/appfinder-server

Node.js Server to Get Information on Mobile Apps

Primary LanguageJavaScript

AppFinder - Server

AppFinder is a server with REST API which allows to get detailed information regarding mobile apps from either Apple App Store or Google Play Store. It requires authorization (via JWT token). It allows bulk lookups for multiple apps.

How to run

The server is ideally supposed to be used with Appfinder-UI. The allowed origins as configured per Access-Control-Allow-Origin header are: http://localhost:3005, https://localhost:3005,http://localhost:80, https://localhost:80. You can still use the server as a standalone service provider via REST API (see below).

The server can be started from a docker compose container:

  1. From docker container (docker-compose must be installed):
    • docker network create --driver bridge appstore-net - creates a docker network needed to bind AppFinder backend container with frontend container.
    • cd Appstore
    • docker-compose -f docker-compose-prod.yml build && docker-compose -f docker-compose-prod.yml up -d
    • By now the server will be available at http://localhost:3000.
  2. Locally by:
    • cd Appstore
    • npm install
    • npm test
    • This will make the server available locally at http://localhost:3000.

Environment Variables

The following environment variables need to be suppied:

  • GOOGLE_KEY - OAuth2.0 Google secret key
  • JWT_SECRET - secret string to encode JWT token
  • GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID - OAuth2.0 Google client id
  • HTTPS - should the server be started in secure mode or not (possible values are true/false)

If NODE_ENV is set to production additional parameters can be used:

DB_URL
DB_USERNAME
DB_PASSWORD
HOSTING_SERVICE

where HOSTING_SERVICE can be aws or heroku. If HOSTING_SERVICE=heroku DB variables need not be specified, however, if HOSTING_SERVICE=aws they do (the database must be a Postgres instance).

REST API

There's REST API which can be used to access server functionality. Postman collection describing the API can be viewed here.

Technologies and Frameworks Used

Main Challenges

  • Authentication: at first I wanted to use Passport.js but quickly I understood that it obscures a lot of details that have to do with how authentication works which I wanted to understand. Therefore, I'm not using any authentication helper libraries.
  • Configuring CORS.
  • Working with JWT.

Integrations

Database integration with AWS and Heroku are provided (just put in your credentials). More database integrations can be added in db/db.js.

Miscellaneous

  • Currently bulk lookups are limited to 20 mobile applications per lookup. There will be about 5 seconds pause between lookups. The reason for this is that I suspect that the ip making thousands of requests at once to one of mobile applications stores can get blocked. You can increase the bulk lookup limitation by changing the value of APPS_IN_LOOKUP_BATCH in constants.js.
  • The ability to retrieve information on mobile applications depends on the HTML structure of https://itunes.apple.com/app and https://play.google.com. Therefore if the structure changes there may be issues with the server results. You can open a GitHub issue if you notice such problems and I will try to resolve them.