network.
I have everything working if I start both electron and the express server normally, but I'm pretty confident that I will need the server running in a different thread to avoid slugish interface and even problems with the server.
For that matter I tried to run my express server using the child_process.fork and it worked when I use npm start, but when I use electron-builder to create an .exe, the installed program doesn't start the express server.
I tried to run my server right away using:
require('child_process').fork('app/server/mainServer.js')
I tried several changes, prefixing the file with __dirname, process.resourcesPath and even hard coding the generated file path; changing the fork options to pass cwd: __dirname, detached: true and stdio: 'ignore'; and even tried using spawn with process.execPath, which will also work with npm start but won't when packaged (it keeps opening new instances of my app, seems obvious after you do hehe)
Note: If I don't fork and require the server script right away, using require('server/mainServer.js') it works on the packaged app, so the problem most like isn't the express itself.
Note 2: I have asar: false to solve other problems, so this is not the problem solver here.
I put up a small git project to show my problem:
https://github.com/victorivens05/electron-fork-error
Any help will be highly appreciated.
With the great help from Samuel Attard (https://github.com/MarshallOfSound) I was able to solve the problem (he solved for me actually)
As he said:
the default electron app will launch the first file path provided to it
so `electron path/to/thing` will work
in a packaged state, that launch logic is not present
it will always run the app you have packaged regardless of the CLI args passed to it
you need to handle the argument manually yourself
and launch that JS file if it's passed in as the 1st argument
The first argument to fork simply calls `process.execPath` with the first
argument being the path provided afaik
The issue is that when packaged Electron apps don't automatically run the
path provided to them
they run the app that is packaged within them
In other words. fork is actually spawn being executed with process.execPath and passing the fork's first argument as the second for spawn.
What happens in a packaged app is that the process.execPath isn't electron but the packaged app itself. So if you try to spawn, the app will be open over and over again.
So, what Samuel suggest was implemented like this:
if (process.argv[1] === '--start-server') {
require('./server/mainServer.js')
return
}
require('./local/mainLocal.js')
require('child_process').spawn(process.execPath, ['--start-server'])
That way, the first time the packaged app will be executed, the process.argv[1] will be empty, so the server won't start. It will then execute the electron part (mainLocal in my case) and start the app over, but this time passing the argv. Next time the app starts, it will start the server and stop the execution, so the app won't open again because spawn is never reached.
Huge thanks to Samuel.

Using BrowserSync with only Node.js (MEAN)

Can anyone help me understand how to use BrowserSync with an already running node server?
I know that I have to proxy the server localhost:3000 but where and how would I do that?
Since I'm not using Gulp/Grunt my best guess is proxying a running BrowserSync with express.js but what would that look like?
EDIT:
#RunnyYolk's answer is correct, The best way is to create a script in the package.json file that has BrowserSync proxy your node server. However the issue is more specifically how to use BrowserSync when you need to wait for a process to finish first, such as Angular compilation, then reload your browser.
My build process looks like this:
"build": "del-cli public/js/app && webpack --config webpack.config.dev.js --progress --profile --watch",
How do I call browser-sync reload after that webpack compilation?
I've had browser sync running with a few Node projects. I remember it being a little bit of a fiddle the first couple of times, but definitely worth the effort.
I can't remember exactly what I got caught on, but try these things and let me know if it's still not playing:
Assuming browser-sync is installed, make sure your app.js file (or whatever you've called it) has the server listening on port 3000.
Start the app with a command similar to this:
browser-sync start --proxy localhost:3000 --files="public/stylesheets/*.css", "public/scripts/*.js" "public/views/*.ejs" --no-notify
That works for me. "--files" is a list of files for browser sync to watch, and --no-notify gets rid of some notifications that get fired on each file change - possibly useful in some situations, but I found them annoying.
Looking at this command I notice that there is no reference to node app.js to start up the app. I assume (although I'm not certain) that bowser-sync looks inside package.json for the "start" script. So if my assumption is correct, and if the above command isn't working for you, check that your package.json file has the script included.

nodejs start debugger on different port

Im a little confused with all this nodejs debug syntax flying around.
I simply want to start the debugger on a process when I run it on a different port.
Normally I start debugging by node debug file.js
but now I have to process` running that I need to debug
Now I found the command node --debugger=7873 file.js but that starts the debugger and jumps past all the breaks and I tried node --debugger=7837 --debug-brk file.js but that forces me to consume another teminal window. How can I just run a script on a different port in the same terminal or with out using nohup?
node debug --port=[your port] your_program.js
responsible _debugger code here

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