Running instructions

Overview

It's an real-time chatting web app, that supporting chatting between multiple friends, adding friends, storing chatting history and caching offline message. let's play

Here is my post about this project, which includes project architecture, design and summary

Set up Docker for Running Environment

• Download official docker image from docker hub

$ docker pull node
$ docker pull redis
$ docker pull mongo

• Run mongodb container

$ docker run --name mongodb --expose 27017 -p 27017:27017 -d mongo

• Run redis container

$ docker run --name redis --expose 6379 -p 6379:6379 -d redis

• Run docker nodejs and link to redis and mongodb

$ docker run -it --name node --link redis:redis --link mongodb:mongodb -p 3000:3000 -p 8080:8080 -p 8989:8989 -v /path/to/your/working/directory/:/app -d node

• port 3000: webpack hot reload
• port 8080: nodejs app
• port 8989: nodejs debugger port
• note your node container ID by running docker ps -a then run command docker exec -it <container ID> /bin/bash (on Mac) to go inside the node container
• install webpack globally npm install webpack -g at the root of the node container
• change listening port 80 in file app.js at line 46 to 8080 for development environment
• run webpack from /app to build module bundle
• run npm install from /app folder to install all model dependencies
• run 'npm start' from /app folder to run node app
• done! Now you are browse to http://localhost:8080 to sign up JChat anc start to chat with your friends!

Set up WebPack for Development Environment

• install WebPack Development Server in the node container

npm install webpack-dev-server -g

• uncomment lines marked as uncomment in webpack config file
• run WebPack development server in the node container to start hot reload

webpack-dev-server --hot --inline

• run node server by opening another docker machine while running WebPack dev server
• done

MongoDB command

• add new fields if the specified field does not exist

db.users.update( {"_id": ObjectId("56fd8b59226076750236d579")}, { $set : {"friendList" :[ {"id": '', "chID": '', 'userName':'mike', 'userStatus':'online', 'imgSrc':'/images/avatar.ico'}]}})

debug mode of nodeJS

• node --debug=8989 app.js