Common problems - nodester/nodester GitHub Wiki

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... and questions that you can find deploying to nodester

I heard that you have a problem, let me say this clear, when you create an app in our platform, you can run into a pile of problems, mostly because bad configuration of your environment, or our cli tool doesn't read them correctly. But most of them are not related to our platform.

### Git issues Nodester runs a `git` server, so by default you need to have installed git locally. To add the remote repo you need to do this:

    > nodester app create APPNAME index.js
    ... logs
    # for a clean installation
    > nodester app init APPNAME
    # for a local app; cd path/to/app;
    > nodester app info APPNAME
    .... logs
     git-repo url: [email protected]:/node/git/alejandromg/APP_ID.git
    > git remote add nodester [email protected]:/node/git/alejandromg/APP_ID.git

Then you need to commit your changes and finally:

    > git push nodester master

This command is going to push your changes and to restart the app. If you have dependencies run nodester npm install APPNAME. And that's all.

Wait but what about:

    fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

Many things can be causing this error, but it's more often because your RSA keys

### The port is already in use Well this is a easy one, just add the next param to your listen method in your server. Nodester creates a global variable for each app, where resides the port that we assign to your app. This key-value is `process.env['app_port']`. You can fix it doing this:

    http.createServer(function(req,res){
    ...
    }).listen(process.env['app_port'] || 3000);

In this case, you don't need to be worried about running locally or in nodester. It'll just work.

Tip: use nodester env get APPNAME to know what are your environment variables

### RSA problems

One of the most interesting and recurrent problems is because of your RSA public key. You need to setup your key with our server in order to have access to it. There is no better explanation than this:

Windows users are going to have a bad time using git, we recommend you to install PowerShell or something alike, since we have reports saying that it works fine. Also would be a great adition that you have installed CURL just to have access to the RESP API in case that our cli tool, won't work as expected.

### File system errors

Usually when you are reading a file you need to use absolute paths.

Code: `ENOENT`

Incorrect:

    fs.readFileSync('./file')
    fs.readFileSync('../file')
    fs.readFileSync('../')

and more...

Correct:

    fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/file')
    fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/../file')
    fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/../')

e.g: Assumming that you have a code like this:

    var file = path.normalize('./db/test.json');
    fs.readFile(file, toWrite,'utf8', function (err) {
      ....
    });

You need to change it the first line by:

    var file = path.normalize(__dirname, '/db/test.json');

nodester needs absolute paths to work correctly.

#### Code: `EACCESS`

See the discussion about this topic. We don't provide write-access to the users. In others words you can't use fs.write, fs.writeFileSync, fs.creareWriteStream and variants.

### Websockets and nodester

Yes you can have websockets on nodester, but if you are running in problems we recommend you to read this article: Running websockets on nodester

#### nowjs

If you are using nowjs read please about "Variable Sync", this is needed in the nodester platform.

### node.js versions

If you didn't know we are running 0.4.9, 0.4.12 and 0.6.12. But by default all the apps are going to run under 0.4.9 at least that you especified the version:

    {
      "name": "myAwesomeAPPName",
      "description": "Description about it",
      "version": "0...",
      "dependencies":{
        "dependency1":"0.1.1"
        "dependency2":"0.1.2"
      },
      "node":"0.6.12"
    }

The key is node and the posible values are: '0.4.9','0.4.12','0.6.12','0.6.17','0.8.1' If you want to stay updated about which versions we are running:

    > curl -XGET http://nodester.com/env/versions

It'll print the correct versions values.

#### Runtime flags

Nodester has built-in support for runtime flags (--v8-options, --harmony, etc.) And it works in the same way that node-versions, if you add the flags key you can send the runtime flags that you want.

