You might also be interested in this: Hosting NestJS on Vercel

Creation of the Docker Compose Yml

With Docker Compose, all components of an application can be defined via a single configuration file and built or started together.

version: '3.8'

services:
  frontend:
    build: ./frontend
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    depends_on:
      - backend

  backend:
    build: ./backend
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    depends_on:
      - mysql
      - redis
    environment:
      - DATABASE_URL=mysql://user:password@mysql:3306/db
      - SESSION_STORE=redis://redis:6379

  mysql:
    image: mysql:8.0
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: root
      MYSQL_DATABASE: db
    ports:
      - "3306:3306"

  redis:
    image: redis:latest
    ports:
      - "6379:6379"

Creating the env file

To manage environment variables centrally, we create an .env file:

DATABASE_URL=mysql://user:password@mysql:3306/db 
SESSION_STORE=redis://redis:6379

Important: All ENV variables used in the code must also appear in docker-compose.yml!

Docker image for the frontend

The Angular frontend must be built for production. Here is an example Dockerfile:

FROM node:20 AS build
WORKDIR /app
COPY package.json package-lock.json ./
RUN npm install
COPY . .
RUN npm run build --prod

FROM nginx:alpine
COPY --from=build /app/dist /usr/share/nginx/html
COPY nginx.conf /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Since we are dependent on nginx for the build, we also need a corresponding config file:

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name _;

  location / {
    root /usr/share/nginx/html;
    index index.html;
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
  }
}

Docker image for the backend

The NestJS backend also needs to be built. Here is an optimized Dockerfile.

# Build stage
FROM node:20 AS build
WORKDIR /app
COPY package.json package-lock.json ./
RUN npm install
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

# Production stage
FROM node:20-alpine
WORKDIR /app

COPY --from=build /app/dist ./dist
COPY package.json package-lock.json ./
RUN npm install --only=production
CMD ["node", "dist/main.js"]

Building the app with Docker Compose

Once all the Dockerfiles have been configured, the images can now be built. The whole thing is really easy with Docker compose.

docker compose up -d --build

The images are then ready, the containers are built and the app can be tested locally! The last step is to upload the images to DockerHub so that they can be used more easily later for deployment on a server.

Uploading to Docker Hub

Uploading is explained step by step below:

1. Create an account on Dockerhub
2. Create a repository for the frontend and backend (1 private repo is currently free)
3. Build the images and tag them:

   docker tag <image-id> dockerAccountName/frontend:latest
   docker tag <image-id> dockerAccountName/backend:latest

4. Sign up and push the images:

   docker login
   docker push dockerAccountName/frontend:latest
   docker push dockerAccountName/backend:latest

Outlook: Deployment with Kubernetes

Now that the images are on Docker Hub, nothing stands in the way of deployment. I have opted for a Kubernetes cluster on a Hetzner VPS. More information here.

The post Create Docker images and upload them to Docker Hub appeared first on Nerd Corner.

Also, the focus should always be on clean code and it should be properly documented. Especially when a project gets bigger, proper documented work pays off. For example, to document REST endpoints it is recommended to use Swagger. The Swagger API documentation provides an overview of all endpoints and even the possibility to interact with them.

This might also be interesting for you: Angular Form with clickable SVG

List of components

• IDE (for example VS Code)
• Node.js

Documentation with swagger

Although Swagger is quite well known, I could not find a detailed implementation guide. Therefore I would like to explain 2 ways to implement Swagger in an existing node server. The first way is to add Swagger parameters directly to each endpoint. This is probably the faster variant, but can get messy depending on the number of endpoints. The second option is to create a “swagger.json” file that summarizes the parameters of the endpoints.

To use Swagger the following library and its type extension will be needed:

npm install --save  swagger-ui-express
npm install --save-dev @types/swagger-ui-express

Swagger creates documentation of the endpoints:

These can be opened and you can see an example request and an example response:

The “Try it out” button can be used to interact directly with the endpoint.

