Usage, the goal of this project.

You are developing a new REST API on Node.js. And you want a quick start. You need a database to store data, authentication and user management, API documentation and some other base functionality. If so, then this project is for you. And it's free!

Demo

Interactive REST API documentation
Demo frontend which works with the REST API

Opening the link will probably take several seconds, because I am using a free account and the deployed application is sleeping.

Features

• MongoDB integration, mongoose package included.
• Data model examples (Thing and User models), the models are stored in MongoDB.
• REST API endpoint/resource examples (Thing and User REST resources) which work with the data models.
• The server sends push update notifications to its client when the models change in the database. This is done via socket.io package.
• The authentication is included. "Local" auth using username/password, password changing. JWT tokens are sent to the clients and back for auth. Users are stored in the database. Users REST endpoint. User roles are supported. Users management by admins. Also 3-rd party authentication skeletons are included (for auth using google, facebook and twitter).
• API documentation example is included. The documentation is developed via Swagger. You can read the doc under <your-server-address>/docs URL. Also you can try your API using that interactive documentation.
• Unittest examples are included. They are implemented using mocha and chai. Run npm test.
• Also some other base server functions are implemented, such as body parsing, cookies, logging, etc.

Prerequisites

• Node.js (recommended 8.x).
• MongoDB (recommended 3.x).

Run application in the development mode

1. open swagger.yaml file in an editor.
2. set host value to localhost:9000
3. find schemes section and replace https with http.
4. Save and exit the editor.
5. run node server/app.js or npm start from the root folder of the repo.
6. run browser and open http://localhost:9000/docs. Read the API documentation and try the API!

You can use nodemon instead of node to run the app. It can be useful if you want to change the server's code. In the development mode local MongoDB is used.

Run application in the production mode

1. open swagger.yaml file in an editor.
2. set host value to <your_server_address_port>
3. find schemes section and set either https or http.
4. Save and exit the editor.
5. Set NODE_ENV env var to production value
6. run node server/app.js or npm start from the root folder of the repo.
7. run browser and open http://your_server_address_port/docs. Read the API documentation and try the API!

In the production mode remote MongoDB is used (mlab.com). It can be configured in config/environment/production.js

How to use the auth and socket push notifications

For this you need to examine the source code in this repository. For base API URLs see routes.js. For API example endpoints examine api sub-folder. For auth look at the auth sub-folder. For sockets look at config/socketio.js file.

IMPORTANT Also I have prepared the example frontend application (React.js) which works with this backend. You saw that frontend application by the demo link above. Its source code can be found here: https://github.com/azakharo/react-starter.git This is a very good example of how to work with this server. Just examine or copy the code.

How to add public static content (html, js, css) to this server

You can easily add a frontend application to this server. Just put your static content into public subdirectory. Replace the current content. As an example I put my demo frontend application there (mentioned above).

How to deploy to Heroku

First, read the docs:

• https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/deploying-nodejs
• https://www.sitepoint.com/how-to-deploy-node-applications-heroku-vs-now-sh/

After the reading and some preparations like registering on heroku.com, the deployment is easy as:

1. heroku create
2. git push heroku master

After every application change for deployment you will do git push heroku master

Notes

This application was created with the help of Angular FullStack Generator

IMPORTANT! The generator's version I used was 3.6.1.

The generator may be only required for development. For example, to generate a new REST endpoint.

To install the generator use the following command: npm install -g generator-angular-fullstack@3.6.1

After that read the generator's docs.