How to develop a Node.js app with Laragon ?

[LebCit]

Hello,
Way back in time, I used Laragon to develop PHP apps.
Want to try it with Node.js but couldn't figure out how.
Made some research, but it was all about updating Node version in Laragon.
Sure that I'm missing some config because if I try a simple Hello World using express I'm getting the root folder.
Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks a lot in advance for your time and guidance.

[Pen-y-Fan]

See SO How to run a hello.js file in Node.js on windows?

This two changes to the best answer:

• There is no need to download and install Node, as it is included with Laragon.
• Instead of using CMD use Laragon's terminal.

[LebCit]

Thank you for this answer.
I think that my question is misleading in some way.
I want to know if their is a particular config in Laragon for Node.js apps ?
When you open a new project in Laragon, say my-project, you'll be redirected to my-project.test.
Now if my-project is a Node.js app, my-project.test will display the root folder and not the Node.js code !
So my question would be : how to display the code of a Node.js app on the .test route of Laragon ?
Hope my question is a little bit more clear.

[Pen-y-Fan]

Laragon is primarily a WAMP stack, Windows, Apache, MySQL and PHP. It can be used for Node, Python and many more local development environments.

Suppose you want your front-end website to be my-project.test, create a folder in Laragon's www directory call my-project and restart Laragon. It will automatically create the host file with my-project.test and configure Apache (or Nginx). You can also add security and enable https access. See How to set up Laragon on a new Windows computer (part 4) - Enable security. The front-end website will need an index.html in the my-project folder or public/ folder for Laragon to identify as the entry point, otherwise, the directory structure will be displayed.

Your Node backend will need to be running, I assume you are doing some API calls to it from the front end.

The backend can be anywhere on your computer, I would recommend a folder under Laragon called api or node.

Feel free to experiment with the app or code in the www directory to see if you can find what you are looking for.

[LebCit]

Thank you for this reply.
I'm aware of the above.
This is why I was asking if there is a configuration to launch a Node.js app on the main route directly.
Thanks again for your responses.
Have a nice day/night

[Pen-y-Fan]

How do you manually start the node app currently?

It is possible to create a custom script to launch when Laragon starts. See How to install mailpit on Windows and integrate with Laragon #Autostart

[eokwukwe]

@LebCit to serve node app. You will need to create a custom virtual host configuration file.

Here's how you can do it:

• Open Laragon.
• Navigate to Menu > Apache > sites-enabled.
• Create a new file with the .conf extension inside the sites-enabled directory. E.g myapp.conf. Ensure not to use the Laragon convention of auto.myapp.conf; otherwise, Laragon will overwrite your config with its default.
• Open this new file and enter the reverse proxy configuration. Here is an example of the one I am using to server an Adonis app:

define ROOT "C:/laragon/www/myapp"
define SITE "myapp.test"

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName ${SITE}
    ServerAlias *.${SITE}

    ProxyRequests Off
    ProxyPreserveHost On
    ProxyVia Full

    <Proxy *>
        Require all granted
    </Proxy>

    ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:3333/
    ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:3333/

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName ${SITE}
    ServerAlias *.${SITE}

    ProxyRequests Off
    ProxyPreserveHost On
    ProxyVia Full

    <Proxy *>
        Require all granted
    </Proxy>

    ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:3333/
    ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:3333/

    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile      C:/laragon/etc/ssl/laragon.crt
    SSLCertificateKeyFile   C:/laragon/etc/ssl/laragon.key
</VirtualHost>

• If you get the error: Invalid command ProxyRequests, perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration, you need to enable the mod_proxy and the mod_proxy_http modules.
• To enable the above modules:
  1. Click on "Menu > Apache > httpd.conf".
  2. Search for the modules
  3. You will see something like: #LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so and #LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so. Remove the hash sign, save the file, and restart the Apache server.
• Also, start your node server.

Remember to edit your host file on Windows accordingly. 127.0.0.1 myapp.test

[kidino]

I was creating a new post about this. But then I found this. So I guess I'll just share my result here. Here's a screenshot...

[rescenic]

Thank you so much for the visual guide, @kidino.