Swagger API documentation with params

This variant is more recommended for smaller projects. First, these two Swagger libraries must be integrated into the project:

npm install --save-dev @types/swagger-jsdoc 
npm install --save swagger-jsdoc

The libraries are configured in app.ts or for non Typescript users app.js. Due to the configuration set here, the documentation is located in “/api-docs”:

import express from "express";
import bodyParser from "body-parser";
import exampleRoutes from "./routes/example-route";
import swaggerJSDoc from "swagger-jsdoc";
import swaggerUi from "swagger-ui-express";

const app = express();

const options = {
  definition: {
    openapi: "3.0.1",
    info: {
      title: "REST API for Swagger Documentation",
      version: "1.0.0",
    },
    schemes: ["http", "https"],
    servers: [{ url: "http://localhost:3000/" }],
  },
  apis: [
    `${__dirname}/routes/example-route.ts`,
    "./dist/routes/example-route.js",
  ],
};

const swaggerSpec = swaggerJSDoc(options);

app.use("/api-docs", swaggerUi.serve, swaggerUi.setup(swaggerSpec));
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(exampleRoutes);

app.listen(3000);

The endpoint is described with the parameters as follows:

import { Router } from "express";
import { exampleFunction } from "../controller/example";

const router = Router();

/**
 * @swagger
 * /example:
 *      post:
 *          summary: Send the text to the server
 *          tags:
 *              - ExampleEndpoints
 *          description: Send a message to the server and get a response added to the original text.
 *          requestBody:
 *              required: true
 *              content:
 *                  application/json:
 *                      schema:
 *                          type: object
 *                          properties:
 *                              responseText:
 *                                  type: string
 *                                  example: This is some example string! This is an endpoint
 *          responses:
 *              201:
 *                  description: Success
 *                  content:
 *                      application/json:
 *                          schema:
 *                              type: object
 *                              properties:
 *                                  text:
 *                                      type: string
 *                                      example: This is some example string!
 *              404:
 *                  description: Not found
 *              500:
 *                  description: Internal server error
 */
router.post("/example", exampleFunction);

export default router;

Swagger API documentation with swagger.json

To have a better overview and not to mix the documentation with the actual code, it is recommended to use one, or even more json files. When using TypeScript, the Swagger.json file must be placed in the rootDirectory:

Again, the configuration is first defined in app.ts or, for non-Typescript users, in app.js. The domain path “/api-docs” is also selected here for the documentation:

import express from "express";
import bodyParser from "body-parser";
import exampleRoutes from "./routes/example-route";
import swaggerUi from "swagger-ui-express";

import * as swaggerDocument from "./swagger.json";

const app = express();

app.use("/api-docs", swaggerUi.serve, swaggerUi.setup(swaggerDocument));

app.use(bodyParser.json());

app.use(exampleRoutes);

app.listen(3000);

Important note: To import JSON files into a Typescript project this must be allowed in tsconfig.json. Also, the JSON file must be located in the root directory.

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "es2016" /* Set the JavaScript language version for emitted JavaScript and include compatible library declarations. */,
    "module": "commonjs" /* Specify what module code is generated. */,
    "rootDir": "./src" /* Specify the root folder within your source files. */,
    "moduleResolution": "node" /* Specify how TypeScript looks up a file from a given module specifier. */,
    "resolveJsonModule": true /* Enable importing .json files. */,
    "outDir": "./dist" /* Specify an output folder for all emitted files. */,
    "esModuleInterop": true /* Emit additional JavaScript to ease support for importing CommonJS modules. This enables 'allowSyntheticDefaultImports' for type compatibility. */,
    "forceConsistentCasingInFileNames": true /* Ensure that casing is correct in imports. */,
    "strict": true /* Enable all strict type-checking options. */,
    "skipLibCheck": true /* Skip type checking all .d.ts files. */
  }
}

The previous Swagger documentation with parameters would thus look like this in swagger.json:

{
  "openapi": "3.0.1",
  "info": {
    "title": "REST API for Swagger Documentation",
    "version": "1.0.0"
  },
  "schemes": ["http"],
  "servers": [{ "url": "http://localhost:3000/" }],
  "paths": {
    "/example": {
      "post": {
        "tags": ["ExampleEndpoints"],
        "summary": "Send a text to the server",
        "description": "Send a message to the server and get a response added to the original text.",
        "requestBody": {
          "required": true,
          "content": {
            "application/json": {
              "schema": {
                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/ExampleSchemaHeader"
              }
            }
          }
        },
        "responses": {
          "201": {
            "description": "Success",
            "content": {
              "application/json": {
                "schema": {
                  "$ref": "#/components/schemas/ExampleSchemaBody"
                }
              }
            }
          },
          "404": { "description": "Not found" },
          "500": { "description": "Internal server error" }
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "components": {
    "schemas": {
      "ExampleSchemaBody": {
        "properties": {
          "responseText": {
            "type": "string",
            "example": "This is some example string! This is an endpoint"
          }
        }
      },
      "ExampleSchemaHeader": {
        "required": ["text"],
        "properties": {
          "text": {
            "type": "string",
            "example": "This is some example string!"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Download files

• Github example projcet for swagger params
• Github example project for swagger.json

The post Import Swagger in Node TypeScript Project appeared first on Nerd Corner.