Manual Hosting with Node.js¶
The recommended way to host this application is through Docker, follow this guide if for some reason you do not want to use Docker.
Keep in mind that this guide assumes you have a MongoDB and Redis instances ready to use.
Installation¶
Pre requirements¶
First, make sure you're running at least Node v16.15.1.
Clone this repository:
git clone https://github.com/freenalytics/freenalytics
Inside the web-dashboard folder¶
Install the dependencies:
npm ci
And build the application:
npm run build
This will create a folder named build. You need to move this folder into the server folder and rename it to client-build.
mv build ../server/client-build
Inside the server folder¶
Install the dependencies:
npm ci
And build the server:
npm run build
Create a file named .env and add the following configuration:
MONGODB_URI=
REDIS_URI=
JWT_SECRET=
JWT_TOKEN_DURATION=604800
REGISTRATION_OPEN=true
PORT=3000
Configuration¶
Here's a description of each of the configuration variables.
| Environment Variable | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| MONGODB_URI | Yes | The URI of the MongoDB instance to use as database. |
| REDIS_URI | Yes | The URI of the Redis instance to use as cache. |
| JWT_SECRET | Yes | A string to use as secret to sign JWT tokens. You can use openssl rand -hex 32 to generate one for you. |
| JWT_TOKEN_DURATION | No | The time (in seconds) that the user JWT tokens will last for. Defaults to 604800 which is 7 days. |
| REGISTRATION_OPEN | No | Whether users can register to create an account. By default this is set to false. You can enable registration by setting this to true. |
User account registration is disabled by default. This makes sure that nobody else can create an account to abuse the service. It is recommended to keep this option set to false once all the necessary user accounts have been created.
Info
Add the URIs for your MongoDB and Redis instances in their respective variables.
Keep in Mind
Make sure you have moved the web-dashboard/build folder into server/client-build.
You can now start the server with:
npm start
The server will be listening to the port you've specified above.
Auto-starting¶
If you're running a Linux based operating system, you may use something like systemd to create an autostart service for this application.
You can base yourself off the following service file.
[Unit]
Description=Freenalytics Service
After=network.target
[Service]
Type=simple
User=<USER>
WorkingDirectory=<SERVER_LOCATION>
ExecStart=/usr/bin/npm start
Restart=always
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Note
Replace <USER> with your Unix username and <SERVER_LOCATION> with the directory where the server is located (the server folder).
You can save this file in:
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/freenalytics.service
And enable it with:
sudo systemctl start freenalytics.service
sudo systemctl enable freenalytics.service