IMPORTANT typeof flags -> 'array'

e.g. Having the same package.json of the previous example:

    {
        ...
        "node":"0.6.12",
        "flags":[
            "--harmony",
            "--v8-options"
        ]
        ...
    }

### About Databases nodester is a Open Source Node.js Hosting Platform and that's all. No CouchDB, no Redis, no MySQL, no mongoDB, we try to offer you the best node.js hosting by free and all our efforts goes to that.

But you can get db hosting for free with these amazing services: iriscouch, cloudant, redistogo, mongoLab & mongoHQ and many more.

Then your database setup is easy, just read the documentation of the module that you are using to connect to your database.

## Stylus

People using stylus encountered many problems compiling stylus checkout #344:

If I push the already compiled file (style.css), the first request will receive an Internal Server error, whilst the rest will return the already compiled copy (it isn't recompiled on Nodester, even if changes have been made to the .styl file). I'm using Stylus on Node 0.6.12.

Then @gotik commented:

Here is a piece of code I use for compile stylus, and works perfect in nodester:

    var stylus = require('stylus');

    .....

    app.configure(function(){
        app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
        app.set('view engine', 'jade');
        app.use(express.bodyParser());
        app.use(express.methodOverride());
        app.use(express.cookieParser());
        app.use(stylus.middleware({ 
            src: __dirname + '/stylus',
            dest: __dirname + '/public',
            compile: function (str, path) {
                return stylus(str)
                    .set('filename', path)
                    .set('compress', true)
                    .use(nib())
                    .import('nib');
                }
        }));    
        app.use(app.router);

    ....

### Native modules

You're not allowed to install native modules, but you can request it on freenode#nodester, or @nodester. Currently we have installed Cairo, libpng and others (unity is on the way)

### nodester-cli

Our cli utility is way to useful and let you go more quickly in the deployment flow.

Basic commands are:

    nodester app create APPNAME <init_file.js>

Most people don't pass the <init_file.js> param, so after when you try to deploy you'll get a error saying that there is no a init_file, by default nodester set it up to server.js in which is your server code.

    nodester app logs APPNAME

Show the logs or every console.log that you put in your code, jf no APPNAME is passed a verbose error, will be show it up.

    nodester app create|restart|delete|info|stop|start|clone <params>

Basically this is the most important command in the tool. This is where you lunch, delete, restart, create apps. Enough said.

If you want more info about nodester-cli just put:nodester in your CLI and all the available information is going to be show it up.

Protip: If you didn't init your app ( via nodester app init APPNAME), because you had it already. You can avoid all the APPNAME params echoing this in your app root dir

    > echo "appname=APPNAME" > .nodester.appconfig

In this case you don't need anymore to be specifing your appname in every nodester-cli call.

### Limits

Since this is a free service, we need to keep the quality of it. The standard for the apps limit are given my the RAM and storage in use, we give you 25MB of each. Rarely and app reach the limits, if your app has memory leaks or something like that, you better fix your code. Remember it's a free and shared instance, so don't abuse our resources. We host almost 5000 apps and there are running nearly 2500 apps. Also if you have empty or helloworld apps please delete them.

### Buggy nodester is buggy Do you think that maybe the problem is a bug or a major problem with the nodester core? [Fill a issue](https://github.com/nodester/nodester/issues).

No access to console interface

Sometimes working from a web-only-locked public terminal like in schools/libraries/airports/windows means no access to cli. In such cases you can use an online IDE with build-in command line tools, for example Cloud9 IDE – see this tutorial for setup instructions.

Personal support

None of this is your problem? Contact us at:

freenode#nodester or irc.nodester.com, the fastest and "face to face" solution (depends on who is on the channel)
@nodester
You can also ask questions and provide feedback in our google group at google#nodester

We are glad to help you out.

# Known problems - node-v0.7.x shows `path.existsSync is deprecated. It is now called fs.existsSync`, we are going to fix this until a stable 0.7.x version. Because it's just a warning. Everything else works fine.

Hack the Planet \m/

If this project inspires you, please feel free to help out by forking this project and sending us pull requests! \m/ http://github.com/nodester