![\"maxresdefault\"](\"//images.ctfassets.net/xmu5vdhtphau/6LsNJMcGwfz5MxaiPSf55W/6515ce3dea77d2caceb7c434e51e4287/maxresdefault.jpg\")
Part time web developer, full time dreamer… Find me @ https://niweera.gq
"}},"avatar":{"file":{"fileName":"1_cuJOF_sqBLbMA69vCFMqEQ.jpeg","url":"//images.ctfassets.net/xmu5vdhtphau/4iEstuN4qOq6h1vKjwpPRW/413c90f5bfa0c51170b560407e31c7c6/1_cuJOF_sqBLbMA69vCFMqEQ.jpeg"}}},"bodyContent":{"childMarkdownRemark":{"html":"tl;dr — This is the first article of the Node is Simple article series. In this article series, I will be discussing how to create a simple and secure NodeJS, Express, MongoDB web application.
\nFirst of all let me give a big shout out to JavaScript, who’s going to turn 25 years old this year. W/O JavaScript, the world would be a much darker place indeed. 😁 In this article series what I am going to do is create an API with NodeJS, ExpressJS, and MongoDB. I know there is a vast ocean of tutorials out there, describing how to build an API with these technologies, but the thing is that I have never found a very comprehensive all in one tutorial where you get the knowledge of the following things.
\nWell if you have done all of these things with your web application, it would be awesome. Since I learned all of these the hard way, I want to share them with all of you. Because sharing is caring 😇.
\nSince this tutorial is a series I won’t be making this a long; boring to read one. In this first article, I will describe how to set up a simple NodeJS and Express app with SSL/TLS. Just that, nothing else.
\n
On your feet soldier, we are starting.
\nFirst of all, let’s create the folder structure of our web application.
\n![\"1](\"//images.ctfassets.net/xmu5vdhtphau/X8HViCF0BVbb4gPN1ojt4/909fea9e6991bbde125497f3c92d8016/1_jnP_vv30BKCx84yOSHbTRQ.png\")
As shown in figure 1, you need to create the folders and the index.js file. If you use Linux or, Git Bash on Windows, let’s make a simple script to do this. So you won’t have to do this again when you need to create another application. (We are so lazy aren’t we? 😂)
\n#!/usr/bin/env bash\n\n############################################################\n# Remember to create a folder for your project first #\n# And run `npm init` to initialize a node project #\n# Inside that project folder run this bootstrap.sh script #\n############################################################\n\n# Create the folders\nmkdir config controllers errors middleware models services swagger utilities database\n\n# Create the index.js file\ntouch index.js\n\n############################################################\n# Remember to check if you have node and npm installed #\n# I assume you have installed node and npm #\n############################################################\n\n# Install required packages\nnpm install express chalk --save\n\n#That's it folks!\nLet’s go through it again.
\nFirst, you need to create a folder for your project and run npm init and initialize your application. With this, you can specify a great name to your project, your license of preference, and many more. Ah, I just forgot. You need to check if you have the current version of Node and NPM installed in your machine. I hope you know how to install NodeJS on your computer. If not please refer to the following links.
\nHow to Download & Install Node.js - NPM on Windows
\nHow To Install Node.js on Ubuntu 18.04
\nAfter doing that just run this bootstrap.sh bash script inside your project folder and it will create a simple Node, Express application. So simple right?
\nAfter creating the necessary folder structure let’s set up the Express application. Let’s go to the index.js file on the root folder and add these lines.
\nconst express = require(\"express\");\nconst chalk = require(\"chalk\");\nconst http = require(\"http\");\nconst https = require(\"https\");\nconst config = require(\"./config\");\n\nconst HTTP_PORT = config.HTTP_PORT;\nconst HTTPS_PORT = config.HTTPS_PORT;\nconst SERVER_CERT = config.SERVER_CERT;\nconst SERVER_KEY = config.SERVER_KEY;\n\nconst app = express();\nconst MainController = require(\"./controllers\");\n\napp.use(\"\", MainController);\napp.set(\"port\", HTTPS_PORT);\n\n/**\n * Create HTTPS Server\n */\n\nconst server = https.createServer(\n {\n key: SERVER_KEY,\n cert: SERVER_CERT\n },\n app\n);\n\nconst onError = error => {\n if (error.syscall !== \"listen\") {\n throw error;\n }\n\n const bind =\n typeof HTTPS_PORT === \"string\"\n ? \"Pipe \" + HTTPS_PORT\n : \"Port \" + HTTPS_PORT;\n\n switch (error.code) {\n case \"EACCES\":\n console.error(chalk.red(`[-] ${bind} requires elevated privileges`));\n process.exit(1);\n break;\n case \"EADDRINUSE\":\n console.error(chalk.red(`[-] ${bind} is already in use`));\n process.exit(1);\n break;\n default:\n throw error;\n }\n};\n\nconst onListening = () => {\n const addr = server.address();\n const bind = typeof addr === \"string\" ? `pipe ${addr}` : `port ${addr.port}`;\n console.log(chalk.yellow(`[!] Listening on HTTPS ${bind}`));\n};\n\nserver.listen(HTTPS_PORT);\nserver.on(\"error\", onError);\nserver.on(\"listening\", onListening);\n\n/**\n * Create HTTP Server (HTTP requests will be 301 redirected to HTTPS)\n */\nhttp\n .createServer((req, res) => {\n res.writeHead(301, {\n Location:\n \"https://\" +\n req.headers[\"host\"].replace(\n HTTP_PORT.toString(),\n HTTPS_PORT.toString()\n ) +\n req.url\n });\n res.end();\n })\n .listen(HTTP_PORT)\n .on(\"error\", onError)\n .on(\"listening\", () =>\n console.log(chalk.yellow(`[!] Listening on HTTP port ${HTTP_PORT}`))\n );\n\nmodule.exports = app;\nDon’t run this yet, since we haven’t done anything yet. I know this is a bit too much just bear with me, I’ll explain everything. What we are doing here is, first we create an HTTP server and then we create an HTTPS server. Then we redirect all the HTTP traffic to the HTTPS server. First of all, we need to create certificates to use inside the HTTPS server. It is a little bit of pain, but it’ll worth it. This is a good resource about creating SSL certificates for your Node application.
