deploy.md

Deploying a Node.js Application

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Deploying to Heroku

• To deploy your Node.js app you can use Heroku as hosting
• From the site: Heroku is a fully managed container-based cloud platform, with integrated data services and a powerful ecosystem, for deploying and running modern apps
• Let's get started with installing the Heroku Command Line Interface (CLI)
  • Windows
    • Download the installer
  • MacOS

    brew install heroku/brew/heroku

  • Ubuntu 16+

    sudo snap install heroku --classic

• Use the heroku login command to log in to the Heroku CLI:

  heroku login
  heroku: Press any key to open up the browser to login or q to exit
  ›   Warning: If browser does not open, visit
  ›   https://cli-auth.heroku.com/auth/browser/***
  heroku: Waiting for login...
  Logging in... done
  Logged in as me@example.com

• Let's create a new node package

  cd node-example
  npm init

• Next install express

  npm install express --save

• For Heroku, it is important to specify the version of node to match your version node --version, edit the package.json to set the engine version.

  {
    "name": "node-example",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "description": "",
    "main": "index.js",
    "scripts": {
      "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
    },
    "keywords": [],
    "author": "",
    "license": "ISC",
    "dependencies": {
      "express": "^4.17.1"
    },
    "engines": {
      "node": "10.x"
    }
  }

• Specify the start script in package.json

  {
    "scripts": {
      "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1",
      "start": "node index.js"
    }
  }

• Next lets update the index.js to include a basic express app. Note that we are passing the environment variable PORT to our app.

  const express = require('express')
  const port = process.env.PORT
  const app = express()
  
  app.get('/', (request, response) => {
    response.send('Hello Heroku World!')
  })
  
  app.listen(port, () => {
    console.log(`Example app listening on port ${port}`)
  })

• Build and run your application locally

  npm install
  heroku local

• After you commit your changes to git, you can deploy your app to Heroku.

  git init
  git add .
  git commit -m "Added a Procfile."
  heroku login
  Enter your Heroku credentials.
  ...
  heroku create
  Creating arcane-lowlands-8408... done, stack is cedar
  http://arcane-lowlands-8408.herokuapp.com/ | git@heroku.com:arcane-lowlands-8408.git
  Git remote heroku added
  git push heroku master
  ...
  -----> Node.js app detected
  ...
  -----> Launching... done
        http://arcane-lowlands-8408.herokuapp.com deployed to Heroku
  

• To open the app in your browser, type heroku open.

Setting up the MongoDB database

• For our course and development, we will leverage MongoDB Atlas free cloud-hosted sandbox database. This database tier is not considered suitable for production websites because it has no redundancy, but it is great for development and prototyping.

• You will first need to create an account with MongoDB Atlas (this is free, and just requires that you enter basic contact details and acknowledge their terms of service)

• After logging in, you'll be taken to the home screen:

• Click Build a Cluster button in the Clusters Overview section.

• This will open the Create New Cluster screen.

  • Select any provider from the Cloud Provider & Region section. Different providers offer different regions.
  • Select any region marked "FREE TIER AVAILABLE".
  • Click the Create Cluster button (creation of the cluster will take some minutes).

• You will return to the Cluster Overview screen.

  • Click the Collections button.

• This will open the Collections section.

  • Click the Create Database button.

• This will open the Create Database screen.

  • Enter the name for the new database as public.
  • Enter the name of the collection as Collection0.
  • Click the Create button to create the database.

• You will return to the Collection screen with your database created.

  • Click the Overview tab to return the cluster overview.

• From the Cluster0 Overview screen click the Connect button.

• This will open the Connect to Cluster screen.

  • Click the Add a Different IP Address button, enter 0.0.0.0/0 for the IP Address and click Add IP Address button.
    • Note: It is a best practice to limit the IP addresses that can connect to your database and other resources. Here we allow a connection from anywhere because we don't know where the request will come from after deployment.
  • Enter a username and password and click Create MongoDB User button.
    • Note: Avoid using special characters in your MongoDB user password as mongoose may not parse the connection string properly.
  • If you have completed the 2 previous steps, the button Choose a connection method will turn green.
  • Click the Choose a connection method button.

• This will access the Choose a connection method tab.

  • Click the Connect Your Application option.

• This will open the Connect screen.

  • Click the Short SRV connection string option to copy the connection string.

• This will open the connection string URL.

  • Choose Copy button to copy the string.
  • Save this string somewhere safe.
  • Update the password with your users password.
  • Replace test with public.

• You have now created the database, and have an URL (with username and password) that can be used to access it. This will look something like: mongodb+srv://your_user_name:your_password@cluster0-mbdj7.mongodb.net/public?retryWrites=true

  • DO NOT COMMIT THE VALUE TO GIT. Since this contains a secret (the user and password in the connection string), it is best practice to leverage enviroment variables.

Resources

• Getting Started on Heroku with Node.js
• Deploying Node.js Apps on Heroku
• MDN Using a Database (with Mongoose)
• MDN Deploying to production

Let's Checkout Deploying

• <- MongoDB & Mongoose - Debugging & Troubleshooting ->