MusareNode

Based off of the original Musare, which utilized Meteor.

MusareNode now uses NodeJS, Express, VueJS and websockets - among other technologies. We have also implemented the ability to host Musare in Docker Containers.

The master branch is available at musare.com You can also find the staging branch at musare.dev

Our Stack

• NodeJS
• MongoDB
• Redis
• Nginx (not required)
• VueJS

Frontend

The frontend is a vue-cli generated, vue-loader single page app, that's served over Nginx or Express. The Nginx server not only serves the frontend, but can also serve as a load balancer for requests going to the backend.

Backend

The backend is a scalable NodeJS / Redis / MongoDB app. User sessions are stored in a central Redis server. All data is stored in a central MongoDB server. The Redis and MongoDB servers are replicated to several secondary nodes, which can become the primary node if the current primary node goes down.

We currently only utilize 1 backend, 1 MongoDB server and 1 Redis server running for production, though it is relatively easy to expand.

Getting Started & Configuration

1. git clone https://github.com/Musare/MusareNode.git

2. cd MusareNode

3. cp backend/config/template.json backend/config/default.json

   Property	Description
   mode	Should be either development or production. No more explanation needed.
   migration	Should be set to true if you need to update DB documents to a newer version after an update. Should be false at all other times.
   secret	Whatever you want - used by express's session module.
   domain	Should be the url where the site will be accessible from, usually http://localhost for non-Docker.
   serverDomain	Should be the url where the backend will be accessible from, usually http://localhost/backend for docker or http://localhost:8080 for non-Docker.
   serverPort	Should be the port where the backend will listen on, should always be 8080 for Docker, and is recommended for non-Docker.
   registrationDisabled	If set to true, users can't register accounts.
   apis.youtube.key	Can be obtained by setting up a YouTube API Key. You need to use the YouTube Data API v3, and create an API key.
   apis.recaptcha.secret	Can be obtained by setting up a ReCaptcha Site (v3).
   apis.recaptcha.enabled	Keep at false to keep disabled.
   apis.github	Can be obtained by setting up a GitHub OAuth Application. You need to fill in some values to create the OAuth application. The homepage is the homepage of frontend. The authorization callback url is the backend url with /auth/github/authorize/callback added at the end. For example http://localhost/backend/auth/github/authorize/callback.
   apis.discogs	Can be obtained by setting up a Discogs application, or you can disable it.
   smtp	Can be obtained by setting up an SMTP server, using a provider such as Mailgun, or you can disable it.
   redis.url	Should be left alone for Docker, and changed to redis://localhost:6379/0 for non-Docker.
   redis.password	Should be the Redis password you either put in your startRedis.cmd file for Windows, or .env for docker.
   mongo.url	Needs to have the proper password for the MongoDB musare user, and for non-Docker you need to replace @musare:27017 with @localhost:27017.
   cookie.domain	Should be the ip or address you use to access the site, without protocols (http/https), so for example localhost.
   cookie.secure	Should be true for SSL connections, and false for normal http connections.
   skipConfigVersionCheck	Skips checking if the config version is outdated or not. Should almost always be set to false.
   skipDbDocumentsVersionCheck	Skips checking if there are any DB documents outdated or not. Should almost always be set to false.
   configVersion	Version of the config. Every time the template changes, you should change your config accordingly and update the configVersion.

4. cp frontend/build/config/template.json frontend/build/config/default.json

   Property	Description
   apiDomain	Should be the url where the backend will be accessible from, usually http://localhost/backend for docker or http://localhost:8080 for non-Docker.
   websocketsDomain	Should be the same as the apiDomain, except using the ws:// protocol instead of http:// and with /ws at the end.
   frontendDomain	Should be the url where the frontend will be accessible from, usually http://localhost for docker or http://localhost:80 for non-Docker.
   frontendPort	Should be the port where the frontend will be accessible from, should always be port 81 for Docker, and is recommended to be port 80 for non-Docker.
   recaptcha.key	Can be obtained by setting up a ReCaptcha Site (v3).
   recaptcha.enabled	Keep at false to keep disabled.
   cookie.domain	Should be the ip or address you use to access the site, without protocols (http/https), so for example localhost.
   cookie.secure	Should be true for SSL connections, and false for normal http connections.
   siteSettings.logo	Path to the logo image, by default it is /assets/wordmark.png.
   siteSettings.siteName	Should be the name of the site.
   siteSettings.github	URL of GitHub repository, defaults to https://github.com/Musare/MusareNode.
   skipConfigVersionCheck	Skips checking if the config version is outdated or not. Should almost always be set to false.
   configVersion	Version of the config. Every time the template changes, you should change your config accordingly and update the configVersion.

5. Simply cp .env.example .env to setup your environment variables.

Installation

After initial configuration, there are two different options to use for your local development environment.

