Sample Vonage Video NodeJS Server App

This simple server app shows you how to use Vonage Video Node Server SDK to create Vonage sessions, generate tokens for those sessions, archive (or record) sessions, and download those archives.

Quick deploy

Vonage Code Hub

While this code can be run locally or on your own server, this code is also available as a project on the Vonage Code Hub. From there you can deploy directly to your Vonage account with almost all of the settings pre-configured for you, including a publically accessible web address you can use with front-end projects.

You can either deploy the code as-is by clicking on "Deploy Code", or if you would like to make edits to the source code you can click "Get Code" to be dropped into an editor. You can then customize the sample application and deploy to Code Hub.

For more information about Code Hub, see the developer documentation.

Requirements

• Node.js

Installing & Running on localhost

1. Clone the app by running the command

    git clone git@github.com:Vonage-Community/sample-video-node-learning_server.git
   

2. cd to the root directory.

3. Run npm install command to fetch and install all npm dependencies.

4. Next, rename the .envcopy file located at the root directory to .env, and enter in your Vonage App ID and Private Key as indicated:

     # enter your Vonage Application ID after the '=' sign below
     API_APPLICATION_ID=your_application_id
     
     # enter your Vonage Private Key as a string or path to the file after the '=' sign below
     PRIVATE_KEY=your_private_key
     
     # OR enter your Vonage Private Key as a base64-encoded value ( Linux: cat private.key | base64 -w 0 Mac: cat private.key | base64 -b 0 ) after the '=' sign below
     PRIVATE_KEY64=your_private_key64
   
     # If using the SIP integration, enter in your Vonage API Key
     VCR_API_ACCOUNT_ID=your_vonage_account_key
   
     # If using the SIP integration, enter in your Vonage API Secret
     VCR_API_ACCOUNT_SECRET=your_vonage_account_secret
   
     # If using the SIP integration, enter a phone number linked to the Application ID above
     CONFERENCE_NUMBER=number_linked_to_API_APPLICATION_ID
   

5. Run npm start to start the app.

6. Visit the URL http://localhost:3000/session in your browser. You should see a JSON response containing the Vonage Application ID, session Id, and token.

Exploring the code

The routes/index.js file is the Express routing for the web service. The rest of this tutorial discusses code in this file.

In order to navigate clients to a designated meeting spot, we associate the Session ID to a room name which is easier for people to recognize and pass. For simplicity, we use a local associated array to implement the association where the room name is the key and the Session ID is the value. For production applications, you may want to configure a persistence (such as a database) to achieve this functionality.

Generate/Retrieve a Session ID

The GET /room/:name route associates an OpenTok session with a "room" name. This route handles the passed room name and performs a check to determine whether the app should generate a new session ID or retrieve a session ID from the local in-memory hash. Then, it generates a Vonage Video token for that session ID. Once the Application ID, session ID, and token are ready, it sends a response with the body set to a JSON object containing the information.

if (roomToSessionIdDictionary[roomName]) {
    sessionId = roomToSessionIdDictionary[roomName];

    // generate token
    token = vonage.video.generateClientToken(sessionId);
    res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json');
    res.send({
        applicationId: appId,
        sessionId: sessionId,
        token: token
    });
}
// if this is the first time the room is being accessed, create a new session ID
else {
    try {
        const session = await vonage.video.createSession({ mediaMode:"routed" });

        // now that the room name has a session associated wit it, store it in memory
        // IMPORTANT: Because this is stored in memory, restarting your server will reset these values
        // if you want to store a room-to-session association in your production application
        // you should use a more persistent storage for them
        roomToSessionIdDictionary[roomName] = session.sessionId;

        // generate token
        token = vonage.video.generateClientToken(session.sessionId);
        res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json');
        res.send({
            applicationId: appId,
            sessionId: session.sessionId,
            token: token
        });
    } catch(error) {
        console.error("Error creating session: ", error);
        res.status(500).send({ error: 'createSession error:' + error });
    }
}

