Ok so I have read through the Socket.IO docs and I am still a little unsure of a couple of points:
The documentation says...
To run the demo, execute the following:
git clone git://github.com/LearnBoost/Socket.IO-node.git socket.io
cd socket.io/example/
sudo node server.js
Now I don't know what this means at all! I think it may be command line interface. I of course have access to this on my localhost, but my online hosting package is a shared LAMP setup. Meaning I don't have access to the root command line (i think).
How do I actually setup socket.IO, is it impossible on my shared server package?
Appreciate any help...
W.
If you aren't familiar with node.js or with basic command line usage then I would suggest that you use a hosted WebSockets solution like pusherapp. Trying to learn WebSockets, and Node.js, and the Linux command line all at once is going to lead to a lot of frustration. Take a look a pusherapp's quick start guide, it's very easy to get started. You can have 5 simultaneous connections with a single application for free (I'm not affiliated with pusherapp).
Updated (with inline answers to questions):
If you are going to go the direction of running a Socket.IO application:
You don't technically need git since you can download node.js and Socket.IO from their respective download links on github.
You don't actually need a LAMP server to use Socket.IO. By default Socket.IO functions as a simple webserver in addition to a WebSockets server. If you want server side scripting then you might want Apache with mod_php, mod_python, etc.
You don't technically need a dedicated server or even root access. You do need a system where you can have long running process. And if you want the service to start automatically when the system is rebooted, you probably want to add a startup file to /etc/init.d, /etc/rc.d which will require root access. Both node.js and Socket.IO can be installed and run from a normal home directory. If you want to run Socket.IO on a standard port like 80 or 443 then you will need to run it with root privilege.
Node.JS scales quite well so Socket.IO will probably scale pretty well too.
It's not a simple matter to get everything setup and working, but if your goal is a free solution for web serving+WebSockets then Socket.IO is probably is good route to at least explore if you are brave.
First you'll have to determine if your host supports SSH. Sometimes they don't by default on shared hosting, but if you ask they can turn it on. If it does you'll use some sort of SSH client to connect to it. Putty for windows is the most common. Then you'll use git, which is a source control program. Which you'll probably have to install on your host, which may or may not be allowed. If you can, this can be accomplished a number of ways, you'll want to read the git documentation, it will depend largely on what linux distribution you're running. CD is change directory, basic command line stuff. sudo on the last line is telling the system to run the command as root, which it will ask you the password for, which you may not have access to on your host. Sounds like you're gonna have an uphill battle on shared hosting. You may want to opt for a VPS instead.
If your shared host is a LAMP system with no command line access you're not going to get very far with Socket.IO. The instructions you posted assume you have command line access and that you've installed the node.js runtime on your system.
If you really want to try this I recommend you get a VPS of your own (I use prgmr.com) to test it out. For what it's worth I found the Socket.IO platform pretty nice to use once I got it up and running.
Related
I'm not a Node.js developer. So I have no idea how it works. I've been a PHP developer for over 8 years.
Because of some reason, I need to make a small change in a Node.js project which is live. All I have to do is changing a payment gateway token. I did it like this:
After pulling it on the server, users still go to the old payment gateway. So I guess I need to do a restart. (I'm saying so because, for PHP projects, when you change a config-related thing, you need to restart PHP).
Not sure should I restart what thing? Noted that, the server is Ubuntu 20.04 and uses Nginx to talk to Node.js. In other word, how can I see Node is running as what service on Linux?
Also, there are two files that I think I need to run the project again after restarting Node through one of them: index.js, server.js. Am I right?
And
Your Node.js script likely runs under a process that restarts the script in case it dies. There are several "run forever" wrappers, the most popular one is pm2. Find out which one is used in your project. Try pm2 list as the user your project executes under. If pm2 type pm2 restart app_name to restart your project.
Please check if it is a node.js project so you can write the command node index.js or node server.js with this command you can start your node server.
I have a node server with several node projects. I use nginx to get them all responding on port 80. Now, this works for the initial http request. For the websockets, I need to use the direct server port. To keep everything alive while developing I would like to try this, projects will have a dev and live version. Once de dev is stable, I will copy it to the live folder. The live folder is runned by a systemctl script where I define a difrent port to the live version so I can dev without taking the live down. The problem I encounter now is, how can I get the running server port in my client side Javascript so that the dev page connect to the dev port and visa versa?
currently I'm only using express, socket.io and mysql. I have no further npm packages installed. I searched allot but there is not to mush I can find. I found how to connect the socket to the page url but I cannot use that because that URL will always be on port 80. Further I found allot of huge packages that has no use for me since the original page is just static, the dynamics all run over websockets.