1. Docker
2. Standard Setup

We highly recommend using Docker - both for stability and speed of setup. We also use Docker on our production servers.

Docker

---

1. Configure the .env file to match your settings in backend/config/default.json.

   Property	Description
   Ports	Will be how you access the services on your machine, or what ports you will need to specify in your nginx files when using proxy_pass.
   COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME	Should be a unique name for this installation, especially if you have multiple instances of Musare on the same machine.
   FRONTEND_MODE	Should be either dev or prod (self-explanatory).
   MONGO_ROOT_PASSWORD	Password of the root/admin user of MongoDB
   MONGO_USER_USERNAME	Password for the "musare" user (what the backend uses) of MongoDB

2. Install Docker for Desktop

3. Build the backend and frontend Docker images (from the root folder)

   docker-compose build

4. Start the MongoDB database (in detached mode), which will generate the correct MongoDB users based on the .env file.

   docker-compose up -d mongo

5. If you want to use linting extensions in IDEs, then you must attach the IDE to the docker containers. This is entirely possible with VS Code.

Standard Setup

---

Installation

1. Install Redis and MongoDB

2. Install NodeJS

   1. Install nodemon globally

      npm install -g nodemon

   2. Install node-gyp globally (first check out https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp#installation)

      npm install -g node-gyp.

3. Install webpack globally

   npm install -g webpack

Setting up MongoDB

1. In the root directory, create a folder called .database

2. Create a file called startMongo.cmd in the root directory with the contents:

   "C:\Program Files\MongoDB\Server\3.2\bin\mongod.exe" --dbpath "D:\Programming\HTML\MusareNode\.database"

   Make sure to adjust your paths accordingly.

3. Set up the MongoDB database itself

   1. Start the database by executing the script startMongo.cmd you just made

   2. Connect to Mongo from a command prompt

      mongo admin

   3. Create an admin user

      db.createUser({user: 'admin', pwd: 'PASSWORD_HERE', roles: [{role: 'userAdminAnyDatabase', db: 'admin'}]})

   4. Connect to the Musare database

      use musare

   5. Create the "musare" user

      db.createUser({user: 'musare', pwd: 'OTHER_PASSWORD_HERE', roles: [{role: 'readWrite', db: 'musare'}]})

   6. Exit

      exit

   7. Add the authentication

      In startMongo.cmd add --auth at the end of the first line

Setting up Redis

1. In the folder where you installed Redis, edit the redis.windows.conf file

   1. In there, look for the property notify-keyspace-events.

   2. Make sure that property is uncommented and has the value Ex.

      It should look like notify-keyspace-events Ex when done.

2. Create a file called startRedis.cmd in the main folder with the contents:

   "D:\Redis\redis-server.exe" "D:\Redis\redis.windows.conf" "--requirepass" "PASSWORD"

   And again, make sure that the paths lead to the proper config and executable. Replace PASSWORD with your Redis password.

Everyday usage

Docker

---

1. Start the MongoDB database in the background.

   docker-compose up -d mongo

2. Start redis and the mongo client in the background, as we usually don't need to monitor these for errors.

   docker-compose up -d mongoclient redis

3. Start the backend and frontend in the foreground, so we can watch for errors during development.

   docker-compose up backend frontend

4. You should now be able to begin development!

   The backend is auto reloaded when you make changes and the frontend is auto compiled and live reloaded by webpack when you make changes.

   You should be able to access Musare in your local browser at http://localhost:8080/.

Standard Setup

---

Automatic

1. If you are on Windows you can run windows-start.cmd or just double click the windows-start.cmd file and all servers will automatically start up.

Manual

1. Run startRedis.cmd and startMongo.cmd to start Redis and Mongo.

2. Execute cd frontend && npm dev and cd backend && npm dev separately.

Extra

Below is a list of helpful tips / solutions we've collected while developing MusareNode.

Fixing the "couldn't connect to docker daemon" error

Some people have had issues while trying to execute the docker-compose command. To fix this, you will have to run docker-machine env default. This command will print various variables. At the bottom, it will say something similar to @FOR /f "tokens=*" %i IN ('docker-machine env default') DO @%i. Run this command in your shell. You will have to do this command for every shell you want to run docker-compose in (every session).

Calling Toasts

You can create Toast notifications using our custom package, toasters, using the following code:

import Toast from "toasters";
new Toast({ content: "Hi!", persistant: true });

Set user role

When setting up you will need to grant yourself the admin role, using the following commands:

docker-compose exec mongo mongo admin

use musare
db.auth("MUSAREDBUSER","MUSAREDBPASSWORD")
db.users.update({username: "USERNAME"}, {$set: {role: "admin"}})

OR use the Linux script:

tools/linux/makeUserAdmin.sh YOUR_MUSARE_USERNAME YOUR_MONGO_MUSARE_PASSWORD

Contact

Get in touch with us via email at core@musare.com or join our Discord Guild.

You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter.