Unity Text to Speech React Project with Node Express Backend

NodeJS project to update Cisco Unity Call Handler's using Google's Cloud Text to Speech via Ngrok, Twilio and Weather.gov

Usage

Install nodemon globally

npm i nodemon -g

Install pm2 globally

sudo npm install pm2@latest -g

Install server and client dependencies

yarn
cd client
yarn

Development Mode

To start the server and client at the same time (from the root of the project).

yarn dev

In development mode a Ngrok tunnel will also be created to aid in development. Status of the tunnel can be view at:

http://localhost:4040/status

Production Mode

Running the production build on localhost. This will create a production build, then Node will serve the app on http://localhost:8000. Note: PM2 needs to be installed.

NODE_ENV=production yarn dev:server

How this works

The key to using an Express backend with a project created with create-react-app is on using a proxy. We have a proxy entry in client/package.json. You may need to update this depending on your enviroment.

"proxy": "http://localhost:8000/"

Sample NGINX config

This tells Webpack development server to proxy our API requests to our API server, given that our Express server is running on localhost:5000

Google Cloud Text to Speech

1. Create a project (or use an existing one) in the Cloud Console.
2. Make sure that billing is enabled for your project.
3. Enable the Text-to-Speech API.
4. Create a Service Account.
5. Download key. Select Project created in step 1, then Actions > Create Key.
6. Using service account key, create enviromental variable. export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="[PATH]/[FILE_NAME].json"

Ngrok

Optional ngrok settings

export NGROK_SUBDOMAIN='insert subdomain' export NGROK_AUTH_TOKEN='insert authtoken from ngrok.com'

View status at: http://localhost:4040/status

Openconnect

I'm using a droplet on DigitalOcean to connect to Cisco's DevNet sandbox. I wrote a script that uses openconnect to create a vpn tunnel to the sandbox. You'll need to edit the text file vpnmaker.txt with your creds.

Permissions:
chmod +x openconnect.sh

To run:
./openconnect -c 20160

To disconnect:
./openconnect -d

Blog

Visit my blog post entry for write up on application.

Giving Back

If you would like to support my work and the time I put in creating the code, you can click the image below to get me a coffee. I would really appreciate it (but is not required).

-Jeremy Worden