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OpenShift NodeJS Cartridge

The nodejs cartridge provides Node.js on OpenShift.

To deploy this cartridge with the cartridge reflector you can execute the following command rhc create-app <app name> "http://cartreflect-claytondev.rhcloud.com/reflect?github=wshearn/openshift-origin-cartridge-nodejs"

Template Repository Layout

node_modules/            Any Node modules packaged with the app [1]
deplist.txt              Deprecated.
package.json             npm package descriptor.
npm_global_module_list   List of globally installed node modules (on OpenShift)
.openshift/              Location for OpenShift specific files
  action_hooks/          See the Action Hooks documentation [2]
  markers/               See the Markers section [3]

[1] node_modules [2] Action Hooks documentation [3] Markers

Layout Notes

Please leave the node_modules and .openshift directories but feel free to create additional directories if needed.

Note: Every time you push, everything in your remote repo dir gets recreated please store long term items (like an sqlite database) in the OpenShift data directory, which will persist between pushes of your repo. The OpenShift data directory is accessible relative to the remote repo directory (../data) or via an environment variable $OPENSHIFT_DATA_DIR.

node_modules directory

The node_modules directory allows you to package any Node module on which your application depends along with your application.

If you just wish to install module(s) from the npm registry (npmjs.org), you can specify the module name(s) and versions in your application's package.json file.

deplist.txt

This functionality has been deprecated and will soon go away. package.json is the preferred method to add dependencies.

package.json

npm package descriptor - run npm help json for more details.

Note: Among other things, this file contains a list of dependencies (node modules) to install alongside your application and is processed every time you git push to your OpenShift application.

Environment Variables

The Tomcat cartridge provides several environment variables to reference for ease of use:

OPENSHIFT_NODEJS_IP     The IP address used to bind Node.js
OPENSHIFT_NODEJS_PORT   The Node.js listening port

For more information about environment variables, consult the OpenShift Application Author Guide.

Markers

Adding marker files to .openshift/markers will have the following effects:

hot_deploy          Disable app restarting during git pushes (see 'Development Mode')

Development Mode

When you push your code changes to OpenShift, if you want dynamic reloading of your javascript files in "development" mode, you can either use the hot_deploy marker or add the following to package.json:

"scripts": { "start": "supervisor <relative-path-from-repo-to>/server.js" },

This will run Node with Supervisor - https://npmjs.org/package/supervisor

Local Development + Testing

You can also develop and test your Node application locally on your machine (workstation). In order to do this, you will need to perform some basic setup - install Node + the npm modules that OpenShift has globally installed:

  1. Collect some information about the environment on OpenShift. A. Get Node.js version information: $ ssh $uuid@$appdns node -v B. Get list of globally install npm modules $ ssh $uuid@$appdns npm list -g

  2. Ensure that an appropriate version of Node is installed locally. This depends on your application. Using the same version would be preferable in most cases but your mileage may vary with newer versions.

  3. Install the versions of the Node modules you got in step 1.A Use -g if you want to install them globally, the better alternative though is to install them in the home directory of the currently logged user on your local machine/workstation. pushd ~ npm install [-g] $module_name@$version popd

Once you have completed the above setup, you can then run your application locally by using any one of these commands: node server.js npm start -d supervisor server.js

And then iterate on developing+testing your application.