\nHow to Use SSL/TLS with Node.js
\nI am a little bit of a lazy person so I’ll just generate server.cert and server.key files using this link.
\nSelf-Signed Certificate Generator
\nInside the server name input, you just have to provide your domain name. For this purpose, I’ll use the localhost as the domain name.
\nAfter generating the *.cert and *.key files copy them to the /config folder. And rename them to server.cert and server.key.
\nNow let’s import the certificates and make them useful. Inside the /config folder create the file index.js and add these lines.
\nconst fs = require(\"fs\");\n\nconst SERVER_CERT = fs.readFileSync(__dirname + \"/server.cert\", \"utf8\");\nconst SERVER_KEY = fs.readFileSync(__dirname + \"/server.key\", \"utf8\");\n\nmodule.exports = {\n SERVER_CERT,\n SERVER_KEY,\n HTTP_PORT: 8080,\n HTTPS_PORT: 8081\n};\nNot so simple after all right? Well, let’s see.
\nNow that we have set up the certificates, let’s create a simple controller (endpoint) to our application and check that out. First, let’s got to the /controllers folder and create an index.js file. Inside that add the following lines.
\nconst router = require(\"express\").Router();\nconst asyncWrapper = require(\"../utilities/async-wrapper\");\n\n/** @route GET /\n * @desc Root endpoint\n * @access Public\n */\nrouter.get(\n \"/\",\n asyncWrapper(async (req, res) => {\n res.send({\n message: \"Hello World!\",\n status: 200\n });\n })\n);\n\nmodule.exports = router;\nasyncWrapper what is that???
\nLet me tell you about that. Async Wrapper is a wrapper function that will catch all the errors happen inside your code and returns them to the error handling middleware. I’ll explain this a little more when I am discussing Express middleware. Now let’s create this infamous asyncWrapper. Go to the /utilities folder and create the two following files.
\n**async-wrapper.js**
module.exports = requestHandler => (req, res, next) =>\n requestHandler(req, res).catch(next);\n**async.wrapper.d.ts** (Async wrapper type definition file)
We have done it, folks, we have done it. Now let’s check this beautiful Express app at work. Let’s run the web application first. Let’s go to the project folder and in the terminal (or Git Bash on Windows) run the following line.
\nnode index.js
\nAfter that let’s fire up your favorite browser (mine is Chrome 😁) and hit the endpoint at,
\n\nDon’t worry if your browser says it is not secure to go to this URL. You trust yourself, don’t you? So let’s accept the risk and go ahead.
\n![\"1](\"//images.ctfassets.net/xmu5vdhtphau/6376WfRDmfD2l7nNerhgOE/e67006295d61ab844c1e8531827330de/1_-j7gNIpPkuqIQj_OQf9Y0A.png\")
Now if you can see something like this,
\n![\"1](\"//images.ctfassets.net/xmu5vdhtphau/5fBDIxDCiysuWEzT5A05vb/de95f050a10cc91ab51695f37ea1506c/1_UNQTECXa-hXe2YM4ANG0DQ.png\")
You have successfully created a NodeJS, Express application. Also since we have set up an HTTP server, you can try this URL too. http://localhost:8080
\nIf you go to this URL, you’ll see that you’ll be redirected to https://localhost:8081
\nNow that’s the magic with our Express application. Awesome right? So this is it for this tutorial. In the next tutorial, I’ll tell you all about adding MongoDB as the database.
\nhttps://github.com/Niweera/node-is-simple
\nThis is the GitHub repo for this tutorial and I’ll update this repo as the tutorial grows. Check for the commit messages for the snapshot of the repo for a particular tutorial. If you have any queries, don’t forget to hit me up on any social media as shown on my website.
\n\nSo until we meet again with part two of this tutorial series, happy coding…
"}}}}}}