Deploy your admin backend to Ubuntu server

The goal of this tutorial is to help people deploy their admin backend to Ubuntu server.

Please be sure of your agent type and version and pick the right documentation accordingly.

This is the documentation of the forest-express-sequelize and forest-express-mongoose Node.js agents that will soon reach end-of-support.

forest-express-sequelize v9 and forest-express-mongoose v9 are replaced by @forestadmin/agent v1.

Please check your agent type and version and read on or switch to the right documentation.

Deploy your admin backend to Ubuntu server

Connect to your Ubuntu server using SSH

Before starting anything, you have to make sure you're able to connect to your server using SSH.

ssh -i ~/.ssh/aws.pem ubuntu@ec2-18-204-18-81.compute-1.amazonaws.com

Copy the code of your admin backend to your remote server

There are many ways to copy the code of your admin backend to a remote server. For example, you can use rsync command, or use a versioning system like git.

We strongly advise to version the code of your admin backend using git and host it to a private repository on Github, Bitbucket, Gitlab or other providers.

rsync

rsync is a utility for efficiently transferring and synchronizing files across computer systems, by checking the timestamp and size of files. It is commonly found on Unix-like systems and functions as both a file synchronization and file transfer program.

Rsync is typically used for synchronizing files and directories between two different systems. (source: wikipedia)

The syntax used is rsync OPTIONS SOURCE TARGET.

rsync -avz -e "ssh -i ~/.ssh/aws.pem -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null" --exclude=node_modules --exclude=.git --progress QuickStart ubuntu@ec2-18-204-18-81.compute-1.amazonaws.com:~/

In the example above, we use a SSH connection to transfer the file and we connect to the remote server using an identity_file (a private key).

OptionDescription

-a

archive mode; same as -rlptgoD (no -H)

-v

increase verbosity

-z

compress file data during the transfer

-e

specify the remote shell to use

--exclude=PATTERN

exclude files matching PATTERN

--progress

show progress during transfer

Once done, you can find the code of your admin backend on the home directory of your remote server.

ssh -i ~/.ssh/aws.pem ubuntu@ec2-18-204-18-81.compute-1.amazonaws.com
ubuntu@ip-172-31-83-152:~$ cd Quickstart/
ubuntu@ip-172-31-83-152:~/QuickStart$ ls -l

git

First, you need to initialize a git repository for the code of your admin backend. From the directory of your admin backend, simply run:

git init

Then, you can add all the files and create your first commit.

git add .
git commit -am "First commit"

Finally, you can add your git remote and push the code on your favorite platform. To do so, first create a new QuickStart repository on your github account. Then run the following command after changing YourAccount to your account name:

git remote add origin git@github.com:YourAccount/QuickStart.git
git push -u origin master

Now, you can connect to your remote server using SSH and clone the repository using the HTTPS method.

ssh -i ~/.ssh/aws.pem ubuntu@ec2-18-204-18-81.compute-1.amazonaws.com
git clone https://github.com/YourAccount/QuickStart.git

That's it. Your admin backend's code is available on your remote server.

ubuntu@ip-172-31-83-152:~$ cd QuickStart/
ubuntu@ip-172-31-83-152:~/QuickStart$ ls -l

Install dependencies

First, you have to make sure you have Node.js and NPM correctly installed on your server.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nodejs npm

Then, you will be able to install all the dependencies listed on the package.json file.

npm install

Create the database

PostgreSQL

This step is optional if you already have a running database.

First, you need to install PostgreSQL:

sudo apt-get install postgresql postgresql-contrib

Then, you will be able to connect to the database server:

sudo -u postgres psql

Now, we can export the database from your local environment (your computer) to import it to your Ubuntu server.

For security reason, we will not allow remote connections to this database. This is why transfer the database dump to the remote server using rsync.

From your computer:

PGPASSWORD=secret pg_dump -h localhost -p 5416 -U forest forest_demo --no-owner --no-acl -f database.dump
rsync -avz -e "ssh -i ~/.ssh/aws.pem -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null" --progress database.dump ubuntu@ec2-18-204-18-81.compute-1.amazonaws.com:~/

Then, we will create a new DB user and schema from the remote server:

sudo -u postgres psql
postgres=# CREATE USER forest WITH ENCRYPTED PASSWORD 'secret';
postgres=# CREATE DATABASE forest_demo;
postgres=# GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE forest_demo TO forest;
postgres=# \q

And finally import the dump:

PGPASSWORD=secret psql -U forest -h 127.0.0.1 forest_demo < database.dump

That's it, your database is now fully imported.

PGPASSWORD=secret psql -U forest -h 127.0.0.1 forest_demo
forest_demo=> \d

Export the environment variables

You must export the environment variables FOREST_ENV_SECRET FOREST_AUTH_SECRET and DATABASE_URL. To do so, open and edit the file /etc/environment:

The FOREST_ENV_SECRET and FOREST_AUTH_SECRET environment variables will be given by Forest after creating a production environment from the interface. See how to get them here.

sudo vim /etc/environment
/etc/environment
PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games"
FOREST_ENV_SECRET=2417520743be37a9c5af198c018e0ddee9b7c41de1ccb8e76c9d027faa74059e
FOREST_AUTH_SECRET=Piq7a9Kv5anLbK4gj81rirsLhfaJ0pdL
DATABASE_URL=postgres://forest:secret@127.0.0.1/forest_demo

Then, you can restart your server to take these new variables into account or simply type:

for env in $( cat /etc/environment ); do export $(echo $env | sed -e 's/"//g'); done

Run your admin backend

From your admin backend's directory, simply type:

npm start

Congrats, your admin backend is now running on production. But we strongly advise you to continue following the next steps. If you chose not to do it, you can go back to your Forest interface to create a production environment. Check out here how to do it.

The admin backend is by default listening on port 3310. Be sure you authorized the inbound traffic on this port or set up a web server (like NGINX) as a Reverse Proxy Server to use the port 80.

Manage Application with PM2

PM2 is a Production Runtime and Process Manager for Node.js applications with a built-in Load Balancer. It allows you to keep applications alive forever, to reload them without downtime and facilitate common Devops tasks. source: npmjs/pm2

Install PM2

sudo npm install pm2 -g

Run your admin backend using PM2

pm2 start bin/www

(Optional) Set Up Nginx as a Reverse Proxy Server

Now that your admin backend is running and listening on localhost:3310, we will set up the Nginx web server as a reserve proxy to allow your admin panel's users access it.

sudo apt install nginx

To do so, edit (with sudo access) the file located /etc/nginx/sites-available/default and replace the existing section location / by this one:

/etc/nginx/sites-available/default
location / {
  proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
  proxy_http_version 1.1;
  proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
  proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
  proxy_set_header Host $host;
  proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
}

Then, restart nginx:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

That's it, your admin backend is now listening on the port 80. Make sure your firewall allows inbound traffic from this port.

We now require that you configure HTTPS (port 443) on your admin backend service for security reasons. http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/configuring_https_servers.html

Once you've completed the above steps, it does not mean your project is deployed to production on Forest Admin. To deploy to production, check out this section.

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