The GET /session routes generates a convenient session for fast establishment of communication.

router.get('/session', function(req, res, next) { 
  res.redirect('/room/session'); 
}); 

Start an Archive

A POST request to the /archive/start route starts an archive recording of a Vonage Video session. The session ID is passed in as JSON data in the body of the request

router.post('/archive/start', async function (req, res) {
    console.log('attempting to start archive');
    const json = req.body;
    const sessionId = json.sessionId;
    try {
        const archive = await vonage.video.startArchive(sessionId, { name: findRoomFromSessionId(sessionId) });
        console.log("archive: ", archive);
        res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json');
        res.send(archive);
    } catch (error){
        console.error("error starting archive: ",error);
        res.status(500).send({ error: 'startArchive error:' + error });
    }
});

Note: You can only create an archive for sessions that have at least one client connected. Otherwise, the app will respond with an error.

Stop an Archive

A POST request to the /archive/:archiveId/stop route stops an archive's recording. The archive ID is returned by the call to the archive/start endpoint.

router.post('/archive/:archiveId/stop', async function (req, res) {
    const archiveId = req.params.archiveId;
    console.log('attempting to stop archive: ' + archiveId);
    try {
        const archive = await vonage.video.stopArchive(archiveId);
        res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json');
        res.send(archive);
    } catch (error){
        console.error("error stopping archive: ",error);
        res.status(500).send({ error: 'stopArchive error:', error });
    }
});

View an Archive

A GET request to '/archive/:archiveId/view' redirects the requested clients to a URL where the archive gets played.

router.get('/archive/:archiveId/view', async function (req, res) {
    const archiveId = req.params.archiveId;
    console.log('attempting to view archive: ' + archiveId);
    try {
        const archive = await vonage.video.getArchive(archiveId);
        if (archive.status === 'available') {
            res.redirect(archive.url);
        } else {
            res.render('view', { title: 'Archiving Pending' });
        }
    } catch (error){
        console.log("error viewing archive: ",error);
        res.status(500).send({ error: 'viewArchive error:' + error });
    }
});

Get Archive information

A GET request to /archive/:archiveId returns a JSON object that contains all archive properties, including status, url, duration, etc. For more information, see here.

router.get('/archive/:archiveId', async function (req, res) {
    const archiveId = req.params.archiveId;
    // fetch archive
    console.log('attempting to fetch archive: ' + archiveId);
    try {
        const archive = await vonage.video.getArchive(archiveId);
        // extract as a JSON object
        res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json');
        res.send(archive);
    } catch (error){
        console.error("error getting archive: ",error);
        res.status(500).send({ error: 'getArchive error:' + error });
    }
});

Fetch multiple Archives

A GET request to /archive with optional sessionId, count and offset params returns a list of JSON archive objects. For more information, please check here.

Examples:

GET /archive // fetch up to 1000 archive objects
GET /archive?sessionId=1_MX42...xQVJmfn4 // fetch archive(s) with session ID
GET /archive?count=10  // fetch the first 10 archive objects
GET /archive?offset=10  // fetch archives but first 10 archive objetcs
GET /archive?count=10&offset=10 // fetch 10 archive objects starting from 11th

More information

This sample app does not provide client-side functionality (for connecting to Vonage Video sessions and for publishing and subscribing to streams). It is intended to be used with the Vonage Video tutorials for Web, iOS, iOS-Swift, or Android:

• Web
• iOS coming soon
• Android coming soon

Development and Contributing

Interested in contributing? We ❤️ pull requests! See the Contribution guidelines.

Getting Help

We love to hear from you so if you have questions, comments or find a bug in the project, let us know! You can either:

• Open an issue on this repository
• See https://developer.vonage.com/community/ for support options
• Tweet at us! We're @VonageDev on Twitter
• Or join the Vonage Developer Community Slack

Further Reading

• Check out the Developer Documentation at https://developer.vonage.com/