/node-dev-setup

This repo is intended to give the user a jumpstart in setting up a node.js developer environment.

Primary LanguageJavaScript

#node-dev-setup This repo has been set up as a starting point in developing nodeJS applications on the DragonBoard DB410c.

This demo sets up a simple headless nodeJS server on the DB410c. This server can be accessed from your local network from a browser as follows:

http://<<DB410c node server IP Address>>:3000

But more importantly, this repo serves as a good starting point to set up a baseline node.js development environment on DB410c.

#Introduction Node.js is a valuable development environment for headless javascript solutions. It provides access to the thousands of Javascript packages available on the nodejs package manager website. NodeJS can also provide benefits in embedded environments. This repo provides a starting point for a developer to begin development of nodeJS solutions in the embedded 64 bit ARM environment on the Qualcomm DB410c. It will provide the framework to develop your own node solutions by providing the following:

  • instructions on setting up a node.js development environment on the DB410c
  • a sample project starting point that can be extended
    • a demo of a headless web server with source
  • a development environment that is setup to include several entry configurations such as a developer mode, non-developer mode, and a debugger mode that uses a node IDE for debug support.

If you have ideas and extend this demo with other nodeJS features that would be nice to use on the DB410c, ping me. I welcome ideas to make this demo a place where code snippets can be leveraged for further DB410c usage models in NodeJS.

#Set up To begin, first you must install the latest stable debian build on the DB410c as explained in the next section. Following that, you should clone this repo and follow the remaining instructions to get up and going. You are then ready to replace the demo code in this repo with your own solutions.

##Install DB410c Build Follow the installation instructions on the 96boards.org website to install the latest pre-built Debian Linux image. Build 144 was used for validation of this demo

node and npm are included in the pre-built image, so once you install the debian image you are ready to begin your node development.

##Customize the node development environment Once the debian image is installed, perform the following steps to set up the board for node debug and development.

Globally install the following node.js packages

Globally installing the packages in this section is required. From the command line on your DB410c target, execute the following:

sudo npm install -g grunt-cli
sudo npm install -g node-dev
sudo npm install -g node-inspector

Configure the demo development environment

From a terminal on your DB410c, create and navigate to a development directory and perform the following:

$mkdir node-js	// or whatever dev directory you wish
$cd node-js
$git clone https://github.com/dbharbin/node-dev-setup.git

Once downloaded, from the root directory of the cloned repo, prepare the demo by installing all the dependencies

npm install

After installng dependencies, build the project

npm run start

Note that one of the scripts in package.json that runs the grunt dependencies must be used to build the client bundle.js and the public/css/style.css sheet.

Upon successful completion of this script running, the terminal window should have the following displayed: Linaro Dictionary running on port 3000

The user can now go to a browser on another machine on the local network and enter the following to see the Node JS browser demo running. Enter the following url in the remote browser:

http://<<DB410c node server IP Address>>:3000

For example http://192.168.1.90:3000

Note that the browser can be accessed on the DB410c target itself through http://localhost:3000 however it is recommended to use a remote browser in order to minimize the number of apps running on the development target.

###Info: Configuring for automated builds There are several things that have been done in the package.json to automate the builds. These don't have to be done again because they are in the package.json, but for reference this is what was done:

  • npm install grunt --save-dev
  • npm install grunt-autoprefixer --save-dev
  • npm install grunt-browserify --save-dev
  • npm install grunt-contrib-jshint --save-dev
  • npm install grunt-contrib-less --save-dev
  • npm install grunt-contrib-watch --save-dev

You can see these listed in the devDependencies section of the package.json.

#Development This demo environment has been pre-set up for efficient development and debug. This section describes the usage of it in more detail.

##Basic Demo To bring up the base node.js server, the user should enter the traditional command from the command line while in the project directory:

node app

Then the user can bring up a local browser and monitor the demo web interface by entering the following in the browser url bar:

http://localhost:3000

If the user wishes he or she can substitute localhost with the ip address of the DB410c under test and access the demo web interface from a browser on any machine on the local network.

##Using node-dev Substiting node-dev for when running the server allows the developer to modify configuration and not have to restart. The server code will automatically be updated and all the user needs to do it refresh his or her browser to see the changes made. This makes your development go faster.

node-dev app

Then when you edit and save a .js file the server will automatically reboot. This works for the public/css/style.css as well.

###Custom Dev Using this custom development mode does the same as the previous section except that it integrates in grunt watch, thus if any templates such as ./less/style.css are changed, the code base is automatically rebuilt and reloaded.

npm run dev

Recall that the browser must still be reloaded to see the changes take effect.

Alternatively, to begin development without automatically opening a browser on the target (and instead open one across your local network to save target memory), begin integration and test by executing the following command on the DB410c terminal:

npm run start

##Debugging with code-inspector To leverage an IDE debugger, execute the following command from the development directory:

npm run debug

This will automatically bring up Code-inspector in a browser on the DB410c. The user can then bring up the node JS server from a remote machine as described earlier. Code-inspector will allow the user to set breakpoints evaluate variables, and other functions that are typical for an IDE for more complex debug scenarios.

FYI's:

  • since the DB410c has only 1G of RAM, it is best to limit additional loads on the target during development. Thus, running the browser on another platform for test, ssh'ing and developing through ssh, and executing npm run debug after a clean boot are all recommended.
  • special thanks to Alex Banks from whose sample files I started with to create this project.