Is there any way to parse the port number in the clients .js file like I could do fairly easy in php? And if so, what would be the most efficient way. I could let javascript check if the page uses the live or dev URL but I would prefer not to hardcode my dev URL into JS where it is for everyone to see.
run a third node.js socket.io server program, all your clients connect to this server first.
In this simple node.js program, determine the type of clients by any means. e.g. different user id for dev/production users
send the server url and port to your client according to its type (dev or production)
you may also use this technique to separate your users to different production servers.
I’m trying to create a GUI client for connecting to OpenVPN servers using electron and node but I’m struggling to figure out how to actually connect to the servers using the .ovpn files.
My question is what is the best way to connect to an OpenVPN server using node? Would it be best to Tun terminal commands like
“openvpn—config path to config”
Or is there another way applications like tunnelblick do it that might be easier or more efficient?
Hello I have been working with electron and ovpn on my last project, so here are a few tips.
VPNs require admin/root privilege in order to get setup, so running child_process.spawn on openvpn --config <path> will fail unless your electron app is being ran via sudo/admin privilege.
You can also use electron-sudo package, link here. This is basically a child process spawn with sudo/admin. Aka, app runs normally, but vpn command runs with sudo.
However, if your client is sketchy about giving you sudo/admin, the VPN must be ran separately prior to launching your app.
All in all its a admin/sudo thing.
Hope this helps.
Im trying to install node.js to shared dreamhost. I have followed the directions for Dan dean here http://dandean.com/nodejs-on-dreamhost-shared-server/
but when I go test,
$ node --version
Then it says:
-bash: node: command not found
I follow the step by step, this is the correct way to install the node in the shared server?
Dreamhost has supported Node.js on shared host recently.
I put the following source code in app.js and it works.
var http = require('http');
var server = http.createServer(function(req, res) {
res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain' });
res.end("Hello World!\n");
});
server.listen(3000);
But it seems to be unstable when I try to restart it.
Check https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/217185397-Node-js-overview for details.
You may want to look into nvm when installing Node somewhere else than your local environment.
Check out my blog post on nvm:
http://mycodesmells.com/post/node-version-management/
Sometimes, installing node.js on certain linux instances creates the command nodejs instead of node. Try nodejs --version. If you want to be able to use node as the command, simply create a simlink to /usr/local/bin/nodejs for /usr/local/bin/node.
Currently DreamHost says “Node.js can be installed onto Shared, VPS, and Dedicated Servers.” However, for shared servers, currently Node is only supported using Passenger, and the version of Passenger “running on DreamHost servers does not currently function with Node.js versions 14+” as of March 1, 2022. They have not shared a target date for allowing newer versions of Node.
For more instructions, and up-to-date compatibility information, see their support documentation on Node.js at Dreamhost.
It may not have been the case at the time this question was posted, but Dreamhost does not allow compiling or running nodejs on shared hosting.
Can Node.js be used on shared servers?
No. DreamHost does not support Node.js on shared web servers, as the security setup on DreamHost shared servers is incompatible with compiling or running Node.js.
Furthermore, Dreamhost claims they will ban users who attempt to do so:
If you try to compile Node.js on one of the shared web servers, your user will automatically be banned through grsec (taking down all the PHP websites that run under that user) and the server will have to be rebooted before your user can be unbanned. If you do it one more time, you will be forced to move to a VPS.
I've had Dreamhost shared hosting for nearly 10 years, but they don't allow long-running processes. This also prevents common tools like composer from running if they take more than a few seconds. I recently moved to a VPS because of this.
https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/217185397-Node-js-overview
From what I have read so far in this blog http://nowjs.com/ I need to install nodejs in the server machine for it to work. But, I am using a shared server and don't really have any authority to put something into the server machine.
Putting it into the container(tomcat) is however another thing which I mostly do.
Generally speaking, when we say server we mean tomcat or websphere or jboss.
But with nodejs if I am not wrong server means the real machine on which tomcat etc. runs.
So is there any way I can run the nodejs server inside tomcat server or am I thinking about it the wrong way ?
Yes, you are thinking of it it the wrong way. The key feature of Nodejs is that it contains, amongst other things, a rather natty embedded HTTP server. Think Jetty. However it might be possible now or in the future to run JavaScript in tomcat.
I recommend going to http://nodejs.org/ and watching the video, it will surely clear the matter up for you.
Meanwhile I would recommend getting hosting which includes SSH access, and preferably root access. Root access will make installing node a whole load easier and allow you to run it on a commonly used port (avoid running node as root, use port mapping) . But you don't need a seperate web server to get started, you can install Node.js on windows, mac and linux.