/nodejs-MEAN-stack

Solution tutorial: Modern Web Application using MEAN stack on IBM Cloud

Primary LanguageJavaScriptApache License 2.0Apache-2.0

Modern Web Application using MEAN stack

This is a basic boilerplate for the MEAN stack (MongoDB, Express, AngularJS and Node.js) on IBM Cloud.

This application uses the IBM Cloud Databases for MongoDB service and Node.js runtime on IBM Cloud.

The code and detailed steps are discussed in the IBM Cloud solution tutorial titled Modern web application using MEAN stack.

Features

  • MVC project structure
  • Create, edit and delete user accounts
  • Authentication with username/password
  • Protected routes that can only be accessed by authenticated users
  • Bootstrap CSS framework & Cosmo theme
  • HTTPS built-in if deployed to IBM Cloud
  • Mongoose for MongoDB interactions.
  • PassportJS for authentication, with over 300 authentication strategies to pick from.

Application Requirements

Getting Started

Run the application locally
  1. Clone or download this repo onto your machine.
  2. Install application requirements if not done so already.
  3. Open application directory in your terminal and run npm install
  4. If you don't have an account, create a free one here.
  5. Login to your account via the command line: ibmcloud login
  6. Target your account ORG and SPACE ibmcloud target --cf
  7. Create the instance of IBM Cloud Databases for MongoDB on IBM Cloud: ibmcloud cf create-service databases-for-mongodb standard mean-starter-mongodb
  8. Rename .env.example file to .env and run ibmcloud cf service-key mean-starter-mongodb "Service credentials-1" for MONGODB_URL and CERTIFICATE_BASE64. Choose your own SESSION_SECRET.
  9. Run node server.js to start your app
  10. Open a browser to the link provided in the terminal prompt to view your app

Note that the code assumes a secured connection to MongoDB using SSL and a certificate. This way you can run the app locally but connect to IBM Cloud Databases for MongoDB.

An alternative way of running locally is using the provided Dockerfile.

  • Install docker on your machine and build the docker image
     docker build . -t mean-stack:v1.0.0
    
  • Run the app locally
     docker run -p 6020:6020 -ti mean-stack:v1.0.0
    
Deploy to IBM Cloud

Option 1 (launch this app directly from this repo):

Deploy to IBM Cloud

Option 2 (deploy from your local machine):

  1. Clone or download this repo onto your machine.
  2. Open a terminal prompt to the directory of your application.
  3. If you don't have an account, create a free one here.
  4. Login to your account via the command line: ibmcloud login
  5. Target your account ORG and SPACE ibmcloud target --cf
  6. Create the instance of IBM Cloud Databases for MongoDB on IBM Cloud: ibmcloud cf create-service databases-for-mongodb standard mean-starter-mongodb
  7. Push your app to IBM Cloud with ibmcloud cf push
  8. Done, the app should be looking like:

Problems or Questions?

Create a GitHub issue for questions or problems occurs using this demo.

Critical Files & Folders

File Description
manifest.yml File that defines deployment paramaters. More info here
.env.example Set custom environment variables for your application. This is the proper way to store credentials and other sensitive values.
server.js Main server file that the Node.js runtime uses. It contains all the server logic.
/server Folder for files used by the Node.js server
/server/models/user.model.js Model for storing users in MongoDB
/public Folder for files delivered to users, such as html and css files
/public/js/app.js Angular application for manipulating and rendering data in browser

Application

  • MongoDB stores user account information and persists sessions (so that a server crash does not log out all users.)
  • Express functions Node.js middleware to handle all HTTP requests and routing.
  • Angular handles HTML templating and data manipulation.
  • Node.js is the runtime for the application.

There is also generous commenting throughout the application which helps explain critical parts of the application.

Contribute

Please create a pull request with your desired changes.

Troubleshooting

The primary source of debugging information for your app is the logs. To see them, run the following Cloud Foundry command using the IBM Cloud CLI:

$ ibmcloud cf logs <application-name> --recent

If you are not sure what your application name is, use this command to print your application name(s):

$ ibmcloud cf apps

For more detailed information on troubleshooting your application, see the Troubleshooting section in the documentation.

License

See LICENSE.MD for license information.